Teaching as Well Being (UT System)

On April 11, 2024, three Provost's Teaching Fellows presented at the final session of the "Teaching as Wellbeing" mini-conference series, hosted by the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers in collaboration with UT System faculty developers. The series served as a monthly think tank about the relationship between teaching, learning, and wellbeing for educators and educational developers across UT system.

The session was facilitated by Center for Teaching and Learning director Molly Hatcher, and featured three esteemed educators who are members of UT Austin’s Provost’s Teaching Fellows (PTF) Program. Stephanie Holmsten, past chair for the PTF program, also shared insights about the opportunities provided by the program, especially the wealth of time the four-year grant structure affords fellows to deeply engage with their projects in order to make a meaningful impact.

Presentations included:

Kristie Loescher delved into her project on elevating excellence in the classroom through new strategies to understand, measure, and improve rigor in all courses. She addressed the perceived tension between student’s requests for flexibility/accommodation and faculty rigor expectations. Dr. Loescher’s departmental committee’s efforts to define rigor and create instructor resources such as syllabi statements a “rigor rubric”, and midsemester feedback questions are a testament to her ongoing commitment to academic excellence. View the slides here.

Natalie Czimskey explored themes from her PTF initiative, the Compassion Project. Her initiative aims to increase students’ perception of compassion from professors. Through a comprehensive survey, Dr. Czimskey uncovered that students felt most cared for when instructors demonstrated care through actions such as calling them by name, sharing personal anecdotes, and addressing occurrences that could impact their emotional wellbeing. She presented specific pedagogical strategies she integrated into her pedagogy that emerged from these insights, such as allowing flexibility in test-taking and asking students to weigh in on assignment due dates to foster a more compassionate learning environment. View the slides here.

Karen Landolt, though not in attendance, also virtually shared resources on teaching as wellness. Her “name that tune” exercise and peer-assisted learning groups for briefing complex legal cases illustrated innovative methods to enhance student understanding and support. View the resource here.

Learn more about this event from the Center for Teaching and Learning's website.