Saw my first snowdrops today, which is always a help (to not concentrate on how cold February and March are likely to be) 'And Christ comes with a January flower'. I've posted that link too often - you'll have to Google it if curious.
ETA: my apologies to Climacus and other southern-hemisphere Shippies who are just coming into autumn.
Oh, please do not. It was just under 40°C Tuesday so I am longing for the "cold" (average 17 max in June here...ha!) of winter.
I have only ever been briefly in places with short winter days; I am happy for you the increasing daylight is pleasing to you. The fire festival sounds intriguing...I may have to try and organise a holiday there one year!
Autumn is a long way off in these parts; we’re expecting 30+ temperatures & high humidity well into March. The sun set at 8 pm last night and we have daylight saving till April.
...'And Christ comes with a January flower'. I've posted that link too often - you'll have to Google it if curious.
I did. Thank you. Showing my ignorance, but I don't think I've ever heard of Patrick Kavanagh (I lived in Dublin for 6 months but did not look much into literature at that time as I thought I'd be there longer...I regret not learning Gaelic too, as I enjoy languages...): I shall look up more this week. Thank you. "we’ll hear it among simple, decent men, too": Amen.
I have no Shetland connections except a school friend who was originally from there and moved to Orkney; she was up there yesterday for this year's Up Helly Aa, and posted pictures and videos on FB of the procession and setting fire to the ship.
Oh my! If I can save up to traipse to the other side of this globe, I am there. If not, I have that wondrous website which gave me a glimpse. Thank you.
...'And Christ comes with a January flower'. I've posted that link too often - you'll have to Google it if curious.
I did. Thank you. Showing my ignorance, but I don't think I've ever heard of Patrick Kavanagh (I lived in Dublin for 6 months but did not look much into literature at that time as I thought I'd be there longer...I regret not learning Gaelic too, as I enjoy languages...): I shall look up more this week. Thank you. "we’ll hear it among simple, decent men, too": Amen.
I'm glad you liked Kavanagh. If you do read more of him, you'll know more than I do. I find poetry hard to read, and it's probably a vanity on my part that I stumbled on that one and it appeared to give sufficient legitimacy to my tight-arse lifestyle than I decided I liked it. 'The dry black bread and sugarless tea of pennance will charm back the luxury of a child's soul'. Yes indeedy.
As for sweaty February - I will have to cycle very fast to work indeed to break a sweat between now and May . A nice remember that in our money you are still in July.
Yes. I speak to some Ukrainians weekly and it took a while, perhaps still is, for them to not be amazed at the difference in seasons (Christmas in summer, for example). We all know it intellectually, but hearing it and seeing it (I sometimes video chat outdoors), brings home the difference I think.
I have a very shallow poetic (and other!) knowledge; I can throw out a few choice quotes which needs to be followed up by "This is all I know..." lest people assume I am some erudite scholar! At the risk of falling into this again, I read On Raglan Road and, while love is not something I go looking for in poetry/prose, it was evocative, the last two lines especially. Thank you for expanding my horizons.
How are people going? Do those in the north find spring a helpful time? Oddly, usually spring is a danger time for me mentally.
Though, as I mentioned elsewhere, it was autumn this year and I had 2 weeks in 2 mental health units [was moved to one in a different city than back here when a bed became available]. I am a bit elevated; rushing around and keeping terribly busy. I have an appointment with a counsellor through an Anglican church charity next week, then regular appointments for a fixed time, as part of my discharge which I think will be helpful to check in and get some feedback on my thoughts and actions.
I pray and hope all are well or getting help where needed.
Climacus wrote: 'Oddly, usually spring is a danger time for me mentally'. For me also and I get low and depressed , sluggish and slow in mid- Feb to end of April . Mrs RR looks forward to May when I start to feel more human. Strategies? Try not to be grumpy and nasty. Do what I can, write what I can and practice 'Rational Religion'. That is, for me the liturgy of the COE. Day by day, weeek by week. It helps. A bit.
Prayers for all here.
I meant to post a few weeks ago that I discovered a BBC newsletter about strategies for mental health. If you want to find out more google B.B.C Calm newsletter.
