Genius Hour Reflection #2: Strategies and Apps For Student Mental Wellness

Hello World and Welcome Back!

This is my week 2 reflection on integrating Mental Wellness strategies into the classroom for my students, and for myself (as well other educators). Last week I focused on developing my understanding about mental health and mental wellness, whereas this week I decided to look into various strategies and techniques that I could integrate into my own classroom. As a result, this week was motivated by my desire to find strategies and even apps that I could build into my own 'toolkit' for promoting mental health and wellness for students.

     To revisit last weeks post, Wellness refers to this understanding of watching over and maintaining our health - that is we are looking at physical, social, emotional, spiritual and mental wellbeing. This is all centered around ensuring that we are taking care of our entire wellbeing as each of these elements are built to form our entire being. If one component is at-risk then our wellness as a whole is being impacted (i.e. sleep, healthy eating, focus, self-esteem, etc.). Through emphasizing the importance of taking care of not only ones physical health, but mental health encourages students and adults to reflect on the steps they can take to help their wellbeing. When we take care of our mental health, in this case having a positive mental health, allows for individuals to work towards their self-potential, cope with various stressors and/or pressures they are faced with, work productively and make these meaningful connections and contributions to not only their lives, but to the communities they are involved in ("MentalHealth." N.D.). 

Vertudaches, L. (N.D.) Mental Health Animation GIF. Retrieved from https://giphy.com/gifs/ruok-ruokday-ruokday2015-3o85xpO8Od5wPPVUYg

     If mental wellness refers to the process of taking care of our mental wellbeing in order to achieve our full potential, not only is this important in our everyday lives but this is also important to consider within the classroom. In education, our roles as educators is to assist students in reaching their full potential, it is important that we know and understand our students to ensure that we are looking out for them while taking care of them. Since our mental health can have lasting and damaging impacts on an individual, especially on a students concept of self-esteem and identity, it emphasizes our roles as teachers to find ways to help our students be able to identify these pressures and find ways to work through them to take care of their wellbeing. Not only is it important to take action to help our students in reaching their goals, but this action is also necessary because when someone is struggling with their mental health it will have barriers on their learning ("Promoting Mental Wellness." N.D.).

Check out the following video to see what some schools are doing to promote the mental health and wellness of their students!

     This video that the Peel School Board released to bring awareness and attention to mental health brings up important signs to be aware with our students, but it also emphasizes the importance of finding ways to help open the conversation with our students. Through opening this conversation we are able to find ways in how we can help meet and attend to the needs of our students. 

Some signs that we, as educators, can notice in our students are:

• A change in behaviour and/or disruptive behaviour 
• Withdrawal from interests 
• Lack of confidence/self-esteem 
• Lack of motivation 
• Drop in grades and/or lack of attendance 
• Withdrawal from socializing with friends 
• Isolating themselves 
• Physical signs 

Being aware of these signs are not only important as it can indicate that our students are going through difficult situations or are being faced with pressures that are impacting their way of life and/or mental health, but it also indicates that we need to take action to help our students. To help students during these times, I have researched different strategies and techniques that can be implemented into the classroom. These strategies and techniques are targeted to students of all ages, and are stored in my 'toolbox' to access at anytime as I want to ensure that I am always able to help my students. 

Strategies and techniques to implement within the classroom in order to foster mental wellness and positive mental health are:

• Encourage Self-Awareness: it is important that students are able to recognize their strengths and appreciate what they are good at doing, while also realizing that if they continue working hard that they can achieve anything they put their minds to ("Social and Emotional Learning." N.D.).
• Praise them, encourage students to set realistic goals, avoid sarcastic remarks and encourage students to do their best.
• Promote a Growth Mindset: having students recognize that while they might not be able to achieve something yet doesn't mean that it will never happen, rather if they work hard and persevere they will be able to get to it ("Social and Emotional Learning." N.D.).
• Social awareness: have students practice empathy and promote the value in respecting and caring for their friends, family and even strangers. When we do this we are encouraging students to look after one another, while being aware of the needs of others. This can benefit students in times of need as their friends and peers could help them when struggling ("Social and Emotional Learning." N.D.). 
• Help students identify if there is something bothering them or affecting them: encouraging students to be open when something is going on to promote early action. Even having teachers watching for signs of students behaviour changing can also lead to early action and intervention. 
• This also encourages teachers to help students understand how they are able to deal with and work through the various stressors that they may face (i.e. avoid procrastination, exercise, time management skills, goal-setting, etc.). 
• Promote Mindfulness: This is a tool that is being integrated within almost every classroom now as it encourages us to "slow down, accept things as they are, cope well with problems or difficulties, and simply appreciate what's in our life right now" ("Wellness Module 11: Mindfulness." N.D.). This not only benefits adults, but it also helps students recognize what is happening within themselves and what is happening around them. It encourages us to work through our thoughts and emotions - all of which, allows for students to identify what is going on and find ways in which they can tackle these problems. 
• Have students ask themselves: "What are your thoughts like? How does your body feel?" etc. ("Wellness Module 11: Mindfulness." N.D.).
• Open up the conversation: Encouraging students to reflect on how they are feeling allows for them to feel more comfortable in approaching problems and asking for help because it shows them that they are not alone. In these situations, students are able to recognize that everyone goes through difficult moments and asking for help is never something to be embarrassed about. 
• Meditation: This is also another strategy that can help students in taking a breather or a step back from situations that are building up. It provides them with the opportunity to take sometime for themselves and work on distressing themselves. 
• Validate feelings: Most times students feel as if the emotions and thoughts they are going through is not logical or that 'they shouldn't be feeling this way' when in reality it is perfectly fine to admit when we are struggling or aren't feeling well. Everyone goes through difficult periods, and the emotions that we experience are valid. 
• Encourage students to use a positive outlook: Using a positive outlook can benefit students in recognizing that things will get better and that there are always positives to reflect on (even if this may seem small or insignificant in this moment). 

"How to Teach a Young Introvert." (22 December, 2015). Retrieved from https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-teach-a-young-introvert/

Additionally, there are also several apps that we can encourage students to check out or even bring into our classroom to help students de-stress and work through their thoughts and emotions. Some of these apps are:

• MindShift: this is an app that helps students struggling with anxiety as it provides them with strategies to help with relaxing, developing clearer ways to think, and identify strategies and steps that they could take to help combat the rise of anxiety during their everyday lives. As Anxiety Canada (19 September 2018) states, "this app includes strategies to deal with everyday anxiety, as well as specific tools to tackle: making sleep count, riding out intense emotions, text anxiety, perfectionism, social anxiety, performance anxiety, worry, panic [and] conflict."
• HeadSpace: a meditation app that encourages students to focus on training their mind and applying mindfulness activities to their everyday life.
• Learn2Breathe: an app that leads you through various breathing activities to help with bringing you a sense of peace, while helping with clearing your mind full of nonstop thoughts - it gives you time to 'turn off'. 
• HealthyMinds: this app is focused around helping students deal with emotions and cope with various stresses (i.e. school work, family problems, etc.). The goal is centered around maintaining and living with a healthy mind ("Healthy Minds." N.D.).

World Mental Health Day at CCCU. (9 October 2017). Retrieved from https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/studentnews/world-mental-health-day-at-cccu-10-october/

     Throughout this period, not only was I able to further add to my knowledge surrounding mental health and wellness, but I was now able to look for various strategies and tools that I could introduce and implement into my own classroom to provide my students with all the necessary resources to help with their success. While I was able to find both strategies and even apps that I could bring into my classroom, and even school environment, there were times where I did struggle. Especially when I was looking through various strategies most of the information I kept finding throughout my research was information that I already knew or it was heavily pushing Mindfulness (which I have used personally). To overcome this I constantly finding myself looking through various websites or even looking further into the information I already knew to see if there was anything that I could add - there is always opportunity to learn more about a topic you think you know everything about. This did prove to be the way because while I was further exploring this information I did in fact find out more information regarding Mindfulness or Teaching practices that I thought I knew. While this was time consuming and it did take a while to find the information and tools that I could use, it did assist me in further developing my own knowledge that I could build into my own toolbox. 

Feel free to share your thoughts below, I would love to hear what everyone thinks! 🙂

Logging off for now! 

- Miss Wighton

Walton, L. (n.d.). What is Mindfulness? Retrieved from https://www.amandahope.org/blog/mindfulness

"You may have to fight a battle more than once" - Margaret Thatcher

References

HealthyMinds. (N.D.). Retrieved from http://healthymindsapp.ca

MindShift App. (2018, September 19). Retrieved from 
     https://www.anxietycanada.com/resources/mindshift-app

Promoting Mental Wellness. (N.D.). Retrieved from 
     http://www.rockyview.ab.ca/21stC/supporting/promoting-mental-wellness-1

Social and Emotional Learning. (N.D.). Retrieved from 
     http://www.rockyview.ab.ca/21stC/learning/socialemotional

Student Mental Health and Wellbeing. (N.D.). Retrieved from http://camosun.ca/about/mental-
     health/students.html

What is Mental Health? (N.D.). Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-

     is-mental-health