Wellbeing is a collective issue and a collective responsibility. As University instructors, we can support students at the level of course design, course content, assignment and assessment design, and class community building. We can ground our teaching in the core values of trauma-sensitive pedagogy – safety, trustworthiness, choice and control, collaboration, and empowerment – and welcome multiple, culturally-sensitive and intersectionally-nuanced understandings of health and wellbeing.

Trauma-aware or trauma-sensitive frameworks can offer an equity lens to ” positive youth development” by especially emphasizing the creation of safety, empowerment, and autonomy through a range of strength-based (rather than deficit-focused) practices. Dr. Shawn Ginwright‘s approach to ” healing-centered engagement” helps us understand limitations in trauma-informed care, however. Although understanding the effects of trauma in ourselves and our societies is certainly important, his work suggests that it can sometimes focus too much attention on traumas experienced by isolated individuals, and not enough on the effects of collective harm. It may also focus too much on treatment of pathology, and not enough on fostering wellbeing.

Cultural awareness and cultural affirmation are also key components of these models. Place-responsive (also called place-based or land-based) pedagogies use project-based or experiential tasks to help students explore how historical, cultural, environmental, geographical and other aspects of place are interconnected. These approaches often center decolonizing and Indigenous perspectives on the land. Research shows that place-responsive education, when framed as a form of critical pedagogy oriented toward sustainability and equity, can enable transformative learning and shift perspectives towards decolonization.

Similarly, “regenerative sustainability” education recognizes the interconnectedness of human and environmental well-being via an ethic of restoration rather than harm reduction. Teaching “traditional” practices of interacting with place, such as making fire or walking the land, creates a connection to place that can instill in students a sense of responsibility toward local and global landscapes. Research emphasizes how this type of learning can transform human relations to the environment, bring forth Indigenous perspectives on relating to place and land, stimulate environmental ethics, and expand understanding of gender and decolonization. In addition, a large body of research emphasizes the effects of place-responsive programs to student wellness. Mental health benefits from such programs include positive changes to self-concept and self-esteem, compassion, cognitive autonomy, reduced absence from school, increased group cohesion, and prejudice reduction.

Using Windvane in Your Course

This project was designed to be used in a university or college classroom. These materials have been designed for students to explore with the aim of formulating their own understanding(s) of what it means to be well. A step-by-step path for students is outlined at Start Where We Are. Instructors could use these steps to frame an assignment, possibly with points of reflection throughout the semester, such as the examples below.

For additional reflection questions, be sure to check out the Reflect and Practice sections in each participant page for more specific questions that could be integrated into student work (for example, see Iehnhotonkwas Bonnie Jane Maracle‘s Reflect and Practice section). The Understanding Stress and Suffering, Explore Wellbeing and Cultivate Awareness pages also have Reflect and Practice sections with questions that could be used or adapted for coursework. These could be assigned as part of journal writing or group discussion. Many pages also have Learn More or References sections with additional resources.

Other ideas for incorporating teaching methods that support students’ wellbeing can be found in the videos below. The Principles and Practices to Enhance Classroom Emotional Safety, adapted from the University of Buffalo, explain how we can adapt the presentation of content in the classroom, the design of assignments and policies, the organization of classroom environment, and more. For more ideas, see also a bibliography on building communities of care in the classroom and on trauma-informed pedagogy, as well as additional resources at the bottom of this page.

In 2019, Dr. Frances Garrett started including a “self-care” assignment in her undergraduate courses in Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto. The overwhelmingly positive feedback from students on that assignment inspired the creation of Windvane. Students in her courses used the University of Buffalo School of Social Work’s Self-Care Starter Kit to organize their work on this semester-long assignment, with three simple written reflections required throughout the semester. These were ungraded but mandatory surveys completed on the course Learning Management System. A sample of some questions asked in these surveys is below – you can see that they are short and simple, although many students wrote extensively in response to these questions. Students also wrote a concluding reflection on the overall process of engaging in this work throughout the semester and how they saw it to be related to or supportive of other course content or other courses they were taking. Course instructors and teaching assistants responded to each survey with care and attention. The assignment was “ungraded,” meaning that students offered their own concluding assessment of their work (see below for a video on the practice of ungrading).

Example survey questions

Survey #1 (beginning of the semester):

Describe which articles you read in the first steps of this assignment. What were some things you found most interesting? Did you learn anything new?

Discuss the process of completing all of the assessment forms for this project. You don’t have to tell me any specifics about yourself, if you’d like those to be private. But how was the experience of giving this material some serious thought? Does it feel valuable or important to you? (Or does it not?)

Do you have a good plan for keeping yourself accountable, in terms of your maintenance self-care plan? Would you like to find an accountability buddy from this class? If so, let me know and I’ll try to connect you with someone.

The emergency self-care plan suggests that you write your plan out on a 3×5 card. Maybe you don’t have access to that kind of card right now – but you could write it on a piece of paper and keep it on your desk, in your wallet, or in your backpack or purse. Which of these kinds of things have you done?

Survey #2 (mid-semester):

How are you doing at following your plan? If you’re having trouble, what’s making it challenging? Do you think you want to modify your plan at this point in the semester?

Survey #3 (end of semester):

How are you doing now at keeping up with your plan? If you’re having trouble, what’s making it challenging? Do you think you want to modify your plan?

Please discuss how you feel you’ve done with the self-care assignment in this course overall. Did you take it seriously and do your best to follow your plans? Did you give it thought throughout the semester and modify your plan as needed?

What “grade” do you think you deserve for this assignment, and why? (Please use letter grades, not numbers.)