How are you feeling? Do you feel alone in that feeling? Do you think anyone else feels similarly to you? Would it help you to know that other people feel the same way? These are questions that motivated the tradition I started in my classes. I realized that the students were dealing with complex emotions and occasionally felt isolated by those emotions. Survey after survey has found that students are dealing with stress and loneliness, and these feelings that impact students’ mental well-being can contribute to issues with concentration, motivation, and keeping up with their coursework. So, to help students recognize, cope with, and even build connections from their emotional states, I asked them how they were feeling at the beginning of class.
First, I started with the traditional “What’s filling your bucket, what’s draining your bucket?”.
Then, I tried a scale of pop culture icons. How are you feeling on a scale of Nicholas Cage?
Then, I moved to a scale of memes. How are you feeling on a scale of Sponge Bob memes?
And I ended up settling on a scale of animals. How are you feeling on a scale of llamas?; or dogs, cows, cats, birds, the list goes on.
It was a small effort initially, but students began to recognize that they had a lot of shared emotions. Many students were tired, stressed, frustrated, or anxious, and they could see that other students felt the same way. At the end of the semester, I asked the students how they felt about the “emotion check,” they shared with me that they felt like they had a chance to express their feelings. Seeing other students feel similarly was comforting. They felt like it showed them that I cared about them as people. In many ways, the students expressed that they felt like the class was a community and that they felt like they were building connections with one another.
One nice side effect of taking a survey of the students is that if I see a strong pattern, I can do a check in the class and see if I need to pivot to give them greater support. If most students choose the stressed llama, something is going on, and it might be a better use of my time to work with them on what is frustrating them.
It doesn’t take much time. It is a fast “temperature check” that gives me a clear idea of how the students will respond in class. I find it helpful (and fun). Maybe you will, too.
What a great idea, to choose various memes to ask students how they are doing. I’ve finally just started leaving discussion pages in my Canvas modules (not always), but occasionally, and let them talk about anything they want. I tell them there are no rules, and no minimums (because usually I use both). Often they end up writing much longer than what I would have asked for – but I just wanted them to get something out. Your suggestions are a great variety of all of that! Thank you.
Christine, this is such a creative and empathetic approach to building community in a classroom. Thank you so much for sharing your evolution of practices. FWIW, I’m usually feeling National Treasure Nick Cage and sometimes Moonstruck Nick Cage, but I always feel a tad bit Raising Arizona Nick Cage.
I LOVE this!!!
Reminder to all who love this idea: right-click and save as Christine’s image at the top of the page to use in your class!