October 2023

Student Wellness – Fall 2023 Newsletter 5

Smeal Academy Fall 2023 Connections Newsletter 5 – Student Wellness

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip the Smeal community with best practices and strategies for teaching and learning with technology to support Smeal’s business education and research needs. This newsletter provides some tips and pointers to support student wellness as we move through the semester.

Supporting Student Wellness

A recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse revealed that college students want their professors and advisers to be very involved in promoting their mental health and well-being. What does that mean for us as instructors? There are course design choices we can make that support our curricular goals while at the same time supporting student wellness. There are two approaches to this that we can explore:

Being flexible about assessment
Encouraging access to mental health resources

There are a couple of easy ways to make our assessments more flexible to reduce pressure on students and encourage healthier choices.

Avoid assessments worth fifty percent or more of the final grade. More frequent, lower-stakes assessments provide better pathways to durable learning and eliminate the pressure caused by high-stakes assessments. When employing this strategy, consider dropping students’ lowest score(s). Everyone has days that don’t go as well as others, and this approach can reduce the pressure students feel to perform at their highest level on every assessment.
Consider offering extra credit opportunities to offset lower scores. Extra credit might even be awarded to students who complete stress-reduction activities outside of class. An added benefit is that these approaches may reduce the likelihood of academic integrity violations.

Connecting students with mental health resources and regularly checking in with them about how they are doing are easy ways to stay on top of student well-being:

Find opportunities in class to talk about stressors and stress management and direct students to available resources.
Course syllabi should include a Counseling and Psychological Services Statement.
Consider adding additional information to your course materials, such as links to Penn State’s Health Promotion and Wellness or the Red Folder initiative. These resources provide a wide variety of offerings designed to support students at all levels and locations.

Penn State is offering a weekly webinar series from October 30 to December 4 to explore strategies to support student mental health and wellness.

Flaherty, C. (2023, July 17). Supporting Student Wellness: What’s Enough and What’s Too Much? Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs.

Loving Life. (2023). Why are Wellness Wednesday Quotes Beneficial For Companies? [Image]. Health and Wellbeing.

The eLDIG team is here for the Smeal community. If you want to discuss an idea or need for your course(s), please don’t hesitate to contact us to schedule a consultation at eldig@smeal.psu.edu.

Upcoming Sessions

Smeal Academy Session: Supporting Student Wellness Through Course Design on November 1 at 11am

A recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse revealed that college students want their professors and advisers to be very involved in promoting their mental health and well-being. What does that mean for us in higher education? In this session, we will share some easy teaching strategies that you can implement today to support students that might make your job a little easier, too. It will be recorded and made available on the eLDIG website following the session. Please join us on Wednesday, November 1, 2023, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST via Zoom.

Smeal Academy Session: Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Business Education and Research Reading and Discussion Group – Session 1

Join us for the first session of a Smeal series on the role of artificial intelligence in our teaching and research, which will focus on our shared commitment to prepare leaders to responsibly leverage artificial intelligence in business. This session will be led by Dr. Michelle Darnell, Director of the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, in collaboration with the eLDIG team. Readings for Session 1 are available on SharePoint. Please join us on Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 10-11 am EST via Zoom. Be sure to mark your calendars for Session 2, led by Jiro Yoshida, on December 12th from 2-3 p.m.

eLDIG ID Tips

Tip #1: Stay Connected to Your Students. Our recent Smeal Academy Newsletter detailed a variety of communication strategies. Use the Canvas Gradebook “Message Students Who…” feature to reach out to students who are missing assignments or lagging behind. A caring message can go a long way in helping struggling students feel seen.
Tip #2: Clarify Expectations. You can reduce student (and instructor) confusion about assignment expectations with rubrics and work samples. This eLDIG Assessment Series video will help you learn more about Canvas rubric design. You may also consider providing work samples by anonymizing and asking permission to share work samples from prior semesters.

