Considering the Whole Self in Teaching & Learning (Grad Students) S1

This is a 2-part CIRTL workshop led Columbia graduate students for a national audience, and is an opportunity to join an national conversation around teaching and learning. To join this event, please register at the CIRTL workshop here: https://www.cirtl.net/events/943. Registration ends 3/5 for this event that runs on Friday 3/12 and 3/26.

It is no secret that stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges are prevalent in higher education. In fact, in recent years, more students have reported experiencing negative academic impacts from stress than from the common cold and flu (c.f., NCHA, 2019). Yet the standard mental health policies we include in our syllabi often frame these experiences as something to be addressed solely outside of the classroom. This two-part workshop takes a different approach, recognizing that instructors and TAs have the power to support and prioritize students’ (and our own) physical and mental wellbeing in the classroom, and that doing so can foster student learning. This re-centering of health and wellbeing is crucial now more than ever, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic intersect with and amplify pre-existing stressors for teachers and learners, including but not limited to anti-Black racism, political turmoil, and increasingly common climate disasters.

In this two-part workshop, participants will explore the relationships between mental and emotional health, the human body, and learning. Through a combination of asynchronous modules and synchronous workshop and discussion sessions, participants will frame the literature of mental health and bodily awareness in the classroom with their lived experience and leave with concrete methods of incorporating new insights into their own practice, with a particular focus on creating learning objectives and designing assessments that consider and support the whole student. These novel approaches will help students and teachers to experience more positive, rewarding, and healthy class spaces, and to support each other in working toward this vision.