College can be an exciting and enjoyable time, but it can also bring with it various stresses. Heavy workloads, looming deadlines, worries over financial aid – these can be a great enough burden even without external stressors, such as family difficulties,new relationships, and world events. Small wonder, then, that in a 2023 survey of college students on stress, some 56% reported having experienced chronic stress during their college careers.
Fortunately, you, as a faculty member or instructor, can take meaningful steps to help your students manage stress. In the remainder of this post, we will explore how you can employ classroom technologies in ways that create a supportive atmosphere for your students. A follow-up post will address students directly, offering them tips and tricks to maintain their equilibrium during college.
Make a “Wellness Module” in Canvas
Canvas Modules are an excellent way to collect different types of content under the umbrella of a given week, subject area, etc. They can also help reinforce information presented in the syllabus by making it easily accessible as students navigate your course. As you set up your Canvas course, in addition to resources contained in your syllabus, you might also create a module to serve as a “one-stop shop” for mental health and wellness resources. Within the module, you can link to UChicago Wellness’s mental health resources, academic help resources such as the UChicago Writing Program or College Core Tutor Program, and even recreational groups and activities around campus – fun is a great stress-reliever! Remember, too, that you can change the order of modules when setting up your course, so if you would like, you can place the wellness module at the very top, where it’s quick and easy for students to find.
If you’d like to see an example wellness module, check out our mental health and well-being example course!
Leverage LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning may not immediately come to mind when you’re thinking of mental health resources, but in fact its thousands of courses–all of them free for UChicago faculty, students, and staff with CNetIDs–include quite a few that address mental health, well-being, and self-care, as well as guided meditation. Many of these courses are brief, some requiring as little as twenty minutes to view, which makes them ideal for time-pressed college students (or faculty!) There are also courses that, while not directly related to mental health, can help to promote habits for academic success, such as time management and prioritization.
You can share these courses with your students on an ad hoc basis, or you can assign them to your entire class, using the integration between Canvas and LinkedIn, to watch outside of class time. While they can help students at any level, they may be especially useful for first-years, who are not yet used to the pace of college life and may find themselves struggling to adapt.
Lighten the Cognitive Load
It can be tempting to employ every teaching tool at your disposal – but it comes at a cost. Not only will you have to juggle many different technologies, each with its own demands and quirks, but so will your students. The result? Excessive cognitive load, as they struggle to master both the course’s subject matter and the various tools involved in its day-to-day logistics.
To avoid the risks of tech tool overload, here are some points to keep in mind:
- Fit the tool to the teaching objective, not vice versa. Begin by deciding what you want to achieve in the classroom, then decide which digital tool – if any – is needed to achieve the objective. Avoid throwing tools in for their own sake.
- Ground your students in the use of digital tools. If you think many of your students are likely to be unfamiliar with a particular tool, set aside some time to introduce them to it and explain how it will facilitate the course objectives. This helps alleviate the stress that having to master a new tool “on the fly” can bring.
- Offer alternatives when you can. For example, you might give students a choice between a podcast and a traditional written essay. This allows students who may not have the resources or technological comfort level to record a podcast to submit their assignment in another, less tech-intensive format. You might also introduce your students to text-to-speech tools that allow them to absorb material in the format most comfortable for them.
Take Some Time for Yourself
As you’re thinking about your students’ well-being, don’t forget to take your own into consideration too. Resources are available to help with faculty burnout and managing workplace stress. UChicago faculty and staff are also welcome to make use of the Perspectives Program to help ease the burden in challenging times. And remember: sometimes the best thing you can do is power down your tech and step away for a bit. Technology is there to serve you – not the reverse.
Conclusion
Making your course more “mental-health friendly” doesn’t have to mean a massive overhaul. By following some of the steps outlined above, you can let your students know that they’re not alone, that resources are available to help them, and that you’re genuinely interested in their well-being – which goes a long way toward improving their college experience.
Further Resources
If you have questions about the points raised in this article, or about any topic pertaining to teaching with technology, Academic Technology Solutions is here to help! You can email us, drop by our office hours, attend one of our workshops, or book a consultation with an instructional designer.
(Cover Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash)
