Wellbeing Library Project Officers
Daniel Reed (MSc) - Humanitarian Engineering with Sustainability
E-mail Address: D.reed@warwick.ac.uk
My Role:
Hello! My name is Daniel Reed, over the course of this project I have been studying as a postgraduate master’s student at Warwick in Humanitarian Engineering with Sustainability. This is where I found out about the Wellbeing Pedagogies Project, as the Project Lead (Dr Riva) was teaching a module and signposted the position. I have always had a proclivity for wellbeing and often chose essay titles throughout my undergraduate in Global Sustainable Development that looked at the various knock on effects of positive or negative wellbeing. For these reasons, I became very keen to contribute to the project and feel very lucky to have had the chance to do so.
In the earlier stages, Udokama and I worked alongside the guidance of Elena, Claudie and the wellbeing learning circle at Warwick to develop the direction of the project. After some initial research and discussion, we mapped out a series of themes, categories and questions that we wanted to focus on specifically. Once we finalised our questions and interview style, as Project Officers, we interviewed a wide array of staff from Warwick, focusing on their teaching strategies and how they relate to wellbeing in the learning environment. We then highlighted key pedagogies, producing an original list of over 100 different teaching strategies which I condensed down to just over 50 which we selected for the resource. From here, I worked in tandem with Zoë and Bendik Anderson from IATL to build the website and upload the content we captured from student and staff interviews.
As I mentioned, I consider myself extremely lucky for the opportunity to work on this project and see it develop and grow over the course of 6 months. I have learnt so many wonderful skills, but the most interesting part for me has been learning how much student wellbeing is valued by staff. It has been hugely gratifying to take part in a project that has the opportunity to impact the wellbeing of future students and on a personal level, I feel very proud to leave behind a contribution to Warwick in the form of this valuable resource.
Udokama Iwumene (BSc/MSc) - School of Engineering
E-mail Address: U.iwumene@warwick.ac.uk
My Role:
I’m Udokama, currently completing my masters year for the Meng Mechanical Engineering degree at Warwick. Given my particular interest in wellbeing in professional and educational settings, I thought this role would be a great experience! In one of my previous roles, I had conducted similar research on wellbeing in the workplace and my final year dissertation investigated improving the wellbeing of individuals, through learning environments at Warwick. Due to this, I believed I would utilise my developed skills to contribute positively towards the project whilst also being able to learn more about the learning environment.
Working with a colleague on this project, I interviewed staff and students, from various departments, on their experience in the incorporation of wellbeing into the curriculum. For this, I contributed towards the development of questions, strategies and logistics in order to conduct such interviews. I virtually met with numerous individuals to discuss their experience, all of whom had insightful comments to share. I processed the responses from these interviews, highlighting reoccurring themes, to produce a comprehensive list of wellbeing pedagogies to be included in the online library. Alongside this, I designed the layout, themes and content for the online library.
Working on this project has been invaluable. I met with incredible individuals who each added significant value to the pedagogies library. One thing I have learned is how diverse the experiences are across the university and how this can be used to produce beneficial resources for the community. I learned how to interact and engage with professionals at the university and gained a better insight into their experience as educators.
This online resource library will constitute an effective tool for finding strategies, examples and helpful approaches to bring positive wellbeing conditions to life in classrooms and beyond. I believe this could transform the learning environment at Warwick, and I look forward to seeing the resource prove to be a useful tool for the incorporation of student and staff wellbeing into the university culture.
Zoë Nobileau (BA) - History Department
E-mail Address: Z.nobileau@warwick.ac.uk
My Role:
I’m Zoë, a graduate history student at Warwick. I joined the project in its final stages and my role has primarily involved the building of the website and the creation of video interviews that are found in the library. This process involved a significant amount of design work – selecting the library photos and negotiating content layout – as well as creating the pedagogy pages, which include either written or video information on tried and tested wellbeing pedagogies.
The experience I have gained working on this project has been invaluable. I began with little prior knowledge of the array of teaching strategies that existed to improve wellbeing. The project thus allowed me to develop an appreciation for the efforts made by staff at Warwick to improve the student experience. I feel grateful for having had the opportunity to engage with academics from a wide range of faculties to discuss innovative pedagogical strategies. The actualization of the Online Wellbeing Library was the most rewarding aspect for me, specifically how the months of collected information – from research, collaboration and discussion – was all finally collated into a seamless and interactive platform.
I hope this online library will help foster a recognition for the value of cross-faculty cooperation to improve the wellbeing environment at Warwick. It demonstrates how even minor changes in the learning environment can have an enormous impact on individual wellbeing. I hope that during my masters degree I will see first-hand how some of these practises are implemented.
Bendik Andersen - IATL
E-mail Address: bendik.anderson@warwick.ac.uk
Role:
Bendik worked as the website programmer for the Wellbeing Library. He worked alongside Daniel and Zoe to get the website up and running, handling the more technical aspects of its creation and bringing all the team's original ideas to life. His contribution meant the process of making the website live was efficient and seamless.