Thanks for asking, Climacus, I am glad you are on the mend.
(((ChastMastr)))
I am in the UK and always have a depressive episode in January/February. It was a hard one this year as I am currently overworked (I have been providing cover for a colleague one day a week which means I am working full time whilst studying part time - not good for a manic-depressive) but I have had worse. It took a while for my traditional March Mania to arrive but that has been manageable too. I have a busy few weeks coming up but I have planned my workload well so hopefully will keep the anxiety down.
Yesterday I was interviewed about having bipolar disorder, potentially for a TV documentary!
Prayers for all 🕯
My depressive episode start late March. Bang on time this year. B*gg*er. As I shared on the Bonhoeffer thread, I was introduced to a new hymn at our healing eucharist yesterday (there's a link to a You Tube rendition). I'm currently listening to it a lot and getting through quite a few tissues.
May it bring comfort to others too!
Prayers for all......
Spring usually leads to a disappearance of my relatively mild seasonal affective disorder. Given the rhythm of the Canadian university year, I rarely get to enjoy all of the mental health benefits of spring until May.
I'm not at daily services, but a few times a week I do Vespers or Matins RockyRoger. It does help me too.
An interview, Heavenlyannie! Wow.
Thank you all for sharing. My thoughts and prayers and I remembered you as I managed Matins this morning: "For...the sick and the suffering...let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy."
For many years I had what I thought were short, sharp depressive episodes in November, around the anniversary of our son's stillbirth. They were completely debilitating, but they usually didn't last long, about 3-5 days with a few more days of feeling "normal, but wiped out".
In 2016 I was due to go to a conference in France a week after the depression hit and I went to my GP, desperate for a "quick fix" just to see me through. I hadn't previously seen a doctor whilst in the thick of it. My GP said it didn't look like depression to him, as depression shouldn't involve shaking and vomiting! He also said he thought I should forget the conference.
Fortunately I did go to the conference (Aix-en-Provence!) and loved it.
My GP referred me to psychiatric services. There was a long waiting list, but I ended up with a diagnosis of PTSD. I had a lengthy course of EMDR (I think about 10 or 12 sessions spread over 18 months with a final "sign off" appointment a year after the last session)
The EMDR was miraculous. It just worked. It worked completely.
I'm happy to answer any questions, if anyone has any.
Had 2 appointments yesterday, organised as I was leaving hospital: a community mental health worker and a support worker at an Anglican charity. Both very helpful in their own ways. They will both continue for 12 and 6 to 9 months I believe. Looking forward to checking in, having a talk as to how things are going, and getting support and helpful advice.
@North East Quine I have often wondered how EMDR would work for someone with a "lazy eye" that doesn't track accurately. I was offered it, but it would have meant giving up something that was working albeit more slowly.
Bilateral stimulation is key to EMDR, if you can’t track side to side with your eyes - you can alternately tap on the patients knees, or give tactile devices for them to hold and press alternately. This is effective but a little slower to work.
I get Seasonal Affective Disorder/Depression from Nov thru Feb. Ways to work through it is a daily dose of vitamin D, light therapy, exercise. This year being outside every day for most of the day helped.
I saw the community mental health psychiatrist today. A bit of a medication adjustment. Still quite apathetic most days but in the past few weeks I've managed a few bushwalks (hikes) and went on a whale watching cruise which cheered me up as they put on quite a display!
Working on compartmentalising jobhunting, trying not to spend all day on the laptop doomscrolling, but doing short bursts and then doing me stuff. It worked yesterday, which was the first day of the week I didn't sit in front of the computer and want to cry. The possibility of a few quid coming in (postal work) may also help.
Working on compartmentalising jobhunting, trying not to spend all day on the laptop doomscrolling, but doing short bursts and then doing me stuff. It worked yesterday, which was the first day of the week I didn't sit in front of the computer and want to cry. The possibility of a few quid coming in (postal work) may also help.
I'm doing a bit of that too S. - and it works for me, especially since the weather is good and I can get up a ladder and paint some stuff. How's your garden?
