Ideas

• Stretching: Take a few moments during class to allow for light stretching as a quick way to allow you and the students to take a break and ensure the students aren't sitting for too long. Pausing from lectures and stretching can also increase student attentiveness!
• Class Check-In Activities: During class, simply ask the group how they are doing, how stressed they are feeling, etc. If you notice some students say they are not doing well or are struggling in some way, you could then suggest resources or offer time for them to talk to you after class or during office hours.
• Mindfulness Exercises: At the beginning of class, lead your students in a single or a series of quick mindfulness activities.
  • Breathing Exercises: Have students breath in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, breath out for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Continue as needed.
  • Gratitude: Have students write at the top of their notebooks three things they are grateful for, three things they are excited to do this weekend, or three things that have gone well recently.
• Resource Reminder: At the beginning of class, simply mention that there are resources available to support their well-being if they need it. Potential places you can reference are if you have resources listed in your syllabus or the health and well-being resource directory.
• Promotion of Health and Wellness Events and Presentations: If you are aware of any health or wellness related events happening on campus (such as Mental Well-Being Awareness Week, a speaker, or a musical performance), give students a brief plug or reminder of the event. This allows students to stay connected with events and presentations they may not otherwise hear about.

Ideas

• Don't Cancel Class: If you know ahead of time that you will be missing a class, consider requesting a health and wellness presentation through the Student Well-Being office instead of cancelling.
• Classroom Comment Cards: At the beginning or end of class, pass around sticky notes or index cards and ask students to write down their thoughts, comments, concerns, or struggles with the course or with school in general. Then later, you can reflect on what was written and respond to the students accordingly. Having this as an opportunity multiple times throughout the semester is very valuable in understanding the changing needs of your students.
• Adding Syllabus Statement or Other Content to Canvas: In your syllabus or in Canvas, provide information on health and well-being resources that are available to students. Some resources to feature could be Student Well-Being, Student Support and Community Standards, Student Health, Student Diversity Initiatives, and Equity and Title IX. You can find a sample syllabus statement below:

  "Your well-being is important, and it contributes to your success in this course. At S&T, we provide resources to support your mental, physical, and social well-being. Any of us can experience challenges that make learning difficult. If you are struggling, take advantage of the following resources offered by the university:

  Student Well-Being (https://wellbeing.mst.edu/)

  Student Well-Being provides counseling services, health promotion initiatives, and prevention programs to empower the S&T community to thrive and enhance personal, academic, and professional success. Department office hours are Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. On the website, you can find information related to confidential individual and group counseling, wellness consultations and trainings, resources for many health and wellness topics, and help for mental health crisis situations.

  For the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, call or text 988, or visit missouri988.org.

  Health and Well-Being Canvas Course (https://umsystem.instructure.com/enroll/G3LY3G)

  The Health and Well-Being Canvas Course features trainings, presentations, and other health and well-being resources for students. The course is free for all students, is non-credit, and students can enroll at any point in the semester."

• Resource PowerPoint Slides: Whenever you are planning on using a PowerPoint in your lectures, consider adding slides at the beginning or end that highlight a few health and wellness resources. If you'd prefer not to make them on your own, Student Well-Being will occasionally create some that are housed here that you may find helpful.
• Add Positive/Fun Details into Your Slides: A quick and easy way that can brighten students' moods is to add fun videos, images, or inspiring quotes to your slides or handouts.
• Health and Wellness Assignments: Consider fusing mental health and wellness into the classroom by asking students to complete an assignment that is health and wellness related that allows them to focus on their overall well-being. This allows for an emphasis on health and well-being without requiring you to do a lot of the initial work. Some examples of assignments could be:
  • Writing a short reflection paper on how they manage their stress and sharing with other students
  • Leading a class discussion on building healthy coping skills 
  • Giving a short demonstration at the beginning of class on a mindfulness exercise
  • Researching health and wellness related apps to share with the class or add to a document that can be shared
• Adjusting Your Timeline to Better Support Students: While this might not always be possible, consider adjusting certain assignment deadlines to help promote sleep hygiene and to help alleviate stress during busier times of year.
• Social Connectedness Activities: At the beginning or end of class, allow time for students to feel connected with their peers. You could provide prompts that require them to socialize with the others around them without it feeling too uncomfortable. Some prompts could be:
  • "Share with the people around you your favorite ways to destress after a long week"
  • "Get into small groups and work to find 5 similarities between you all, outside of being a student at Missouri S&T"
  • "Get into small groups and work to find 3 items that are on everyone's bucket list"
  • You could give prompts as well that both allow for social connection but are also related to class, such as:
    • "Get into small groups and complete the first half of the assignment together, and make sure that everyone fully understands the topic"
• Health and Wellness Promotional Materials: Reach out to health and well-being departments on campus and ask if they will provide you with small flyers or handouts to give to your students. These could be general resource promotion or information on a specific topic.
• Incorporate Opportunities for Sharing Personal History and Culture in Class Assignments: Many students, especially international or first generation students, may appreciate being provided with opportunities to share their backgrounds and experiences in ways that showed their perspectives and contributions are valued. This additionally allows students to feel more connection with fellow classmates. 
  • This type of activity would require little preparation on your end, and could need only a few minutes at the beginning or end of class to showcase a student's work.

