Inspiring Joy with Engaging Teaching Practices

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Moderator: Kirsten Helmer, UMass Amherst

Inspiring Joy with Toilet Paper, Rollerblades, Chickens, and the Unexpected

Allison P. Daubert, Bridgewater State University

In the wake of the pandemic and global stressors, our students are increasingly facing burnout. How do we inspire our students to put the focus, time, and effort into our classes that we expect and that is required for them to succeed academically and professionally? Research shows that students place more effort into course work when they feel interested, engaged, personally valued, and have opportunities to be successful. Post-covid, I have been increasingly leaning in to using fun and surprising classroom activities to decrease stress among students and improve morale and engagement. Examples include labs that feature toilet paper and Hot wheels cars and demonstrations of physics on rollerblades. Our classroom has a ‘class pet’ of a chicken who serves a very important purpose. Partially due to these interventions, this course has a very low D/F/W rate, high scores on standardized measures of learning, and high rates of student satisfaction with the course.

Building Infrastructure to Support Joyful Mathematical Experiences

Jordan Kostiuk, Brown University

Team Based Inquiry Learning (TBIL) is a highly structured form of active learning developed at the University of South Alabama for lower division Mathematics courses. In this presentation, I will share my experience using TBIL in a multi-section coordinated course and showcase the ways in which this structure was able to support a collaborative learning community enriched by joyful mathematical explorations.

Before Joy Comes Acceptance: A Personal Journey through Burnout

Amy Flanagan Johnson, Eastern Michigan University

In their new book, The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationship with their Jobs, authors Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter make the important point that burnout is not an individual’s issue. It is an institutional issue, and for faculty members, it must be addressed by our colleges and universities. It is not a problem with me, or with us. It is a problem with the structures and policies, or lack thereof, in place at our institutions. Reading that in the book and hearing it during a keynote presentation by Dr. Maslach at a conference in November 2022 was affirming and uplifting. Identifying the source of the issue doesn't really solve the problem, though. In this presentation, I will briefly describe my personal journey through burnout and how I am slowly finding my way to the other side. I will also detail and share examples of some new assignments I used this semester that meaningfully connect my students to the community. Seeing them excel in creating these pragmatic and useful products has been a great source of joy for me (and them!) and has helped me light the way through this most challenging time.