Register here by Thursday, May 8
Teaching and Learning Strategies (TLS) Program at Villanova
May 14, 9:30am-4:00pm, Bartley Hall
The TLS program provides a stimulating campus-wide forum to share instructional practices that support our students’ learning, exchange ideas with colleagues, and learn from and with each other.
Part of the program will focus on Student Mental Health, guided by Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh, author Mind over monsters: Supporting youth mental health with compassionate challenge, Simmons University.
Her Keynote Address is titled: Supporting Faculty & Student Mental Health: Hope in a Time of Monsters. Please note: This is a virtual keynote and will not be live streamed.
Teaching is a vocation. When supported with resources and security, it is a constantly renewing source of excitement and richness. The last several years of disruption, uncertainty, and overburdened workloads have exhausted teachers and students alike. Monsters have reared their heads, and we have understandably shrunk from them. Faculty are burnt out—sacrificing their own mental health, phoning it in out of desperation, or leaving the profession entirely. Students are experiencing an epidemic of mental health problems, especially of anxiety. As instructors, we can support and encourage student mental health through pedagogies of care. A pedagogy of care involves high-touch practices like frequent communication, flexibility, inclusive teaching practices, learning new technologies and techniques, and being enthusiastic and passionate. All these practices involve both a heavy investment of time and a high degree of emotional labor. How can we support our students without burning ourselves out? How can we revive our sparks? In this interactive keynote, Sarah Rose Cavanagh will present some research and food for thought based on her recent book on how higher education should respond to both faculty depletion and the student mental health crisis.
AGENDA-AT-A-GLANCE
9:30–10:00 a.m. Registration, Continental Breakfast
10:00–11:30 a.m. Welcome and Keynote, Student Mental Health
11:45 a.m.-12:35 p.m. Concurrent Sessions 1, Student Mental Health at Villanova
12:35 p.m.–1:30 p.m. Lunch, Enjoy Lunch with Your Colleagues
1:40–2:30 p.m. Concurrent Sessions 2
2:40 –3:30 p.m. Concurrent Sessions 3
3:30-4:00 p.m. Reception and Conversation
I found the entire day uplifting. The enthusiasm among the faculty was contagious and renewed my interest in being the best teacher possible.
Sessions raised my awareness of gender issues and micro aggressions and it made me more conscious of the need to create an inclusive learning environment.
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss what I’ve learned with enthusiastic, motivated, intellectually curious, and caring colleagues.
I learned more ways to engage students, have them “do more of the work,” and what it means to be a teacher at Villanova. I feel very motivated and encouraged in my role as a teacher.
The keynote introduced some interesting perspectives about what motivates students to do the work of learning. I plan to communicate more clearly to my students the importance of the material in my classes.
Different approaches to building community in class as well as mechanisms for online sharing of course material.
I will try to use Kahoot as a classroom polling technology. I got a lot of good ideas regarding active learning strategies for helping students to feel more comfortable and engaged.
I learned some more details about flipped classes pertaining to technical content with details on getting students to watch the videos ahead of class, grading, and best enhancing the video without repeating it.
A colleague gave me an idea for a midterm survey related to participation that I plan to use - have the students evaluate their participation, and explain reasons for their level of participation.
It's great to gather as an interdisciplinary group all focused on teaching at Villanova. The insights shared in networking and the content from the sessions were excellent.