Interactive Learning Resource (Draft)

THIS IS A DRAFT. We will refine this draft and make a final interactive learning resource based on the example https://programmingconcepts.opened.ca/ provided by the instructor. Perhaps, we will be posting on a new blog site for separating personal and group assignments.

Group Members:

Marco Chong, Marsha Chan, Chase Brown, Zheng Qiao Zhong, Hao Jiang

Complete the tasks in order.

Self Care 101

This page acts as an overview of the resource.

Our design is based on the constructivist learning theory, which emphasizes building on what students have already learned and reflecting on their experiences to keep learning and growing (Cobern, 1993). We chose this approach for teaching first-year students about self-care because it’s a hands-on, personal topic. As students try out different self-care techniques, like new methods to relieve stress, they’ll need to figure out what works best for them. Constructivism’s focus on reflection and autonomy helps students continually improve and fine-tune their self-care strategies in real-life situations, ultimately boosting their overall health and well-being.

Reference

Cobern, W. W. (1993). Constructivism. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 4(1), 105–112. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532768xjepc0401_8

Using inquiry-based learning(IBL) as the learning design for physical and emotional self-care targeting first-year university students. Students are encouraged to ask questions, explore the answers independently, and reflect on their findings. For example, students can ask questions like “What are the most effective strategies for managing stress during the transition to college setting?”. Then, students will research and assess the applicability of different methods to themselves. This learning method is effective due to its self-engagement and applications to critical thinking. Note that first-year students are likely to be at different stages in their understanding and practice of these concepts. IBL allows students to explore the topic based on their own pace and individual needs and interests, making the process more relevant and engaging. IBL also promotes critical thinking, which is essential to university-level courses. Using this method, Students must research information, evaluate sources and analyze the applicability.

Imagine learning about self-care in a beach or outdoor area, where students can sit on a blanket to study. Students can look at the blue sky and trees in the background, as well as wind, bird songs, and maybe the sound of waves. This kind of atmosphere feels very relaxing and aligns with the theme. For students who cannot make it in person, we have good news for you. This is a blended course!

Our learners are mainly first year university students, usually around 18 to 20 years old. Students at this stage are new to university life and live independently for the first time. Learners need to have an interest in taking care of their mental and physical health management as well as fitness. Additionally, outdoor sports and social activities can be beneficial over long term. Students should come in with some basic understanding of self-care and mental health concepts.

At the end of this course:

• Students will be able to define what self-care is and identify key elements of self-care.
• Students will create personalized self-care strategies that reflect their lifestyle and strengths.
• Students will assess the efficacy of their self-care plans.
• Students will reflect on their physical and emotional growth.
• Students will utilize their problem-solving skills.
• Students will recognize and combat challenges that may hinder pursuing or maintaining self-care practices.

• Definition: Self-care is an essential part of becoming a well-rounded student, that often gets left behind. Two integral aspects of self-care reside in maintaining and improving physical and emotional wellness. The foundation of physical self-care promotes overall well-being.
• Key words:
  • SELF-CARE: the practice of taking time to pursue the things that bring you peace and joy to increase your mental, spiritual and physical health.
  • COPING STRATEGIES: behavioral and cognitive tactics that are used to manage situations that are distressing or stressful to the individual
• In this section of the course, you will delve into what self-care is and why it is important to incorporate into your daily lives. Self-care is an essential part of becoming a well-rounded student that often gets left behind. Myers and colleagues (2012) found that implementing self-care into your life increases students’ overall success rate and lowers their overall stress related to academia.
• Associated Learning Outcomes:
  • By the end of this section, you should all be able to define what self-care is and know the key sections of self-care.

The Two main factors of Self-care are:

1. Physical self-care is self-care that aims to improve or maintain one’s physical health. Examples of physical self-care include meditation and running.
2. Emotional/Mental self-care is self-care that promotes an individual’s emotional and mental wellness. Examples of emotional self-care include therapy, journaling and friendships

Self-care is not a one stop shop, it requires time and multiple methods of self-care to maintain an individual’s wellness. Self-care looks unique for everybody, with each person requiring their own types of support to keep themself healthy. Coping strategies and self-care practices are not fixed. Different times in people’s lives require individuals to shift their strategies to match what they need at that moment. For example, Jenn’s coping strategies are running for her physical health and journaling for her mental health. As finals roll around, Jenn may begin to feel that she requires more self-care and coping strategies for her emotional well-being and she may begin to run a little less and journal more or begin to seek counseling services.