This article discusses how an aspect of university teaching is affecting the mental health of our students. It is a plea for slow teaching as an antidote. It postulates that the manner in which professors use Learning Management Systems (LMS) is causing anxiety amongst students. In my course I use the LMS solely to post my syllabus and as a grade book. I do however use an email application to send students reminder information in the course and other documents. I may need to rethink the volume of emails I send in a term. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-case-for-slow-teaching
I’m afraid I can’t read the article without signing up, Caissa, but it is a subject of great interest to me, both as someone who has bipolar disorder and someone who is an academic who lectures in student mental health. I agree that overuse of notifications is a nightmare for anxiety and can be stressful for students with mental health challenges, which puts me in a dilemma as my doctorate research is on the benefits of using proactive motivational support with online students with mental health challenges, to build supportive relationships between tutors and students and encourage engagement with learning. My doctorate research showed that students can get into a cycle of anxiety which is exacerbated by a sense of overwhelm, but also that students find weekly emails from their tutor helpful for motivation, encouragement and relationship building so that they find it easier to reach out for support.
( I took out a few of the paragraphs Heavenlyannie but the essence remains.)
Ask students about the campus learning-management system and you are bound to get an earful: They feel bombarded by LMS messages about due dates, meetings, and grades. Instead of reading the syllabus, they rely on alerts to tell them what’s due and when, which probably explains why so much college work gets done just before class.
I started thinking about how the LMS contributes to undergraduate stress last fall, after I noticed heightened student anxiety. I decided to sit down with my two undergraduate classes and ask what was bothering them. Students from a mix of majors and class ranks told me they felt overwhelmed by life. Far from being the best time of their lives, they said, college felt more like a hamster wheel of endless deadlines and stress.
My students identified many of the same mental-health concerns that writers in The Chronicle and other journals have been concerned with for at least a decade — academic, parental, social, career, and financial pressures. With a new academic year on the horizon, it’s worth asking what other issues might be flying under the radar: Are any of our teaching practices adding to their stress? And what can we do about that?
If a student is taking four or more courses — each with multiple modules — their LMS calendar soon gets filled with many, many entries. If they have notifications turned on, as most do, they receive a deluge of to-do messages. For those who turn off their notifications, checking their calendar is itself an anxiety-producing endeavor. (I looked at a student’s, and immediately felt my heart racing!) Modules mean most students aren’t looking at the syllabus independently and depend on pings from the LMS to remind them of what’s ahead in a particular course. Students told me that they tend to do the work an hour or two before class. (I imagine the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools aids in that habit a great deal.)
In short, the LMS prompts many students to take a very passive approach to their coursework — until the pings arrive, at which point they feel overwhelmed and paralyzed.
The generation now in college grew up interacting with constant notifications. The silence of the before times — the very notion of being routinely alone with one’s thoughts — is a relic of previous generations. Gen Z inhabits a different way of thinking of time, self, and knowledge. They are, as Jonathan Haidt has suggested in The Anxious Generation, the cellphone and social-media generation, and it is making them very unhappy.
I try to create a quiet space both in class and in my students’ heads. I tell them I am trying to teach as a “slow professor,” inspired by a 2016 book on the subject. To teach as a slow professor, I explain, is to resist the pressure to speed through learning and rather to see a course as a story, or multiple stories. And I tell students that I’m trying to help them develop a sense of agency over their coursework, which can lessen their anxiety about it. In order to achieve those goals, I do the following:
I talk about pedagogy in class so that students know the intellectual reasons behind how I teach, including the way I use the LMS. I mention the articles and books that guide my teaching.
My use of the LMS is very sparse. I post the syllabus and take attendance on the LMS. For large classes I will also post grades online. In my seminars, I generally do not give grades during the semester, but provide lots of feedback on written work and give a final grade.
The syllabus on the LMS has everything in that one document: dates, assignments, readings, etc., so students can scroll down and see all of it in one place. I do not divide up course content into modules.
I don’t do notifications (i.e., students can’t even turn them on for my classes).
I do not have online discussion questions or posts.
I tell students to look at the syllabus on a Sunday for the week and to plan accordingly.
