Engelhard Project: Linking Academic Content to Students' Mental Health and Wellness
Georgetown's Engelhard Project supports faculty who work with university health professionals to integrate the study of mental health and wellness issues into their courses' academic content. Panelists, both university faculty and health professionals, will share the benefits and challenges of this project and explore the impact of this type of engaged pedagogy on their students and on the classroom. There will be ample time for questions and discussion.
Emotional Intelligence
This workshop will offer an overview of emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is a set of non-cognitive competencies and skills that develop over time. These competencies change and can be improved through training and intervention programs. They can be used to predict a number of "success in life" variables. Five broad composites measured on the EQi (short version) include the realms of interpersonal, intrapersonal, stress management, adaptability, and general mood. Health Education Services staff are conducting research in the area of emotional intelligence and college health behaviors. Using the research results as a guide, we hope ultimately to develop a program of intervention that will enhance students' academic and personal development. Other current applications furthering student development through the use of emotional intelligence will be discussed.
Campus Conflict Prevention and Empathy-Based Mediation Introduction
This interactive session introduces the idea of a campus service intended to handle challenging conversations and conflicts, related to diversity issues or other topics, in a way that supports the community as a whole and the well-being of all those involved. The workshop will offer basic, introductory training as a Discussion Assistant using Nonviolent Communication (NVC) empathy and related processes for facilitating such conversations. Using situations provided by participants, we will role-play and/or practice mediation with coaching. Situations may be from workplace, home, or other parts of participants' lives.
Ultimately, we envision that trained Discussion Assistants would be available to faculty, students, Student Affairs and Residence Life staff, and others to help them think through how to communicate productively about an issue prior to an anticipated conversation on or off campus. Discussion Assistants could also act directly as a third party support person by attending a conversation, if accepted by all parties.
Student Learning Styles
Both students and instructors have preferred ways of taking in and processing information. Research on learning styles has indicated that undergraduate students and university faculty often have different learning style preferences, suggesting that developing flexibility in our approaches to teaching and learning could benefit both students and instructors. This workshop will introduce you to a variety of frameworks for assessing learning styles, including a free online inventory that you can take yourself or direct your students to use in exploring their learning styles. We will also discuss Kolb's 'learning cycle' and how you can use it to increase your ability to reach a wider variety of students in your classes whose learning preferences may differ from your own.
Evaluating Academically Troubled Students
The transition between high school and college can pose challenges for students academically, emotionally and socially. The Academic Resource Center (ARC) provides academic support for students who might be struggling in classes by assessing their situation, determining appropriate learning strategies, and making referrals to other University resources. This session will introduce faculty to the strategies and resources the ARC provides in evaluating a student's academic challenge, to determine whether the student's difficulties extend beyond one particular class. Workshop participants will learn how they can become more aware of student difficulties and how to appropriately refer students to the ARC for assistance in developing an individual educational plan.
Who Are Our Students?
What do you know about the students you teach? When they are not in the classroom, what are our GU students doing? Where do they hang out? Who are their friends? What's playing on their iPods? What are they passionate about? This panel of Student Affairs professionals who live and work right alongside of the students will share their experiences with who our students are outside the classroom. Please join us and see how your classroom teaching experience could benefit from gaining valuable insight into your students as whole persons.
Mindfulness in Education: Cultivating Awareness for Life & Learning
What do Georgetown's John Main Center for Meditation, the Engelhard curriculum infusion project (integrating student mental health and wellness issues into the intellectual substance of lower division courses), and the School of Medicine's elective course in 'Mind-Body Medicine' have in common? They all support the Jesuit principle of cura personalis (caring for the whole person) as an integral component of Georgetown's educational mission.
Preparing students for lives of compassion for others and a sense of wholeness and health for themselves calls for a level of self-awareness that is often brought forth through mindfulness and meditation practices, which support the cognitive-affective connection in learning. Realizing the importance of this link for faculty and students alike has become increasingly part of the fabric of Georgetown.
This interactive session will introduce and demonstrate a variety of applications of mindfulness and mediation and how these practices can be used as tools for stress management, communication and personal growth in our lives, in the lives of our students and in our classrooms.
Contemplative Pedagogies
Join Dennis McAuliffe, Georgetown Professor of Italian and co-founder of the John Main Center for Meditation and Interreligious Dialogue, for a conversation about the practice and use of contemplative pedagogies in your courses. While it is not necessary nor is it required to have attended Michael Baime's session just prior to this session, it purposely follows Baime’s talk so that participants will have the option of first becoming acquainted with the basics of meditation, one type of contemplative pedagogy, before learning about the educational uses of the practice.
Moving Outside of Your Comfort Zone: Dealing with Oppression
Many diversity training programs focus around the fun and exciting elements of diversity. How can faculty encourage students to experience diversity beyond cultural performances and food? The "Tunnel of Oppression," created three years ago as a training tool for the Office of Residence Life, is an activity that pushes student participants outside of their comfort zone by challenging them to recognize both subtle and harsh oppression in our everyday society. Students engage with deeper questions, such as: What happens when, specifically because of our differences, we do not agree? This session will review the learning goals of the Tunnel of Oppression; suggest how and when you might integrate student experiences with the Tunnel into your courses; and explore other questions about campus diversity.
"Did you say what I think you said!?" Managing Emotion in the Classroom
In the American academic tradition, the expression of strong emotion is generally not considered appropriate in the classroom. However, there are 'hot button' topics that when discussed in class can trigger emotional responses from both students and faculty, especially if they involve issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or politics. This workshop will focus on how to recognize and manage our own emotional triggers, introduce effective tools for defusing and managing an intense discussion, and explore the educational value of managed conflict in the classroom.
Difficult Moments in the Classroom: Authenticity and compassionate communication with students
With students of all ages, we may experience challenges around interaction and participation—for example, everyone may be silent, some participants may speak over others, and heated debating may devolve into a situation where participants experience the interaction as angry, attacking, and/or hurtful. Yet these may also be moments with great potential for deep learning. Nonviolent communication (NVC), as an intention held by a discussion facilitator, a tool for direct communication with students, and a practice that can be shared, offers a set of options for engaging with emotionally charged situations in a way that supports connection and learning. This workshop will function as a brief introduction to NVC theory followed by interactive discussion. We will explore practicing this approach using situations provided by participants.