As you can see, there is no one way to engage with self-care but instead it is a fluid process that is ever changing based on your needs.

READINGS AND VIEWINGS

Take a few minutes and engage with the readings and video below. While you do so, begin to brainstorm the self-care habits that you currently are using to maintain your overall wellness.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-self-care-5212781

POST VIDEO ACTIVITY

Now that you have had an introduction to self-care, please complete the mind-map below. You can either complete it on paper and hand it in in-person or complete the online copy that is linked below.

MIND MAP ACTIVITY

selfcare_mindmap .docx

Please create a mind-map outlining your current self-care strategies. Please keep similar topics together so you can see which sections of your self-care are reinforced stronger than others.

** IF YOU CHOOSE TO COMPLETE THE ONLINE TEMPLATE AND WANT TO USE SPEECH TO TEXT, PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK HERE TO EXPLAIN HOW 

Dictate your documents in Word – Microsoft Support**

Leading questions for the mind-map

• What types of physical self-care do you engage in? Why?
• What types of emotional self-care do you engage in? Why?

ONCE COMPLETED, PLEASE EITHER SUBMIT IN PERSON OR THROUGH THE GOOGLE FORM LINKED BELOW

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejh7Kt4K9jHMwwVSTepBOtylBPmZEdInOC1jn9PZve63CqGQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Reference

Myers, S. B., Sweeney, A. C., Popick, V., Wesley, K., Bordfeld, A., & Fingerhut, R. (2012). Self-care practices and perceived stress levels among psychology graduate students. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 6(1), 55–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026534

• Definition: Physical self-care depends on daily exercises, sleep time, and what we eat. Regular exercise enhances cardiovascular health, strengthens muscles, and boosts mental well-being (Warburton et al., 2006). Furthermore, adequate sleep is crucial for cognitive function, emotional regulation, and physical health, helping reduce the risk of chronic diseases (Hirshkowitz et al., 2015). Also, proper nutrition, including a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, supports physical health and prevents nutritional deficiencies (Micha et al., 2017). First-year students often experience a lack of guidance from their guardians for the first time. It can lead to the neglect of essential self-care practices. Our goal is to promote and navigate essential resources for freshmen.
• Sleep TBA(To Be Added)
• Physical activity TBA
• Nutrition TBA
  • Food guides? TBA
• Medical care TBA
• Hygiene TBA

• Definition: Emotional self-care involves any strategies that can be used to help people manage their emotions and feelings. It is important to direct efforts toward maintaining emotional wellness as academic research shows positive feelings of enjoyment will help university freshmen foster skills such as deep learning, self-regulation, and motivation (Earl, 2024). Similarly, a study by Webster and Hadwin (2015) showed that first-year students face a lot of unfamiliar difficulties, thus giving students the tools to regulate and monitor their emotions through self-care is a useful skill to offer freshman university students
• Stress management TBA
• Self-compassion TBA
• Healthy boundaries TBA
• Support systems and relationships TBA
  • Counselling services? TBA

Resources and Content for Preparation

Feel free to look at these extra materials and have a better sense of defining self-care.

Textbooks

https://collection.bccampus.ca/textbooks/university-success-university-of-saskatchewan-356/

Scholarly Articles

Futch, W., Gordon, N. S., & Gerdes, A. C. (2023). Student wellness: Interest and program ideas & pilot of a student wellness program. Journal of American College Health, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2023.2214241

Haskett, M. E., Majumder, S., Kotter- Grühn, D., & Gutierrez, I. (2021). The role of university students’ wellness in links between homelessness, food insecurity, and academic success. Journal of Social Distress and Homeless, 30(1), 59–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/10530789.2020.1733815

Grey Literature

Technology Tools

Home

Formative Assessments

• For formative assessments, we will be incorporating check-in medication, stress level test, wellness mind map, and self-care schedule.
  • Check-in meditation: Relaxation 
  • Stress level test: Rate their stress level on a scale of 1 to 10. We aim to analyze the level of stress and raise their awareness of their anxiety and emotions.
  • Wellness mind map: Allow students to write down their concerns and self-care strategies briefly. The purpose is to emphasize the importance of self-care, encouraging self-awareness, and developing coping mechanisms. It also helps students to explore different ways to manage stress and apply self-care.
  • Self-care schedule: Ask students to include self-care activities in their daily lives. 
• These formative assessments will be documented with Google Docs and students can comment on each other.
• Students may see their differences with others and learn how to improve their self-care.

