Mindful Well-Being and Learning

Abstract

Stress and anxiety can interfere with learning, and for many people, studying chemistry is perceived as a stressful endeavor. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an additional source of stress and anxiety for students and has brought focus to the importance of well-being in the learning process. An improved understanding of the relationship between well-being and learning coupled with experience with ways to mitigate stress and anxiety such as mindfulness practice can benefit both instructors and students navigating stressful times. This commentary provides a brief overview of the neuroscience of learning in relation to well-being and describes the use of mindfulness in the remote classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidance on gaining experience with mindfulness is also provided.

Overcoming the Challenges of Remote Instruction: Using Mobile Technology to Promote Active Learning

“…Students needed to quickly establish new effective study habits while coping with the change. 40 To help students make this transition, faculty created highly structured learning modules. Highly structured pedagogical practices improve student learning 41 and increase students' final exam scores, particularly for students that struggle academically 42 and disadvantaged students.…”

Strategies for Teaching Chemistry Online: A Content Analysis of a Chemistry Instruction Online Learning Community during the Time of COVID-19

“…Large groups of educators from diverse fields may be useful in bringing together various viewpoints, but effective online teaching requires more than knowledge about content, pedagogical practices, and technology. It requires unique knowledge about how pedagogical practices and technology can be best used in the teaching and learning of specific content, and this knowledge is unique for different disciplines. , This Journal has been quick to coalesce knowledge around teaching chemistry during the COVID-19 pandemic, with articles in this special issue that included descriptions of assessment, , at-home laboratory activities, accommodations for students, and even mental well-being …”

“…1,2 This Journal has been quick to coalesce knowledge around teaching chemistry during the COVID-19 pandemic, with articles in this special issue that included descriptions of assessment, 6,7 at-home laboratory activities, 8 accommodations for students, 9 and even mental well-being. 10 It is not surprising that the topics in this special issue were also frequently discussed in the online community of Strategies for Teaching Chemistry Online. Through its participation from members, SFTCO was well-suited to build a repertoire of knowledge to meet the shared challenge of teaching chemistry during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Framing Student and Faculty Stress in Education: A Proposed Science Analogy

“…Moreover, evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has increased the amount and types of stress, and coping mechanisms, used by chemistry educators in dramatic yet largely unmeasured amounts. 13,14 Although these observations barely scratch the surface of the pertinent literature on stress in educational settings, they constitute ample evidence that the role of stress in teaching and learning chemistry is difficult to understand and visualize, as well as generally outside the professional training of chemistry teachers. So, a chemistry-based analogy is interesting to explore.…”

“…Notably, in several cases where STEM faculty members were compared to faculty in other departments, the study suggested that STEM faculty report higher levels of stress. Moreover, evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has increased the amount and types of stress, and coping mechanisms, used by chemistry educators in dramatic yet largely unmeasured amounts. , …”