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| In a previous post, I shared insights from Bonni Stachowiak, host of the “Teaching in Higher Ed” podcast. As featured in the Chronicle, she highlighted a mental health crisis as one of the three significant changes in higher education. This week, I’d like to dive deeper into her concerns.
The Chronicle article, ‘Why Students Can’t Work on Their Own,’ addresses what many faculty members are likely already experiencing: a significant decline in students’ ability to complete substantial independent work since the pandemic. The piece examines potential solutions, including Betsy Barre’s workload estimator, which helps determine the necessary time for assigned tasks. This article is part of a series titled “Teaching Gen Z.” While the articles above pinpoint what you may recognize as a national trend, the question remains: what can be done? As you might expect, there are no simple answers to this multifaceted issue. However, Mays Imad offers some hope and a strategy for supporting our students in her article “Building a Learning Sanctuary: Fostering Resilience in Our Students, Part 1”. I particularly appreciate her analogies of a tree bending in a storm and our body’s struggle to fend off an infection. These comparisons remind us that it is “okay not to be okay.” |