Mind-map Activity

selfcare_mindmap .docx

Submission for Mind Map

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejh7Kt4K9jHMwwVSTepBOtylBPmZEdInOC1jn9PZve63CqGQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Summative Assessments:

The summative assessment for this course is a final reflection ~500 words assessing self-care.

Final Reflection Google Form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScr9NJXQ2GTSocanThkQivziUQwZu WuPpOpmOMuNPnQTaFSxQ/viewform

Please refer to the UVic undergraduate grading scale. 50% is the minimum grade for passing the course. The grading scale is based on a 9-point GPA letter grade system.

https://www.uvic.ca/calendar/future/undergrad/index.php#/policy/S1AAgoGuV?bc=true&bcCurrent=14%20-%20Grading&bcGroup=Undergraduate%20Academic%20Regulations&bcItemType=policies

Assessment Rationale:

Grades are not for discouraging students but rather a method to let students know their current understanding of the materials. This course is specifically designed for first-year undergraduate students and we focus on introducing the new campus life. The final grade for this course is based on the cumulative formative and summative assessments. We want students to succeed in life and utilize this knowledge in their daily lives.

The decision was made to use the principles found in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to ensure that all students can engage with the material in a meaningful way. UDL intends to remove the barriers that are often found in assessment and curriculum to offer equitable opportunities for all students to find success. The goal of such a program is to support learner agency through making choices in learning design that allow all students to actively participate in a way that allows them to meet the learning outcomes (CAST, 2018). Our course is offered through a blended format in hopes of reaching as many learners as possible. Being that this course relies on active participation and reflection, a blended approach leaves the student with numerous ways to engage with the material.

As per the principles of UDL, removing barriers that we find in the curriculum can benefit all learners. The main barriers that we discovered in our course were inaccessibility to resources and difficulty engaging with content

Being that our course is a blended format, students may struggle to access the materials and resources for the course. Not all students may have access to the same technology to allow them to engage equally with multimedia content. To meet the principle of Multiple Means of Representation, it is important to offer multiple formats for engagement to accommodate individuals with different learning preferences, technological capabilities, and personal needs (CAST, 2018). This disparity can create significant barriers to learning the material and completing assignments in the course. To try and break down the technological barrier, we decided to offer the information in multiple formats for the learner such as through readings, video lectures,  and in-person lecture components. The readings we included are offered in PDF form so that the individuals can have offline access to the material if needed and have the option of printing if that aligns better with their needs.  In addition to those with technical issues, students who are hard of hearing and or have English as a second language benefit from multiple formats for learning. This allows them to use varying forms of information to receive the same knowledge as their peers. To meet the needs of those with hearing difficulties and those still learning English, we chose videos that include captioning to aid in their understanding of the material.

In a course focused on self-care and personal growth, student engagement is an integral aspect of the learning experience. A barrier in this course is that it relies on the student’s ability to reflect and find personal relevance in the assignments. A study by Wong (2016) found that students struggle to reflect on themselves in academic writing. We can enhance their ability to reflect on their experience by finding nuanced ways for them to engage with the material by giving them multiple formats of engagement.  The principle of Engagement from the UDL is about offering students multiple ways to engage with the material and learn in unique ways (CAST, 2018). To try and remove this barrier, we gave students multiple ways to engage personally with the material such as guided personal reflection ( structured journal entries), goal-setting tasks tailored to their individual needs, mind-mapping, guided meditation, and stress testing. In addition to students who struggle with personal reflection, offering multiple styles of engagement allows learners of different learning styles to actively engage with the material in a way that aligns with them. For example, kinesthetic learners can engage with meditation exercises whereas visual learners may align closer with the mind-mapping activity. To further tailor each of the activities, students can submit their activities in numerous ways. For example, the Mind-mapping activity allows students to print and submit a handmade one in person or create a digital mind-map that allows them to type and use speech-to-text or audio recordings to make their map. Offering students numerous ways to complete the assignments allows students to complete the assignment in a way that aligns with their interests and strengths.

