3.1 How teachers can support student wellbeinglridgecooke2016-11-28T17:00:20+00:00
Educational research shows that what academic educators do in the design of classes, and how they interact with students, has a strong impact on student engagement in learning, including the approaches they adopt and the learning goals they develop (intrinsic or instrumental). How educators teach and interact with students creates a ‘learning climate’ that can affect student learning and wellbeing.
Listen to PhD student Michelle Walter’s story of mental health difficulties and the role of teachers.
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As outlined in 1.3: Wellbeing essentials, student mental wellbeing is supported when teachers create a learning climate that nurtures and sustains Autonomous Motivation through regular experiences of Belonging, positive Relationships, Autonomy and Competence. While these experiences can be supported through the curriculum (see 2.2 Start here), they can also be promoted by teaching practice in the classroom.
Teaching approaches can foster (or undermine) students’ autonomous motivation
‘Autonomy-supportive’ teachers aim to support students to own and invest in their learning, to connect with their inner motivational resources (emerging interests or important goals) and make learning personally meaningful. To this end, autonomy-supportive teachers use a range of strategies and techniques that assist students to feel that their actions are agentic (and self-determined) rather than being ‘controlled’ by external powers and demands.
By contrast, teachers who exercise a ‘controlling’ teaching style motivate and engage students by reference to external standards (‘employers are only interested in the top 20% of graduates in this course’), performance anxieties (‘pay attention, this is on the exam’), and contingent rewards (‘excellent – I see you’ve been reading my textbook’). While these strategies work to motivate students in the short term, they are not sustaining in the longer term as they direct students to focus on avoiding ‘failure’ or pursuing external indicators of approval and achievement, rather than deep learning and personal growth.
Learning climates and autonomous motivation
Positive relationships and a climate of equality, respect and fairness among students enable all students to take advantage of the available learning opportunities and explore emerging interests. A sense that one can become good at new skills and master new knowledge – with appropriate time and effort – is also essential for academic motivation and achievement (
Vansteenkiste, Lens and Deci, 2006).
Creating learning environments that support student wellbeing
Teacher’s interpersonal approach to students and their learning – characterised by the goal of encouraging students to be self-initiating (rather than pressuring them to behave in certain ways) – can affect student wellbeing. Key strategies for promoting autonomy-supportive learning environments are explained and examples are provided below. Keep in mind, however, that use of one or more of these strategies in isolation will not create a learning climate that students perceive as supporting their autonomous motivation.
Autonomous Motivation
Strategies
- Design learning tasks and select problems or examples that connect with students’ interests, preferences, curiosity and current knowledge
- Help students to make meaning through their learning and understand the value of the knowledge and skills being developed
- Help students to connect concepts and skills being learned with their lives and work (relevance)
- Assist students to set personal learning goals that are realistic, meaningful and challenging
- Developing short (2 minute) videos to introduce each week’s lectures or show current issues in the media to provoke students’ curiosity. +more
- Including regular feedback from different sources including self-reflection, other students, the teacher, or third-party sources outside of the classroom such as editors of online journals or Wikipedia. +more
- Helping students think about their futures as professionals, rather than students who are finishing a course. +more
Belonging
Strategies
- Show understanding that some students need more time than others to grasp concepts and skills
- Design learning tasks that value and draw out diverse perspectives, experiences and forms of prior knowledge
- Encourage students to contribute and build collective knowledge about the topic
- Encouraging students to share stories about their achievements. +more
- Encouraging students to run social outings for small classes. +more
- Practising unconditional positive regard – by explicitly disregarding any personal histories with students and focusing on the current shared learning experience. +more
- Constructing mindful, considerate replies in discussion forums. +more
Positive Relationships
Strategies
- Foster collaborative and cooperative learning that helps students feel connected to peers
- Be friendly and approachable
- Demonstrate interest in students’ questions and ideas
- Understand students’ perspectives, concerns and experiences
- Spending “consultation time” in shared, public, and familiar spaces. +more
- Getting students to ‘showcase’ their work to each other. +more
- Checking in with first-year students around mid-semester. +more
- Constructing mindful, considerate replies in discussion forums. +more
Autonomy
Strategies
- Provide meaningful choices (that reflect students’ interests and are not too complex) and facilitating flexible approaches to learning
- Provide justifications for required tasks and skills so that students can ‘internalise’ and self-endorse the reasons for the activity/unit
- Acknowledge and accept expressions of negative feelings and affect – e.g., ‘I appreciate that some students find this task/activity/topic boring. This is why it’s important…’
- Use language that minimises pressure and control – e.g., ‘You might like to try…’ rather than directives and ‘should/must’ statements.
- Asking students to reflect on the process they chose to use to complete the assessment. +more
- Focusing feedback on individual elements of the assessment piece rather than discussion of the piece as a whole or discussion of the students’ role in the piece. +more
- Helping students see that there is more than one way to progress and improve throughout the course. +more
Competence
Strategies
- Scaffold the early stages of student learning so that students experience achievement and reward for effort
- Design, simplify or increase the complexity of learning tasks and problems so that they provide optimal challenge for students
- Provide informational (rather than judgmental) feedback
- Developing a series of short videos to demonstrate fundamentals of the course. +more
- Including feedback from alternative sources including self-reflection, other students, the teacher, or third-party sources outside of the classroom such as editors of online journals or Wikipedia. +more
- Running activities in class that require the skills needed for the assessment but use different content and are not graded. +more
- Getting students to ‘showcase’ their work to each other in low-stakes, non-assessed environments. +more
- At the start of each week, the teacher created a short video to share with students.