Canvas New Quizzes

Instructure has implemented some of the changes Penn State and other institutions requested, and we are re-entering the preview period for New Quizzes. The updated timeline is as follows. Please note that we will not be able to deliver quizzes to students using the New Quizzes platform until at least Fall 2024. The eLDIG team is not aware of any discussions about discontinuing the use of Classic Canvas Quizzes.
new quizzes timeline

Contact Us

Email us at eldig@smeal.psu.edu or fill out the eLDIG Contact form and we will be in touch.

Francesca Joyce In Smeal Academy Sessions

Policy 42-27, Election Day, and Contingency Planning

Did you know there’s a new Faculty Senate guideline in Policy 42-27 stating that “Instructors should provide, within reason, pedagogical and curricular necessity, the opportunity for a day consisting solely of remote asynchronous instruction on a November election day?” In this session, we will share some strategies and best practices for asynchronous instruction and contingency planning for those days and times when plans change, and instruction must go on. This session is designed for instructors and staff who support Canvas courses.

Resources

Michael Christie In

Course Communication Tips – Fall 2023 Newsletter 3

Smeal Academy Fall 2023 Connections Newsletter 3 – Course Communication Tips

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip the Smeal community with best practices and strategies for teaching and learning with technology to support Smeal’s business education and research needs. This newsletter provides some tips, pointers, and best practices to elevate course communication as we move through the semester.

Image Source: Nimbus Platform

Creating and Sharing a Communications Plan

Establishing and maintaining clear, consistent communication through defined channels is an essential strategy in your course design that allows your students to focus on learning. But what are the best channels for you, and how do you communicate effectively?

Students need clear guidelines for communicating with you and their peers as they navigate your course. Planning to manage your own communication and communicating the details will eliminate anxieties and help students concentrate on the lesson content. Here are some tips for creating and sharing a communications plan for your course(s):

Set expectations: Let your students know when and how they can reach you, and make this clear to them in your syllabus or on your Canvas home page. Be sure to include when students can expect to receive a response. If your students know that you will respond within 24-36 hours, it is less likely you will receive repeat emails. Make the timeline realistic for your workload.
Establish communication channels: Make strategic choices about which communication tools you will use. You could use announcements to send messages to the whole class, use the Canvas inbox to message an individual student, or create a discussion board to create a thread to crowdsource information among your students.
Set notification preferences: Be sure to inform your students to update and set their notification preferences in Canvas to ensure they receive your course communications in a manner of their choosing–and be sure to set your notifications, too!
Make a plan: Identify key points in the semester when students need reminders, advice, and encouragement. Regular communication with students shows your engagement with the course and helps students stay up to date in a course even if they need to miss a class.
Identify efficiencies: Even though emails to students can be sent anytime, don’t allow them to take up all your time! Instead of responding to many individual student emails, find ways to answer student questions en masse. This might include weekly Canvas Announcements to the whole class, curating a list of FAQs as student questions come in, or creating a Canvas Discussion where you, TAs/TSSs, and students can all respond to questions.
Set the tone: Use plain language and avoid technical jargon or commands (except when necessary for the course discipline). Address your audience directly and switch out common terms for more inclusive language. Try to provide tips, resources, and suggestions that could help any student.
Make communications accessible: Keep messages focused, frequent, and actionable while using inclusive and affirming language. Be sure you are also using accessible headers and proper formatting.
Maintain student privacy: FERPA requires that student information such as assignments, grades, and communications are handled safely to protect confidentiality.
Student interaction guidelines: Regularly communicating your expectations around respectful and productive class interactions can help create a safe learning environment for students. Commenting positively (e.g., “That is a great question”) when students interact to advance collegial discussions of course topics can also help signal the types of interactions you want to encourage in the classroom.

As we learn more about emerging technologies like ChatGPT and ways to integrate them into teaching and learning, the eLDIG team is here for the Smeal community. If you want to discuss an idea or need for your course(s), please don’t hesitate to contact us to schedule a consultation at eldig@smeal.psu.edu.