Assignment Spotlight: Student Self-Care Plans

Today I am highlighting a fun activity shared by educator Norman Eng that helps educators enhance wellness among students. This is an important topic that I believe has a place in every classroom- online or face-to-face. Let's take a look at this assignment in today's blog. 

Today I am highlighting a fun activity shared by educator Norman Eng that helps educators enhance wellness among students. This is an important topic that I believe has a place in every classroom- online or face-to-face. Let's take a look at this assignment in today's blog.

In this blog post, Norman Eng discusses a variety of ways faculty can enhance self-care for students in their online class. Among these is the idea to create a self-care activity for students to complete. This made me think of the idea of having students create a self-care plan. Nursing students often have to create a plan of care for patients they are caring for in a hospital setting. Why not have then create a "self-care" plan of care for themselves? I have a few ideas of what this would look like.

Following the Nursing Process (Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Intervention and Evaluation), students can first identify what "symptoms" might lead to them to believe they need to take a moment to engage in self-care. This would include noting things like changes in sleeping patterns, eating habits, mood, etc. Once they have identified these "symptoms", they can then move on to the next step of diagnosis where they might use the identified symptoms to come up with a diagnostic label (NANDA, etc.). Next, they would create a plan of action. This plan should be individualized and based on things that work as well as strategies to address the underlying causes. Students can then implement their plan and evaluate it to see if their interventions were effective.

This is a fun activity students can do at the beginning of a semester so they can use it throughout the school year when they feel stressed, anxious or just need a break. It is also a great way to get students thinking about their mental health and how to take care of themselves. This can be done in an online or face-to-face setting.

What do you think? Is this something you can implement in your online course? I'd LOVE to hear your ideas. Share your thoughts, experiences and ideas in The Online Educator Facebook Group by clicking the link HERE. Also, as a treat don’t forget to GRAB YOUR FREE GUIDE to the 3 Secrets to Teaching Online Successfully.

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