Wellness in Digital Education

Free online course on integrating wellbeing strategies in online learning environments

The WIDE Project (Wellbeing in Digital Education)

The WIDE project aims to create a new methodology for online and distance learning. A methodology where the mental and physical wellbeing of the students and teachers are not sacrificed in the process of distance learning but instead integrated as a core value of the learning process.

Visit the project’s website

The training programme

The e-learning course for teachers, trainer, educators is thought as resource able to guarantee upskilling of all professionals involved in the design and implementation of inclusive online/blended learning environments.

As distance and screens can affect learners’ perseverance, it is essential to keep them engaged with a feeling of presence, through attractive activities, friendly tools and communication between peers.

According to Bourgeois (2013) engagement includes the learner’s involvement in the learning process and their entry into the course. It has been categorized into three indicators:

Behavioral choice, perseverance, effort management, management of the study environment and time, help seeking.
Cognitive effective self-regulation strategies (planning/goal setting, metacognitive attention and monitoring, control, evaluation, critical thinking, reflexivity, etc.) and learning strategies
Emotional display of emotions that vary according to the level of involvement

However, wellbeing not only concerns the learners themselves, but also all those Involved in education. In particular educational staff need to be empowered to Implement adapted tools and methods so that they are less apprehensive and can improve their own wellbeing.

How to take this course

These guidelines can be seen as an inspiration catalogue that will help teachers to better prepare and conduct online learning focusing on the wellbeing of both teachers and students.

We suggest going through the six modules structured according to the different phases of training. It starts with the preparation of the online working environment as well as the preparation of learners. Then comes the course itself: how to make the most of e-learning, optimising interactions to create and maintain the presence. Finally comes the feedback phase to question teachers’ practices and the performance of learners, if not specified, all methods and tools can be implemented online and in blended learning.

Modules can also be picked individually for a specific need, the important being to ensure a smoothest assimilation by going back and forth between the guidelines and practices.

Learning time is approximately 8 to 10 hours distributed as follows per module:

Module 1: Prepare your learning environment

This module focuses on key elements to ensure that the online environment is conducive to learning, namely:

Technical preparation to ensure that the equipment, preferably with two screens, a camera and a microphone, works
A comfortable, organised workspace that minimises distractions without being impersonal, allowing control of the
A platform whose features are adapted and mastered to guarantee a fluid and interactive learning

Module 2. Prepare learners for e-learning

Preparation of learners includes (at least) these aspects:

An environment for learning and concentration
Emotional readiness.
Cognitive preparedness
Involvement of the learners

This module gives examples of activities that can be used to prepare learners with a particular focus on emotional readiness.

Module 3: How to make the most of e-learning

This module introduces four methods to make the most of live online learning. They guide you to become a teacher able to organise dynamic, participative and interactive sessions, to personalise your teaching and to decrease learners’ feelings of isolation behind a screen.

Module 4: How to facilitate interactive communication

Module 5: Harvesting feedback

Gathering structured feedback needs to be planned and integrated into the teaching process. It will be targeted to answer the question: for which parts do I need more feedback? Perhaps you’re not sure what learners think about certain aspects, or maybe you just need inspiration to prepare a new activity? Five ways of gathering feedback from learners are described in this module.

Module 6: Providing feedback to learners

Feedback enables students to know their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their learning strategies. The teacher must make the assessment process a positive learning experience, so that students feel empowered. In this module you’ll learn three ways of providing positive feedback.

The course is completely free of charge and available in 7 languages (English, Greek, Italian, Spanish, French, Croatian and Danish).

Register now to explore an innovative distance learning methodology where the mental and physical wellbeing of the students and teachers are the first priority!!