References

CAST, (2018). The UDL guidelines. The UDL Guidelines. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Wong, A. C. (2016). Considering reflection from the student perspective in Higher Education.SAGE Open, 6(1), 215824401663870. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016638706

For our course we chose to use various types of technology for the students to learn and interact with. We will be using WordPress, Microsoft Word and Google Forms. 

WORDPRESS: the online portion of our blended class can be found on a WordPress website. We chose this because the platform is very user friendly and easily accessible on numerous devices. Due to WordPress’s popularity, there are also numerous tutorials for how to use the platform and that additional support aided in our decision to use this platform (Learn wordpress).

MICROSOFT WORD is a very popular platform that is predominantly used by educational institutes . It is incredibly user friendly and allows students to complete their activities (mind-map) on a platform that they already have through school. Word also has a Dictate function that allows students to complete activities with a Text-To-Speech function (Microsoft).

GOOGLE FORMS is a tool that allows instructors to easily and effectively create and analyze the results of surveys. Our Interactive Learning Resource used google forms as a means of submitting work and completing formative and summative assessment. 

References

Google. (2023). What can you do with Forms? – Google Workspace Learning Center. Google Workspace. https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9302965?hl=en#

Learn wordpress. WordPress Tutorials for Beginners. (n.d.). https://wordpress.com/learn/

Microsoft. Microsoft Support. (n.d.). https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dictate-your-documents-in-word-3876e05f-3fcc-418f-b8ab-db7ce0d11d3c

This part will be updated after 8/7/2024. There will be links to each peer review and whether we will incorporate it with others’ suggestions.

CAST, (2018). The UDL guidelines. The UDL Guidelines. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Cobern, W. W. (1993). Constructivism. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 4(1), 105–112. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532768xjepc0401_8

Earl, S. R., Bishop, D., Miller, K., Davison, E., & Pickerell, L. (2024). First‐year students’ achievement emotions at university: A cluster analytic approach to understand variability in attendance and attainment. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 367–386. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12650

Google. (2023). What can you do with Forms? – Google Workspace Learning Center. Google Workspace. https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9302965?hl=en#

Hirshkowitz, M., Whiton, K., Albert, S. M., Alessi, C., Bruni, O., DonCarlos, L., Hazen, N., Herman, J., Katz, E. S., Kheirandish-Gozal, L., Neubauer, D. N., O’Donnell, A. E., Ohayon, M., Peever, J., Rawding, R., Sachdeva, R. C., Setters, B., Vitiello, M. V., Ware, J. C., & Adams Hillard, P. J. (2015). National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health, 1(1), 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010

Learn wordpress. WordPress Tutorials for Beginners. (n.d.). https://wordpress.com/learn/

Micha, R., Peñalvo, J. L., Cudhea, F., Imamura, F., Rehm, C. D., & Mozaffarian, D. (2017). Association Between Dietary Factors and Mortality From Heart Disease, Stroke, and Type 2 Diabetes in the United States. JAMA, 317(9), 912. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.0947

Microsoft. Microsoft Support. (n.d.). https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dictate-your-documents-in-word-3876e05f-3fcc-418f-b8ab-db7ce0d11d3c

Myers, S. B., Sweeney, A. C., Popick, V., Wesley, K., Bordfeld, A., & Fingerhut, R. (2012). Self-care practices and perceived stress levels among psychology graduate students. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 6(1), 55–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026534

Warburton, D. E. R., Nicol, C. W., & Bredin, S. S. D. (2006). Health Benefits of Physical activity: the Evidence. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 174(6), 801–809. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1402378/

Webster, E.A., & Hadwiin, A.F. (2015). Emotions and emotion regulation in undergraduate studying: examining students’ reports from a self-regulated learning perspective. Educational Psychology, 35(7), 794-818. doi:10.1080/01443410.2014.895292

Wong, A. C. (2016). Considering reflection from the student perspective in Higher Education. SAGE Open, 6(1), 215824401663870. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016638706