Running or Running Out for Coffee: Battling Burnout

It's only the second week of classes and students are asking for make-up work, to take exams early, and to excuse absences. I have also met with a number of students this week to discuss serious life decisions, dropping classes, and even managing serious mental health issues. On top of all this, my daughter has been waking up several times in the middle of the night so my husband and I have been taking turns comforting her. So much happening! In other words, thank goodness it's Friday!

It's never too early to discuss preventing burnout. How do you destress? How do you take steps to prevent burnout at work or home? One suggestion in this article is to take time off. I teach five days a week this semester so taking a whole day off isn't really an option. Instead, I got away between office hours this week to take a two-mile run during some mild weather. Below is a photo from the Azalea Trail that runs through the Valdosta State University campus. When I was applying to this job in 2015, one of the drafts of my cover letter described how I imagined myself running on the Azalea Trail. I feel so lucky that this became a reality!

This little break helped refresh me for the rest of the day... yes, in less than a day I felt the fatigue from creating quizzes, finalizing exams, and reading discussion board posts. Luckily, there was a scheduled coffee hour for Campus Pride Connection (CPC) - a group of faculty, staff, and students supporting the LGBTQ+ community. To the left is the CPC logo. Just meeting for coffee with colleagues uplifted my spirits and made my week.

When running or a coffee break at Starbucks in the middle of the day isn't an option, what do we do to recenter? What helps brighten your day at work? Looking forward to reading your comments.

Comments

The Writing on the Wall: Arguing Against Spanking

It's the 5th week of school and by now we have covered behaviorism and operant conditioning in all three of the classes I teach. I teach that we reinforce productive, desirable behavior before punishing undesirable behavior, and that removal punishment (taking away a privilege or object) should be used before resorting to presentation punishment (scolding or a negative consequence). This is counterintuitive, especially because many of us were raised in environments in which corporal punishment was normative. Discussion is always freeform in my classes and comments are encouraged. I present concrete situations from real life, like my daughter drawing on the wall or a student not being able to stay seated during on-task time. Inevitably spanking comes up in these educational psychology discussions. "If you just pop them, then they will stop immediately... If I got hit, I never did the thing again... little kids are too young to understand other consequences..." As a mot

On Fridays We Wear Red

Today is the last day of the first week of the spring semester at Valdosta State University . Every Friday we wear red to show school spirit. I went ahead and just bought red glasses to make things easier! This semester I *get to* teach two sections of an introductory educational psychology course, called Exploring Learning and Teaching, along with an online section of Educational Psychology for Teaching Adults. These are not new preps; in other words, I have taught these classes before and get to have fun with them. This first week is just an introduction so I chose to try out this empathetic syllabi review exercise from the blog, Faculty Focus . In my face-to-face sections, I asked students to bring in their syllabi and critically review them for missing information, as well as mark important dates in their calendars (paper or electronic). This then facilitated a discussion about why some instructors may leave out due dates or points for each assignment. This is my attempt t

Gamification for ADHD: This week's experience with Forest

This week I learned about an app, called Forest , from an academic mom group and immediately had to try it. Here is a really good review all about the app by Amy French. I did spring for the $1.99 paid version that allows you to connect with friends... This is a perfect example of gamification applied to staying on task, which is a primary problem for those of us who struggle with ADHD. Elements of gamification that the app uses includes points (leaves) earned for minutes spent on task. This is measured by not being able to toggle to any other app on the phone. One of my friends already pointed out that a browser version would be more helpful for her and guess what?!? The developers of Forest have a free Chrome extension you can use. For every block of time spent on task/off your phone (25 minutes is the default setting), your forest grows a tree and you earn points . With points (leaves) you can buy ( unlock ) special privileges, background music/sounds, and different types o

Dr. Arrastía-Chisholm: Professor Mom

Search This Blog