In seminars, students must write everything in a paper journal (unless they have relevant accommodations), including their midterm and final. Students use the journal to write their reflections on the material both in class and outside of it.
Instead of a final exam, including in bigger classes, I have students write a final reflection in class on an issue they learned more about, a concept they struggled with, or a reading they disagreed with.
Sometimes I print out copies of an article for us to read and discuss together in class. It has worked very well indeed. That can’t be the only method you use because students learn differently, but it is a good option now and then.
I check in with students frequently by asking them to do self-assessments and taking time to talk in class about how they are managing their time, work, and life.
I have also brought in a recent graduate (who is now in our Ph.D. program) who talked about how to tune out the LMS.
What do students think of my attempts to structure courses so that we all slow down?
Based on my evaluations across different courses in 2024-25, they are on board. In their written comments, they praised the classroom as “calm and conducive to learning,” talked about having to “dig deeper, ask questions, and get into a habit of writing reflections,” and noticed that I was aiming to get them to think and write for themselves. Some students said they found the final exam, a “final reflection essay,” a bit scary, since the only directions I give are open-ended. That’s precisely because, as I explain in class, I want them to think about what they want to say, without hand-holding or extensive directions. The upside for me is that the final reflections, despite some students’ anxiety, are a delight to read.
I doubt students would have written such comments if I had not been very explicit about why I teach as I do and why I only minimally use the LMS. I have learned over time that being explicit really helps bring them into the class as a joint endeavor of learning. So I tell students directly that:
I have an arc of learning in mind for the course.
I emphasize writing in notebooks because that is what the research shows is better for retention.
I want students to associate the class with a journal and a feeling of paper, rather than drifting into the black hole of one’s phone.
Professors and administrators must think long and hard about how we are creating the very anxieties we lament. Contemplation is a lost art in education, and our students are crying out for help to deal with all the challenges they identify as causing stress. Silencing the noise of the LMS and creating more space for reflection in our courses would be good educational practice for whichever century we are living in.
My students experience will be different because my university is entirely online and has been a distance learning institution for over 50 years so we have a very good idea how online communication should work. My students are often older as well so have different pressures to conventional younger cohorts; they might get married, have babies, get divorced and sometimes they or their loved ones develop chronic or terminal illnesses. They are often working full or part time whilst studying full or part time. So their mental health challenges and solutions might be different to more conventional students.
My students’ course materials are online and accessed via their calendar; as their study is self-directed their calendar is their guide through the academic year and they don’t need constant reminders about different things as everything is accessed in one place and it is clear what they need to do each week. Consequently they don’t get lots of email communications from the university. Our problem is more the opposite, that of building identity and relationships at a distance to support them when they experience overwhelm and anxiety which is often related to other competing obligations in their lives which their study is adding to.
It sounds like you are working well to reduce overwhelm with your students. Good open communication with a reassuring and available presence helps, I think, whether in the classroom or online (hence why my research is in proactive motivational support). We use reflection a lot on my field of health and social care and it is a helpful tool for learning, both for students and practitioners. For instance, I teach a module on death and the first assignment encourages them to reflect on the challenges this might bring to them as individuals, whether intellectually or emotionally, so we can plan ahead to overcome them. Another module I used to teach had a first assignment where they discussed their learning goals and what they might do to achieve them, helping with motivation and student centred teaching and learning.
Working on compartmentalising jobhunting, trying not to spend all day on the laptop doomscrolling, but doing short bursts and then doing me stuff. It worked yesterday, which was the first day of the week I didn't sit in front of the computer and want to cry. The possibility of a few quid coming in (postal work) may also help.
I'm doing a bit of that too S. - and it works for me, especially since the weather is good and I can get up a ladder and paint some stuff. How's your garden?
Sorry only just seen this. It's been too dry to do much meaningful gardening, so it's a sort of parched jungle, not helped by the jobhunting sapping my will to live. Thankfully I've found some full-time temp work (the Royal Mail took far too long to get back to me), and have considerably more will to live even with less time to jobhunt in.