- In the videos, the teacher posed questions and related the content to current events, topics in the media, and real-life issues.
- The teacher acknowledged that emails and LMS announcement might achieve similar levels of motivation. Her preference for videos was because she found them quicker and more accessible than other communication methods.
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example shared by Dr Anneline Padaychee, University of Melbourne
- The teacher encouraged students to submit non-fictional writing pieces to Wikipedia (in collaboration with Wikipedia).
- Students received real feedback, including rejection, in a real-life context.
- The feedback did not impact their grade on the task, but provided a real-life example of the experience of non-fictional writing.
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by Dr Rebecca Johinke, Department of English, University of Sydney
- The teacher refers to her pre-service teaching students as “future colleagues”, to encourage them to position themselves as teachers-in-the-making.
- She speaks to her students about her own journey into teaching, and relates core content to situations they will experience as teachers.
- read more about this example in 3.5 Good Teaching Practice
Example provided by Dr Amanda McFadden, Queensland University of Technology.
- At the start of each week, the teacher created a short video to share with students.
- In the videos, the teacher posed questions and related the content to current events, topics in the media, and real-life issues.
- The teacher acknowledged that emails and LMS announcement might achieve similar levels of motivation. Her preference for videos was because she found them quicker and more accessible than other communication methods.
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example shared by Dr Anneline Padaychee, University of Melbourne
- The teacher spends five minutes at the start of the tutorial asking students to share stories about things that they have done, of which they are proud. She also shares stories of her own achievements.
- Students are encouraged to share stories from outside of the university context.
- The teacher keeps a running record of students’ stories (with their permission) and presents them throughout the semester.
- Read more about this example at 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by Dr Abbie Grace, University of Melbourne
- The teacher runs a social event for her students in the first week of semester.
- At the end of the event, she asks a student to volunteer to be in charge of arranging the next event.
- The regular social activities outside of the university context provide a way for isolated students to connect with their peers.
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by Dr Grace Thompson, University of Melbourne.
- The teacher practices this technique developed by psychologist, Karl Rogers, with her small group of students, and asks her students to do the same.
- It requires each person in the class to overlook any previous issues in their relationship with class members, and to approach each task with openness, curiosity, and hope.
- For teachers, this means disregarding previous encounters with every students (personal biases), and engaging with each task with the hope that the student will experience a break-through, an epiphany, or an exciting learning moment.
Example provided by Margot Fenley, VCA, University of Melbourne.
- The teacher responds to students’ questions on discussion forums as though she is talking with them in person.
- Her posts are constructed in ways that create learning opportunities, demonstrate respect for the students, and encourages them to re-post and extend their thinking.
- Each post models the etiquette and depth of response that she hopes to see from her students.
Example provided by Dr Abbie Grade, University of Tasmania.
- The teacher holds consultations with his students in shared, public spaces (e.g., the student learning hub) or online (e.g., skype).
- Meeting students in a shared space reduces barriers for anxious students and creates more equal dynamic between teacher and student during the meeting
- Read more in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by A/Prof Ben McCann, French Studies, University of Adelaide
- The teacher asks her psychology students to work on their piece alone (a response to a real-life problem, applying psychological theory), before sharing the piece with a group of classmates, in class.
- Taking it in turns to share their work provides students with low-stakes practice presenting to an audience.
- Each group provides feedback to the students about their presentation skills and the content of their work.
Example provided by Dr Lydia Woodyatt, University of Adelaide
- The teacher and her colleagues developed a quiz on LMS to ask students how they were faring with time management, health, financial and social issues.
- Feedback for those who indicated they were not doing well included links to services and anecdotes from senior students who had experienced similar issues.
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by A/Prof Dawn Gleeson, Biology, University of Melbourne.
- The teacher asks students to reflect on processes they have used to develop their piece
- Students are encouraged to describe disciplinary content and procedures that they used
- They also reflect on what they think worked, what didn’t work, and what they will try as they progress with the piece
Example provided by Margot Fenley, VCA, University of Melbourne
- These two teachers focus feedback on individual elements of their students’ work, instead of the whole piece.
- This moves students away from thinking about the piece as static or as a reflection of them as a person. Instead, they think of it as a collection of multiple elements that can be improved with different techniques or applying different principles.
- The teachers also explicitly stated this approach: One teacher advised a student “When you think about the whole thing, the big picture, it can be overwhelming. Try instead to focus on each little thing. Start with one thing – breathe. Then when you’ve got that under control, move to the next little thing.” The other teacher used an analogy: “You are eating the elephant one bite at a time“.
Example provided by Margot Fenley and Chris Nolan, VCA, University of Melbourne
- The teachers emphasise to students that learning is not a linear process; that it can go in many different directions.
- They also speak about each piece of work in terms of the individual students’ general progression and learning.
- This approach allows student to think about their learning as a personal work in progress.
Example provided by Margot Fenley and Chris Nolan, VCA, University of Melbourne.
- The teacher and her colleagues developed short online videos to provide supplementary information and fundamental information to biomedical students.
- Videos introduce central concepts of the subject, lab set up, and lab procedures, e.g., one of the subject’s “biobytes” videos
- Read more about this example in 3.5 Good Practice Examples
Example provided by A/Prof Dawn Gleeson, Biology, University of Melbourne
- The teacher includes a variety of activities for her music students to practice in class that require the same skills as the end-of-semester assessment, but are not themselves graded.
- This provides students with a low-stakes way to demonstrate their skills, build their confidence, and identify areas that need improvement before the final assessment.
Example provided by Dr Grace Thompson, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne
