Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
The REAL University Challenge: Helping students to become flourishing life-long learners.
As a tutor you want to help students to flourish not only academically but in all aspects of their university lives: mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually. But with students reporting stress and anxiety at an all-time high, and academic staff under more pressure than ever before, you could use some help.
In this new, post-pandemic edition of the classic guide, Fabienne Vailes reveals how you can help your students develop a ‘tool box’ of well-being techniques that will support them through university and beyond, and ensure your own well-being at the same time. She finishes with thoughts on how universities can implement systemic changes that support flourishing at an institutional, not just at an individual, level.
Fabienne Vailes is an expert on emotional and mental well-being within the education sector. She is on a mission to change the face of education – embedding well-being into the curriculum to create an environment where both students and staff flourish and become empowered lifelong learners to succeed both academically and in the workplace.
The Flourishing Student is an excellent tool for those in higher education who seek to understand the students of today, learn how best to encourage them, and help them succeed in a university setting.
Fabienne Vailes is an expert on emotional and mental well-being within the education sector.
As an educational expert with almost 25 years’ experience in the sector, Fabienne is on a mission to change the face of education – embedding well-being into the curriculum to create an environment where both students and staff flourish and develop the mental agility and resilience to succeed both academically and in the workplace.
Fabienne has extensive experience of teaching across all age groups (from nursery to primary, secondary, FE and HE as well as adult learners). She is currently Language Director at the University of Bristol, specializing in Intercultural Competence and Communication. She has an unusually wide appreciation of the issues facing learners (and teachers) at all levels.
Table of Contents
Welcome to The Flourishing Student
Why a book on HE in particular?
PART I – GAINING UNDERSTANDING AND CLARITY
Why are students reporting getting increasingly stressed?
The issues with our language uses of the words ‘mental health’
The confusing impact of multiple negative modifiers
The danger of labelling oneself and others
The difference between behaviour and identity
Becoming aware of the stigma around mental health
The rise of mental health awareness
Wellbeing and the rise of the concept of embedding wellbeing in the curriculum
Chapter 2 – Time for clarity and understanding – a real need for mental health literacy
The different stages of mental health and why it matters
What’s the difference between a disorder and a normal stress response?
Clarification – for whom are the interventions in this book suggested?
The stress response – what happens in our body
The stress response – an issue in the 21st century?
The stress vulnerability model
The good news – neuroplasticity – our capacity for change
What does it mean for the HE sector?
Important final points to consider
PART II – THE IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION
Chapter 3 – Time for a new model?
Emotional, cognitive, physical, social, spiritual health – always kept separate
What if they are all a ‘continuum’ – Corey Keyes’s model as an exemplar
The mental health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in life
What is a flourishing student versus a languishing individual?
WHO’s definition of health and link with the new concept of ‘flourishing student’
Chapter 4 – A new model based on students’ stories
PART III – THE TUTOR’S OWN TOOLBOX
Chapter 5 – It all starts with you – the flourishing tutor
How is your mental/physical/social/emotional/spiritual health doing?
Your role – not in isolation but part of a whole
Know your limits – what to say, not to say
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries – do you know where to refer your students?
Can you recognize what is going on with your tutees?
Chapter 7 – How to bridge the student’s skill gaps
Conscious incompetence versus unconscious competence
How to bridge the gap between knowledge
Letting go of our own labels/bias – how do you define students’ success?
The 5 elements that foster wellbeing
Chapter 8 What next?
The need for a systemic approach
Mental Health charter and whole university approach
A potential model? Appreciative Inquiry