The article was written by someone else, HA. I have read The Slow Professor and commend it to those who teach. My primary job is managing our Student Accessibility Centre. I teach a section of our first year experience course where my role is to introduce students to tools that will assist them in being successful university students. One of my meta-goals is to create a safe community in te class where students can stretch, grow and make mistakes. I am constantly looking for ideas that will help me to reach these goals. This is the first article I have seen where someone reflects on the negative effects on mental health of an LMS. It gives me pause to reflect on my use of that tool and others.
Similar to Heavenlyannie I once worked for a formerly distance now predominantly online, regional university, though as a data analyst analysing student (and academic) behaviour on the LMS to try and lead to better outcomes, etc. as part of my broader analysis role. Taking into account much can happen offline*. A lot of mature-age working students too and first-in-family students. Plenty to take away from both your thoughts, thank you. Your students are lucky to have you both.
Sandemaniac: I'm happy you found some full time temp work. Hope for rain for you to allow some garden work.
* or any number of behaviours could present themself that show "low" online engagement; I am not a "the data tells you everything" kind of guy, but think it is one source that can be useful in certain situations... We did discover some general behaviours that contradicted, or supplemented, commonly-held beliefs.
I use data analytics on my student engagement to inform my individual proactive support and study skills advice, Climacus. It is very useful for me as a tutor.
Comments
I have only ever been briefly in places with short winter days; I am happy for you the increasing daylight is pleasing to you. The fire festival sounds intriguing...I may have to try and organise a holiday there one year!
I did. Thank you. Showing my ignorance, but I don't think I've ever heard of Patrick Kavanagh (I lived in Dublin for 6 months but did not look much into literature at that time as I thought I'd be there longer...I regret not learning Gaelic too, as I enjoy languages...): I shall look up more this week. Thank you. "we’ll hear it among simple, decent men, too": Amen.
I have no Shetland connections except a school friend who was originally from there and moved to Orkney; she was up there yesterday for this year's Up Helly Aa, and posted pictures and videos on FB of the procession and setting fire to the ship.
I'm glad you liked Kavanagh. If you do read more of him, you'll know more than I do. I find poetry hard to read, and it's probably a vanity on my part that I stumbled on that one and it appeared to give sufficient legitimacy to my tight-arse lifestyle than I decided I liked it. 'The dry black bread and sugarless tea of pennance will charm back the luxury of a child's soul'. Yes indeedy.
As for sweaty February - I will have to cycle very fast to work indeed to break a sweat between now and May
I have a very shallow poetic (and other!) knowledge; I can throw out a few choice quotes which needs to be followed up by "This is all I know..." lest people assume I am some erudite scholar! At the risk of falling into this again, I read On Raglan Road and, while love is not something I go looking for in poetry/prose, it was evocative, the last two lines especially. Thank you for expanding my horizons.
Though, as I mentioned elsewhere, it was autumn this year and I had 2 weeks in 2 mental health units [was moved to one in a different city than back here when a bed became available]. I am a bit elevated; rushing around and keeping terribly busy. I have an appointment with a counsellor through an Anglican church charity next week, then regular appointments for a fixed time, as part of my discharge which I think will be helpful to check in and get some feedback on my thoughts and actions.
I pray and hope all are well or getting help where needed.
Been missing Cubby a lot the last few days. I’ve felt like sleeping more.
Prayers for all here.
(((ChastMastr)))
I am in the UK and always have a depressive episode in January/February. It was a hard one this year as I am currently overworked (I have been providing cover for a colleague one day a week which means I am working full time whilst studying part time - not good for a manic-depressive) but I have had worse. It took a while for my traditional March Mania to arrive but that has been manageable too. I have a busy few weeks coming up but I have planned my workload well so hopefully will keep the anxiety down.
Yesterday I was interviewed about having bipolar disorder, potentially for a TV documentary!
Prayers for all 🕯
May it bring comfort to others too!
Prayers for all......
I'm not at daily services, but a few times a week I do Vespers or Matins RockyRoger. It does help me too.
An interview, Heavenlyannie! Wow.
Thank you all for sharing. My thoughts and prayers and I remembered you as I managed Matins this morning: "For...the sick and the suffering...let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy."
