Jennifer Linsdell spoke about supporting mental wellbeing in education using creativity as part of the day 2 OERxDomains21 conference. Lindsell has a background in Art Education and Art Therapy to support resilience and deep interest in supporting staff to help students. Linsdell reviewed historical data, conducted action research, and used existing resources. As part of Linsdell’s methodology, staff were given a questionnaire which included the use of a tool I had never heard about: the WEMWBS, openly available. Participants completed this survey at the beginning and end of the three-week project. Staff and students participated in creative activities as part of the workshop. Examples of postcard activities were displayed. The staff activities were designed for the evening to evaluate effects on wellbeing in the following day. Every member of staff who completed the study reported positive improvement in their mental health! The magnitude of change did vary. Linsdell asked: is data enough? They started to discuss their story and those of others and how mental health impacted them. They also talked in groups about creativity, bullying, and a different experiences members of the group had. Linsdell emphasized connecting with experts and reflecting how will mental wellbeing be promoted in the future of education. Linsdell mentioned creating a website to share experiences and build a series of open resources to share so that others can build their own toolkit to support mental wellbeing. Some examples they shared were self care alphabet (with a 30 minute time limit), mental health and wellbeing badge design, and goal setting. Linsdell’s blog and website are live, and they want to continue interviewing people to learn how to better support wellbeing in education. I enjoyed the sketch notes, pictures, and quotes Linsdell shared. People didn’t ask questions: they seemed to be soaking in the information and advice. Lindsell said:
All of us have learned something new during lockdown. […] Make yourself a pledge of doing something this week that will change your mental wellbeing!
Jennifer Linsdell
I agree. While I didn’t start making sourdough or banana bread, I learned about podcasting and blogging as ways of organizing my thoughts. In a related session also from day 2 of OERxDomains21, Sundi Richard and Autumn Caines spoke about “The Use and Misuse of Care.” Caines started by describing how she is bothered by the use of care for marketing, for example. With Richard, Caines did a series of blog posts and webinars. They polled the audience to learn about their familiarity with proctoring software, for example. They then used a “choose-your-own-adventure game” about a student using proctoring software called CompelU. They mentioned they used real stories to create the scenarios. I did a couple of the scenarios and laughed and also felt frustrated that people are doing this to students. The CompelU activity is being developed and improved. They plan on including instructor scenarios too and building resources to use this for professional development. I didn’t think I would learn about CompelU from the session abstract! The two talks I watched had commonalities, focusing on considerations for student AND staff wellbeing.
