Resilience in the classroom: Wise interventions to enhance creative and reflective learning

Abstract

Wise interventions are short, targeted interventions that aim to alter a specific aspect of a person’s daily functioning in order to help them flourish. In the context of well-being scholarship, wise interventions can promote growth in knowledge and personal well-being, and data suggests that increases in resilience promote academic excellence. In this presentation, we discuss and demonstrate how instructors across academic disciplines and levels can deliver brief (30 minute) wise interventions to teach students the foundational concepts of resilience and in turn, help students build their personal reservoirs of resilience. We demonstrate an interactive framework for presenting these interventions: do, understanding, learn, and apply. In particular, we share modules that are already prepared and available for all faculty to access from the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. While a range of resilience topics will be provided, this presentation highlights two key data driven resilience topics: 1) affirming one’s values and 2) exercising one’s personal strengths. Other modules will be introduced so that faculty can pick what best meets their students’ needs, knowing that all modules have existing data suggesting effectiveness of these interventions. We will also discuss ways that instructors can address potential challenges in delivering these interventions, including managing students’ uncomfortable or distressing emotions. In summary, this presentation will offer tools for instructors that engage creative and reflective learning, teach the latest science behind resilience, and ultimately build students’ capacity to be resilient in the face of adversity.