Enhancing Student Wellbeing at Notre Dame In the Classroom
Partner Background
Over the past two years, International Development in Practice (IDP) students have partnered with the University of Notre Dame Wellness Center and the Office of Student Affairs to explore ways to promote flourishing among Notre Dame students. Through this partnership, students in the class both mapped resources available on campus to promote student flourishing, as well as conducted over one-hundred interviews of students, faculty, and staff regarding best practices of teachers for promoting flourishing and wellbeing in the classroom. Further, these IDP students have hosted brainstorming sessions with faculty and students to share, workshop, and ideate on ideas for improving student wellbeing linked to what is happening in the classroom.
This semester, the Wellness project will expand this partnership to include Notre Dame’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence. The Kaneb Center was established in 1996 under the leadership of President Edward Malloy and Provost Nathan Hatch with the support of John Kaneb. The Center, composed of educational developers, learning researchers, and program managers, provides research-based services, programs, and resources that support teaching excellence and reflective practice at Notre Dame.
Main offerings or Kaneb include:
Offering workshops and collaborative consultations that explore a variety of pedagogical approaches with an emphasis on the creation and implementation of engaged, student-centered learning experiences.
Supporting scholarly inquiry to improve teaching and learning.
Maintaining a lending library of resources on topics including course design, classroom strategies, assessment design, student feedback, and academic career development.
Definition of Opportunity
Given the stresses and challenges to mental health that exist for college students and the impacts of the pandemic, it is evident that students can benefit from wellness resources more than ever. The University offers a variety of resources to students, but they are spread across different schools, offices, and initiatives. In the spring 2022, a team of students mapped resources (programs, initiatives, classes, support groups, etc) on campus that help promote wellness and student flourishing. In the fall 2022, a student team explored strategies and approaches that Keough School of Global Affairs (and other) faculty used in the classroom to promote student flourishing. The team held a workshop with faculty to exchange ideas and share best practices.
Definition of Success
Through this project, we hope to accomplish the following:
Increased awareness of practices teachers can use to improve student wellbeing
Creation of easy to understand content / data that is compelling to faculty
Understanding barriers and challenges of incorporating these ideas for faculty and students
Bring together faculty in a welcoming space to share some of these ideas, prototype, and put these ideas into practice