As we are almost ready to start summer vacations where we will hopefully have time to recover and recharge, I want to invite you to an event that we’ll run on 16/10 on “How do I cultivate a sense of joy, passion, and purpose in my teaching, and how do I share it with my students?”. I believe that experiencing teaching as meaningful, joyful, and fulfilling should be the norm and not the exception, and that those feelings stem from an alignment of what we are doing with our core values*. I fully acknowledge that we live in a world that does not make it easy to always act in full alignment with our values, and that that can be the source for a lot of unhappiness, dissatisfaction and frustration. And I do not want to fall into the toxic positivity trap and tell you to just focus on the positive and then all will be well (and that if it is not, that would somehow be your own fault). That said, I believe that self-care is essential for teachers (“put on your own oxygen mask first…”). And with the seminar and this blogpost, I hope to contribute to it a little by providing space, reflection prompts, and community to (re)discover positive emotions related to teaching, and develop strategies for how to experience them more often.
If we try to approach our teaching more joyfully, with more passion and a deeper sense of purpose, it does not only benefit ourselves, we can also share that with our students. Vicarious experiences of relevance can lead to students relating to their teachers in a way that they experience content as interesting because they take on the teachers’s obvious interest as their own. They can also relate to personal accounts by the lecturer so strongly that they see the world through their teacher’s eyes, take on the images, and perceive it therefore as interesting themselves (Hodgson, 2005). And this could kick-start a positive feedback loop of more interested students, more joyful teaching experiences on the teacher’s side, even more engaged students… Worth a try, right?
In the seminar, we will reflect on three main points, and I invite you to do the same now (and take notes so you can come back to it when you need to!).
1. Reconnecting with (or finding) your spark
Take a moment to reflect on your values and beliefs related to teaching and maybe even more generally, the world around you. What impact do you want to have? What brings you joy, what you are passionate about, and what you see as your purpose in relation to teaching? This can be very specific to a course you are teaching right now, taught previously, or will start teaching soon, or it can be about teaching in your subject in general. You can think about this even when you have never taught before, or have never experienced teaching as evoking positive emotions.
Obviously, what makes you feel joy, passion, and purpose is very individual. But if you find it’s difficult to come up with something, here are some prompts to get you started:
When have you experienced teaching as joyful; what teaching situations do you imagine might feel joyful to you? Maybe when
- preparing a class on a topic that is close to your heart
- seeing students experience aha-moments
- hearing students getting into heated debates on your teaching content
- teaching “just works out” the way you had planned it
- reading student feedback, reports, reflections
- observing students transfer disciplinary content into their lives beyond class
- …
What are you passionate about in your teaching? Maybe
- connecting with your students
- seeing students grow as people
- sharing your favourite topics
- including a specific perspective
- empowering students
- …
What is your purpose in teaching? Maybe
- helping all students reach the intended learning outcomes
- supporting the future researchers in your field
- contributing to a sustainable future
- empowering students
- …
There might be overlap between the different areas, and there are no right or wrong answers! It might also be a good idea to consider all emotions you feel related to teaching, not just the positive ones. Negative emotions are often an indicator of a misalignment between values and what we feel we have to do, and reflecting about that can be the first step towards better alignment.
2. Sustaining the fire
Now that you have collected some situations in which you have experienced, or expect to experience, those positive emotions under point 1 above, how can you make sure you experience them regularly, and maybe more often than today?
The response to this question obviously depends a lot on what you have identified under point 1, but here are some ideas to get you started:
- Revisit the points you have identified above whenever you need a reminder of joy, passion and purpose related to teaching!
- Keep a record of those positive experiences that you can also revisit when you need to reconnect with what inspires you (maybe you want to collect pictures, lesson plans, student feedback, reflection notes, …?)
- Create situations where you are likely to experience those emotions (Do you love discussing with students? Find ways to include more discussion in your teaching, or connect with students outside of class. Do you want to see your students change the world? Let them work on authentic problems in cooperation with local stakeholders. …)
- Think longer-term — are there ways to align your teaching more closely with your purpose?
- Talk about what it is that makes you feel those emotions, both with your students and with peers.
- Find a buddy (or several) that you meet regularly to talk about teaching, to remind you of your shared passion for it, and to get inspired by them
- Take a course with us or join one of our seminars to get new input and inspiration, and to connect with likeminded people 🙂
- …
3. Sharing your spark with your students
Now that you know what makes you experience positive emotions (see point 1), and you have started thinking about strategies for how to experience them more often (point 2), how can you share them with your students?
Again, the answer to this question is very individual depends on what you have identified so far, but you could think about the points below:
- As mentioned above already, create opportunities where you are likely to experience those emotions, by including more of a specific topic, a specific teaching method, etc.
- Whether in those situations or in others, don’t be afraid to express the emotions when you are experiencing them!
- Allow yourself to go on a tangent when you are especially passionate about a topic (within reason, of course ;-))
- …
In the seminar, we will collect responses to those three points through Menti, and share them with participants afterwards to get inspired by what other participants have submitted. If you are curious, you can also read my own personal account here (except that the sharing part has developed since — I did write this blogpost and I am planning the workshop!).
Do you have anything you would like to share that could inspire others? Then please feel free to comment below or get in touch with me!
*If you are not sure what those are, I can very much recommend the podcast “the academic imperfectionist” and the resources they share to identify your core values! And for figuring out how to deal with competing priorities, we really like the “even over” exercise (which I write about on my personal blog)
Hodgson, V. E. (2005) Lectures and the experience of relevance, in: F. Marton, D. Hounsell & N. Entwistle (Eds) The experience of learning: implications for teaching and studying in higher education (3rd [Internet] edn) (Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh, Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment) 159–171.