Ideas

• Promote Sense of Belonging using the Six Feelings Framework for the Classroom (Microsoft Word document)
• Avoiding Undue Stress: Despite good intentions, in pursuit to push our students towards academic excellence, we can unintentionally cause undue or unnecessary stress on our students. This undue stress can have the opposite effect of what we're intending, causing students to feel hopeless, out of place, or as though they can never catch up. Try asking yourself these questions to determine whether or not you are causing undue stress:
  • Do you often encourage competition between students, especially if there is no valuable reason or purpose for the competition?
  • When you have to turn down a student’s request, do you offer alternatives or leave them to figure out next steps on their own?
  • Are you quick to hand out criticism, or are you extremely thoughtful about giving negative feedback?
  • Has a student ever told you they were afraid to come to your office hours or that you seem unapproachable?
  • Do you find yourself feeling impatient or even annoyed when communicating with students?
  • If you found yourself answering yes to any of these questions, you may be contributing to additional and unnecessary stress of students. Learn more and find information to help here (starting at page 139)
• Creating A Safe Space: Creating a safe space in your classroom, or making yourself the safe space, requires long term and ongoing preparations, and ideally starts at the beginning of the semester when students are first getting to know you. Creating a safe space doesn't necessarily mean altering the physical space, but more creating an environment around you and the students that allows for the students to feel comfortable and a sense of belonging. Some ideas for creating a safe space are below.
  • Valuable introductions: Start of by sharing your name, pronouns, and maybe relevant personal information about yourself, showing the students that you are a person and not just their professor. If you feel uncomfortable sharing personal information, that's okay! Consider passing around notecards for students to share their pronouns, preferred name, and any considerations they want made for that class (such as certain non-mandated accommodations, preferred learning styles, things they are struggling with, etc). This allows them to open up to you and share what they need without doing so in front of the entire class.
  • Choosing your language carefully: Maintaining a safe space requires work over time, not just a few small gestures spread throughout the semester. Ensure that you are using students' proper names and pronouns, not using outdated language, and are showing empathy when student concerns arise.
  • Person first focus: When students come to you with personal or academic concerns, think of them as a person first, and not just someone who is falling behind in your class. Ask them if they would like to talk more about what they are struggling with and how you can help. 
  • VAR Method: Consistently using the VAR method can enhance your ability to act as a safe space for your students. This means "Validate, Appreciate, and Refer". If a student comes to you with a personal or academic concern, first validate ("I'm so sorry you've been feeling this way/dealing with this concern, that sounds really stressful!"), appreciate them coming to you for support ("I really appreciate you trusting me enough to bring this up, I know how hard it can be to ask for help."), and refer them to any appropriate resources ("You mentioned you are struggling in your personal life. I'm not really an expert in that area but I know the Student Well-Being office offers group and individual counseling, that could be really helpful for this. Can I give you their contact information?" or "I understand that you've been struggling with the coursework, I'd love to get you connected to tutoring because they can be really helpful in explaining topics in different ways that can be valuable. Here is the information to get set up with that and let me what else I can do to support you!")
• Alternative Format Assignments: While this will not work for all assignments, it can be very valuable to work to learn your students' different preferred learning styles and adjust your assignments to allow for them to work on it in that way (ie instead of requiring a paper as the only submission format, give the options for students to instead prepare a presentation, work with a group, create a video or podcast, etc). 
• Plan for In-Class Work and Relaxation Time: When preparing your class outlines for the semester, consider scheduling set time in (some or all) classes to allow for stretching, mindfulness exercises, a break in long lectures or labs, or time for students to work on their assignments. Having a predictable and scheduled time allows for this to be a consistently valuable asset to students, instead of having time randomly left over here and there. This can also help you build connections with students as that free time can allow them to talk with you if they need support. Additionally, scheduled time such as this can make a big impact in signifying you as a safe space.
• Integrate Career, Educational, and Well-Being Goal Exploration in Class and Assignments: Giving students an opportunity for exploration in the classroom can help students draw connections between their educational, career, and well-being goals and coursework, and in turn, find greater relevance in course content. This also allows them to find other students in class that have similar goals.

Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence (CAFE)

The Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence (CAFE) empowers and educates faculty/instructors to become the most effective educators possible. Some specific resources that may be helpful for your classroom are:

• Faculty Development Programs
• ACUE Online Teaching Toolkit
• Teaching Programs and Support
• Digital Resource Library
• Teaching Resources

National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD)

The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) is an independent faculty development center that offers live and recorded webinars, courses, mentoring, and workshops. The UM System has an institutional membership to NCFDD, meaning any faculty member, post-doctoral fellow, graduate, or professional student at a UM System university can access the breadth of NCFDD resources at any time.

Website

Learn about creating accessible digital content here (Microsoft word document).

Download tips for planning accessible in person events and meetings here (Microsoft word document).