In 2016 I was due to go to a conference in France a week after the depression hit and I went to my GP, desperate for a "quick fix" just to see me through. I hadn't previously seen a doctor whilst in the thick of it. My GP said it didn't look like depression to him, as depression shouldn't involve shaking and vomiting! He also said he thought I should forget the conference.
Fortunately I did go to the conference (Aix-en-Provence!) and loved it.
My GP referred me to psychiatric services. There was a long waiting list, but I ended up with a diagnosis of PTSD. I had a lengthy course of EMDR (I think about 10 or 12 sessions spread over 18 months with a final "sign off" appointment a year after the last session)
The EMDR was miraculous. It just worked. It worked completely.
I'm happy to answer any questions, if anyone has any.
Hope all are travelling okay.
How are all travelling? If you feel like sharing. I wish all a good Eastertime, whatever that may mean for each. A very quiet one for me hopefully.
Hello! ❤️
I saw the community mental health psychiatrist today. A bit of a medication adjustment. Still quite apathetic most days but in the past few weeks I've managed a few bushwalks (hikes) and went on a whale watching cruise which cheered me up as they put on quite a display!
I'm doing a bit of that too S. - and it works for me, especially since the weather is good and I can get up a ladder and paint some stuff. How's your garden?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-case-for-slow-teaching
Ask students about the campus learning-management system and you are bound to get an earful: They feel bombarded by LMS messages about due dates, meetings, and grades. Instead of reading the syllabus, they rely on alerts to tell them what’s due and when, which probably explains why so much college work gets done just before class.
I started thinking about how the LMS contributes to undergraduate stress last fall, after I noticed heightened student anxiety. I decided to sit down with my two undergraduate classes and ask what was bothering them. Students from a mix of majors and class ranks told me they felt overwhelmed by life. Far from being the best time of their lives, they said, college felt more like a hamster wheel of endless deadlines and stress.
My students identified many of the same mental-health concerns that writers in The Chronicle and other journals have been concerned with for at least a decade — academic, parental, social, career, and financial pressures. With a new academic year on the horizon, it’s worth asking what other issues might be flying under the radar: Are any of our teaching practices adding to their stress? And what can we do about that?
If a student is taking four or more courses — each with multiple modules — their LMS calendar soon gets filled with many, many entries. If they have notifications turned on, as most do, they receive a deluge of to-do messages. For those who turn off their notifications, checking their calendar is itself an anxiety-producing endeavor. (I looked at a student’s, and immediately felt my heart racing!) Modules mean most students aren’t looking at the syllabus independently and depend on pings from the LMS to remind them of what’s ahead in a particular course. Students told me that they tend to do the work an hour or two before class. (I imagine the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools aids in that habit a great deal.)
In short, the LMS prompts many students to take a very passive approach to their coursework — until the pings arrive, at which point they feel overwhelmed and paralyzed.
The generation now in college grew up interacting with constant notifications. The silence of the before times — the very notion of being routinely alone with one’s thoughts — is a relic of previous generations. Gen Z inhabits a different way of thinking of time, self, and knowledge. They are, as Jonathan Haidt has suggested in The Anxious Generation, the cellphone and social-media generation, and it is making them very unhappy.
I try to create a quiet space both in class and in my students’ heads. I tell them I am trying to teach as a “slow professor,” inspired by a 2016 book on the subject. To teach as a slow professor, I explain, is to resist the pressure to speed through learning and rather to see a course as a story, or multiple stories. And I tell students that I’m trying to help them develop a sense of agency over their coursework, which can lessen their anxiety about it. In order to achieve those goals, I do the following:
I talk about pedagogy in class so that students know the intellectual reasons behind how I teach, including the way I use the LMS. I mention the articles and books that guide my teaching.
My use of the LMS is very sparse. I post the syllabus and take attendance on the LMS. For large classes I will also post grades online. In my seminars, I generally do not give grades during the semester, but provide lots of feedback on written work and give a final grade.
The syllabus on the LMS has everything in that one document: dates, assignments, readings, etc., so students can scroll down and see all of it in one place. I do not divide up course content into modules.
