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September 23, 2024

UW introduces ‘Five for Flourishing,’ an innovative suite of academic interventions to help students thrive

Every year, undergraduates at the University of Washington start their college experience, often in cavernous classrooms, learning alongside dozens, if not hundreds, of their peers. Research shows that taking these courses — some prerequisites and other classes on popular topics — can make students feel isolated, scared and not up to the task.

To confront loneliness and promote student well-being, the UW is piloting a two-year project called “Five for Flourishing” that provides instructors with five simple academic interventions to support students and help them succeed. Sponsored by the UW Resilience Lab, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Provost’s office, Five for Flourishing’s initial cohort — 13 instructors of large classes from all three UW campuses — will use the strategies to help welcome students, show compassion and support them in their academic journeys.

“Addressing mental health and well-being on a college campus requires a comprehensive approach,” said Megan Kennedy, director of the Resilience Lab, whose mission is to promote well-being among UW students, faculty and staff. “This is an intervention where we can activate the learning environment for undergraduate students in large classes with minimal effort by the instructors and make a difference.”

Inspired by similar, but more intensive programs at other institutions, Philip Reid, vice provost of Academic and Student Affairs, and Marisa Nickle, senior director of Strategy & Academic Initiatives, saw an opportunity for the UW’s students. What emerged is a simple turnkey program that provides instructors with interventions to work into their curriculums.

“We know that students, especially incoming first-year students, can experience anxiety and stress at times,” Provost Tricia Serio said. “We’re so excited to offer our instructors a program that welcomes students and helps set them on a path to succeed in the classroom and on campus, while acknowledging that they may be navigating these challenging feelings.”

In 2020, the Resilience Lab published an 87-page handbook for instructors that outlined a number of interventions to support student well-being. By contrast, Five for Flourishing is designed to be a streamlined, simple tool for instructors to add to their teaching plan.

Here’s how it works: Five for Flourishing begins by adding a message to course syllabuses that welcomes students, creates a sense of belonging and normalizes asking for support, even when students are stressed by factors outside the classroom.

Next, Five for Flourishing provides a quarter’s worth of welcome-to-class slides specific to each UW campus that point to wellness resources, cultural happenings, ways to participate in democracy, and opportunities for students to connect with one another.

Instructors will encourage students, especially before and after exams or big assignments, to adopt a growth mindset — the notion that these academic tasks aren’t a reflection of their self-worth or intelligence, but rather a method to determine a student’s strengths and areas for additional learning.

“This builds on a lot of research on the misperception that intelligence is fixed,” said Penelope Moon, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. “The reality is that intelligence isn’t fixed and that people can grow.”

Research also shows that when students connect with one another, they’re more likely to do well academically and socially, which in turn makes them more likely to graduate. Five for Flourishing instructors will place students in small groups and invite them to discuss course material, build their professional communication skills and experience group problem solving. The students’ only assignment is to take notes on their discussions and share those with the instructor.

“This builds on the idea that prompting students to get together in really low-stakes environments helps establish a secondary support network that they can tap when they run into trouble,” Moon said. “It overcomes the idea of just going into class and looking straight ahead and not looking sideways.”

Finally, Five for Flourishing instructors conduct a mid-quarter check in with their students to ask what’s working well and what could be better, what’s helping them to learn and what’s hindering their success.

“Many of the professors at UW have real compassion and care for students, and this project helps them to channel that compassion and care in really productive ways,” Moon said.

Every student will be asked to complete a survey at the beginning and end of the quarter. That data will inform how to adjust and continue to scale the program. Instructors will also receive a small stipend for participating.

Chris Marriott, a teaching professor in the School of Engineering and Technology at UW Tacoma, is in the inaugural Five for Flourishing teaching cohort. He’s already been using similar academic interventions for all his classes, including high-enrollment courses like popular games programming. Building upon his existing tools, he’s excited to see these student supports scale up and reach more undergraduates.

“Every single faculty member that I’ve had a chance to chat with, all of them care so deeply about student experience, that is also what I care about,” Marriott said. “Spreading this out to more faculty, after we have some data and feedback, is going to be awesome.”

In Seattle, Paula Saravia also plans to use Five for Flourishing in her Intro to Medical Anthropology course, with 225 students, and Comparative Study of Death, with 80 students. While she too had compassionate components to her teaching, she appreciates the framework of Five for Flourishing, the training she’s received, and, as a scientist, she’s looking forward to seeing the data from the student surveys to see what is and isn’t working as intended.

She’s seen students who struggle with anxiety and loneliness, students who are afraid to walk into class, or are balancing long commutes, family demands and academics. Programs like Five for Flourishing establish universal accommodations to uplift and support the entire student body.

“The University, in doing this Five for Flourishing, is setting a stone, a ground stone, to say to our community, ‘Look, we do have a problem here, and this is one way to solve it,’” Saravia said.

Helping students understand that they are not alone will have benefits for their entire lives.

“Feeling lonely has social impacts. If you feel lonely, you’re less engaged. And if we are less engaged, we have less possibilities of a thriving democracy. If we don’t know how to talk to one another, how to find common ground, or how to set boundaries, or how to see a problem together, how to even think about it together … If we don’t have that, we are in trouble as a society,” she said. “I’m very hopeful that Five for Flourishing will give all of us a strong start to change that and to inspire students to learn from one another, to see each other. I’m hopeful, too, that engagement with one another will build community, and teach them to have effective engagement with the world.”

Tag(s): Center for Teaching and Learning • Chris Marriott • Marisa Nickle • Megan Kennedy • Paula Saravia • Penelope Moon • Philip Reid • Provost Office • Resilience Lab

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