As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, instructors and students face unprecedented health challenges, including depression and anxiety caused by isolation and other stressors. At the same time, the pivot online in Spring 2020 exacerbated – and raised awareness of – significant underlying problems, such as a "mental health epidemic" among college students, food and housing insecurity, and systemic health inequities.
Small, carefully targeted changes to course design and teaching practice can offer a long-term wellness benefits for students and instructors. In addition, teaching practices that enhance accessibility and inclusivity can have benefits for students' wellness.
You can support yourself by designing your courses to maximize opportunities for self-care, and support your students by planning courses to increase the chances that someone can catch up after a brief interruption in their study. A short guide by Ada Palmer offers many practical suggestions, such as the following:
Trauma-informed pedagogy asks instructors to work proactively, anticipating the needs of students who are experiencing long-term reactions to harmful or threatening events or circumstances. Recommendations by researchers in this area often overlap with other best practices, and do not require instructors to become therapists. For example, assignments that transparently describe their purpose, task, and evaluation criteria support inclusive learning environments. At the same time, transparent assignment design creates trust , which is important to students who are coping with uncertainty. Mays Imad introduces trauma-informed teaching, discusses transparent assignment design, and offers six more concrete recommendations for instructors in Inside Higher Education.
A growing body of research suggests that in Indigenous communities of the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, language maintenance and revitalization not only supports positive identity and academic success, but reduces rates of suicide, diabetes, HIV, and other physical and mental health issues. Becoming informed about this research, even if it does not immediately lead to specific changes in course design, is an important step towards an anticolonial and equitable classroom. One place to start is this brief fact sheet by the First Peoples' Cultural Council.