I don’t do notifications (i.e., students can’t even turn them on for my classes).
I do not have online discussion questions or posts.
I tell students to look at the syllabus on a Sunday for the week and to plan accordingly.
In seminars, students must write everything in a paper journal (unless they have relevant accommodations), including their midterm and final. Students use the journal to write their reflections on the material both in class and outside of it.
Instead of a final exam, including in bigger classes, I have students write a final reflection in class on an issue they learned more about, a concept they struggled with, or a reading they disagreed with.
Sometimes I print out copies of an article for us to read and discuss together in class. It has worked very well indeed. That can’t be the only method you use because students learn differently, but it is a good option now and then.
I check in with students frequently by asking them to do self-assessments and taking time to talk in class about how they are managing their time, work, and life.
I have also brought in a recent graduate (who is now in our Ph.D. program) who talked about how to tune out the LMS.
What do students think of my attempts to structure courses so that we all slow down?
Based on my evaluations across different courses in 2024-25, they are on board. In their written comments, they praised the classroom as “calm and conducive to learning,” talked about having to “dig deeper, ask questions, and get into a habit of writing reflections,” and noticed that I was aiming to get them to think and write for themselves. Some students said they found the final exam, a “final reflection essay,” a bit scary, since the only directions I give are open-ended. That’s precisely because, as I explain in class, I want them to think about what they want to say, without hand-holding or extensive directions. The upside for me is that the final reflections, despite some students’ anxiety, are a delight to read.
I doubt students would have written such comments if I had not been very explicit about why I teach as I do and why I only minimally use the LMS. I have learned over time that being explicit really helps bring them into the class as a joint endeavor of learning. So I tell students directly that:
I have an arc of learning in mind for the course.
I emphasize writing in notebooks because that is what the research shows is better for retention.
I want students to associate the class with a journal and a feeling of paper, rather than drifting into the black hole of one’s phone.
Professors and administrators must think long and hard about how we are creating the very anxieties we lament. Contemplation is a lost art in education, and our students are crying out for help to deal with all the challenges they identify as causing stress. Silencing the noise of the LMS and creating more space for reflection in our courses would be good educational practice for whichever century we are living in.
My students’ course materials are online and accessed via their calendar; as their study is self-directed their calendar is their guide through the academic year and they don’t need constant reminders about different things as everything is accessed in one place and it is clear what they need to do each week. Consequently they don’t get lots of email communications from the university. Our problem is more the opposite, that of building identity and relationships at a distance to support them when they experience overwhelm and anxiety which is often related to other competing obligations in their lives which their study is adding to.
It sounds like you are working well to reduce overwhelm with your students. Good open communication with a reassuring and available presence helps, I think, whether in the classroom or online (hence why my research is in proactive motivational support). We use reflection a lot on my field of health and social care and it is a helpful tool for learning, both for students and practitioners. For instance, I teach a module on death and the first assignment encourages them to reflect on the challenges this might bring to them as individuals, whether intellectually or emotionally, so we can plan ahead to overcome them. Another module I used to teach had a first assignment where they discussed their learning goals and what they might do to achieve them, helping with motivation and student centred teaching and learning.
Sorry only just seen this. It's been too dry to do much meaningful gardening, so it's a sort of parched jungle, not helped by the jobhunting sapping my will to live. Thankfully I've found some full-time temp work (the Royal Mail took far too long to get back to me), and have considerably more will to live even with less time to jobhunt in.
Similar to Heavenlyannie I once worked for a formerly distance now predominantly online, regional university, though as a data analyst analysing student (and academic) behaviour on the LMS to try and lead to better outcomes, etc. as part of my broader analysis role. Taking into account much can happen offline*. A lot of mature-age working students too and first-in-family students. Plenty to take away from both your thoughts, thank you. Your students are lucky to have you both.
Sandemaniac: I'm happy you found some full time temp work. Hope for rain for you to allow some garden work.
* or any number of behaviours could present themself that show "low" online engagement; I am not a "the data tells you everything" kind of guy, but think it is one source that can be useful in certain situations... We did discover some general behaviours that contradicted, or supplemented, commonly-held beliefs.