COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course aims to look at three strategies that educators could use as individuals to be better prepared as individuals and more productive members of teaching teams. The three approaches are: understanding self-complexity, understanding individual coping styles and using mindfulness strategy for stress management. Self-complexity is a model examining the complexity of self-representation and its relationship to the affective responses in an individual. There is significant evidence to suggest that there is a positive relationship between self-complexity and an individual’s capacity to cope more effectively with life stressors. Understanding one’s coping style has a direct impact on how an individual will respond to challenges, how they perceive situations, and how they cope from a mental and physical level. This is a useful stress management tool for educators. Mindfulness is a strategy that is already proven to be a powerful stress management tool for educators and students. It can be linked to both self-complexity and understanding coping styles in a way that supports a positive influence on the wellness of educators.