Wellness in the Classroom Portfolio | Irene Bersola-Nguyen

CHAD 35F:

Human Development and Elementary Field Experience

Having participated in the Wellness in the Classroom FLC gave me the opportunity to create something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. The Irene’s Wellbeing Challenge Student Handout consisted of different aspects of my personal wellness journey—from recognizing mind-body connection to the importance of rest and digest. The quotes, articles, and videos I incorporated in the handout were things I’ve collected over the years including those that I acquired from this FLC. Thus, when given the assignment to create our own Student Wellness Handout in FLC, I naturally conceptualized the theme of “Finding Your BLISS” where I provided a variety of informative links for my students to learn about what each letter in B-L-I-S-S represented. Below is the link to the handout:

Irene's Wellbeing Challenge.pdf Download Irene's Wellbeing Challenge.pdf 

I designed Irene’s Wellbeing Challenge as a weekly online Extra Credit activity for my students during the first half of the semester (since I just wanted to pilot this project this semester). They could earn up to 2.5 points for the BLISS activities they did each week (with .5 point for each activity). I also put each student in an online discussion group so they could encourage one another to participate. At the end of the seventh week, I added up the total points earned by each group and the group that had the most points won an additional 5 points extra credit.

The result of my Wellbeing Challenge was deeply meaningful for my students and myself. I learned a great deal and made connections with them outside of the coursework. For example, I learned which students enjoyed spending time with family and/or friends versus those who prefer spending time alone. I also learned the types of books they enjoyed reading and the podcasts they listen to.

The Wellness Strategies I aimed to implement were: Positive Classroom Culture: Taking Care of One's Wellbeing, Developing a Teaching Philosophy, and Building Social Connections. Although all of the FLC activities were helpful to me in fulfilling my goals, I found the video on Trauma-Informed Pedagogy to be most useful since it provided me a different perspective on how I could improve my students' learning experience by putting their well-being first and foremost.

Evidence

An example of a student's entry for his weekly BLISS An example of social interaction between students about their weekly BLISS

Examples of Students' Feedback on Irene's Wellbeing Challenge “I truly enjoy the extra credit challenge; it helps me be more reflective and motivates me to accomplish more of my goals. I tend to struggle with being more positive and acknowledging how life is not always about one certain thing. There is so much one can do to genuinely feel good about your life no matter what the circumstances are.” “I really enjoy the extra credit. I feel that it helps push us to be a better person and get out and do something. I also like that we are able to talk with classmates about things that we have done. It is a good activity to help people check up on their mental health and remind them to do something they enjoy.” "Writing these things down gives me motivation and accomplishment when I do small things for myself. Thank you for giving us the opportunity and helping us with our own lives.”

Moving Forward

Having piloted Irene's Wellbeing Challenge this semester, I learned several things: (1) students enjoy documenting ways they personally practice self-care; (2) they find pleasure in sharing with others the activities they do for their wellbeing; and (3) they appreciate being given the opportunity to improve their academic performance by taking care of themselves.

For future courses, I plan on starting Irene's Wellbeing Challenge Extra Credit early in the semester and will extend it until the end. I will also change it to bi-weekly to give students more time to complete the challenge, and I will provide a different BLISS example each time on the instructions.  Furthermore, I plan on using the Wellness in the Classroom Toolkit Checklist as a guide to making sure that I address as many components as I can. I will incorporate the exercises I learned from the Wellness FLC in the beginning of my class meetings, and I will make sure to provide and promote the Wellness Resources on Our Campus to my students. Having participated in this FLC has given me additional tools as a CSUS Wellness Ambassador and as a certified CSU Mental Health First Aider. Last and not least, I will constantly remind myself to practice what I preach and be a role model for self-care and well-being.

Faculty Biography

Irene Bersola-Nguyen, PhD, CYT is a teacher at heart. She has been a Lecturer in the Undergraduate Studies program for the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento since 1997. She has also served as a primary school teacher in public and private schools, and has taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in adult education. In all the different settings she teaches, she incorporates her more than 15 years of experience as a yoga instructor. Her personal mantra is “Each human body is made as a perfect temple that needs to be fully cared for in order to serve others.”

 

Sponsors

This work was supported by the CSU Office of the Chancellor, Sacramento State Division of Academic Affairs, and Sacramento State Student Health and Counseling Services.