Feeling good is how we feel physically, mentally and emotionally. Everyone will have times where they do not feel good. You may feel physically poorly, or mentally and emotionally drained and struggling. There will be times when you may not feel good or function well and at these times, it is important to have a toolkit that you can use to help yourself and to make positive changes. The more you practice these skills, the more you will understand what works best for you. Subsequently it is important to promote these strategies and focal points to colleagues and students.

Allocating reading material is a strategy that can promote co-production, peer-to-peer learning and alleviate workload for students in a seminar setting. The idea is to allocate a proportion of the articles or research papers from a week’s reading list; then create small groups (3-4) and divide the reading responsibilities equally between the different members of each group. At this stage, invite each member to provide a condensed series of notes for each of the readings they’ve been assigned to be brought in for the subsequent seminar. In the next seminar, you invite the groups to go through their notes and engage in a peer-to-peer learning exercise. This helps build on class integration, interpersonal skills and access to a wider range of reading material for class discussion.

An e-portfolio is a digital collection of evidence and artefacts that represents the knowledge, skills, and accomplishments of an individual or group. There are different types of e-portfolios but in SMLC we use the ‘assessment portfolio’, where our students can reflect about their learning, achievements and challenges in their own time. Thus, it can be very beneficial in the promotion of metacognition. It can also include more specific tasks or group work projects. Another advantage of using these online platforms is that students can be creative and include audio-visual materials.

This approach is for use in anticipation of a short to medium term project in which students are to work together in a team. It affords the team the opportunity to identify and agree to a set of ground rules in the form of a social contract which they will all respect in order to facilitate optimal teamworking and consideration of one another’s wellbeing.

Acknowledging emails is a very simple wellbeing practice to put in place. It takes very little time to send a quick response acknowledging receipt of an e-mail. Within a learning and teaching context, it helps to set boundaries and expectations. The acknowledgement of an e-mail reassures the recipient that you have received their communication, but also gives you a little more time to respond, helping you to manage your own workload.

In order to improve student inclusion in teamwork, student experience and learning from the outcomes associated with group work, and student access to help and support, team formation methods should be considered. This pedagogy advises the use of personality profiling, and consideration of student’s ‘minority status’ to form well-balanced teams.