Top 3: suggestion for Students & Faculty,

• Why Am I So Tired? by Jennifer Geryol, Parasol Wellness Collaborative
• Well-being in an online environment, Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health

Being remote and online

• The reason Zoom calls drain your energy, BBC
• Avoiding video conferencing fatigue while working remotely, The UCL Online MBA, University College London School of Management
• Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure by Aisha S. Ahmad, Chronicle of Higher Education

Stress/Mental Health Course

• Mind Control: Managing Your Mental Health During COVID-19 (free), Coursera – includes topics such as: Understanding the Anxiety Response; Achieving Relaxation: A Skill We All Need to Learn Now; How We Think About Physical Distancing and Explaining it to Our Children

Stress/Mental Health Resources

• • Obtenez de l’aide concernant la consommation problématique de substances. Un soutien et des services communautaires, provinciaux et nationaux sont disponibles, Gouvernement du Canada
  • Community, provincial, and, national support and services are available for problematic substance use, Government of Canada
  • Wellness Together Canada: Mental Health and Substance Use
  • Espace mieux-être Canada: Soutien en matière de santé mentale et de consommation de substances (en Français)
  • Coping with stress during the 2019-nCoV outbreak, WHO
  • Coping with Stress, CDC
  • Coronavirus: Managing Stress & Anxiety, Canadian Mental Health Association, Kelowna
  • Mental Wellness coping through crisis webinar, University of Calgary
  • Mindshift App, Anxiety Canada
  • Manage Anxiety & Stress (CDC)
  • 7 science-based strategies to cope with coronavirus anxiety, The Conversation, The wirecutter
  • Coronavirus Sanity Guide (Ten Percent Happier)
  • Métis Nation – Saskatchewan COVID-19 Resource List, Métis Nation – Saskatchewan
  • Mental Health Tips for the COVID-19 Outbreak, Coursera Blog

Meditation

• • Take a deep breath Meditation (Calm)
  • Top 25 meditation resources, Psycom.net

Virtual/digital Experiences

• • A Pause for your Wellness, Kristin Kiely – curated list of resources such a virtual tours of national parks

Fitness

• • Fitness Blender allows you to customize the type of free fitness video you want.
  • 305 Fitness youtube channel (live cardio dance workouts daily at 12pm and 6pm EDT)
  • Active by PopSugar (online streaming access to hundreds of pre-recorded workouts)
  • List of (most free), no-equipment online fitness classes, CBC

Family and Children

• Helping children cope with stress during the 2019-nCoV outbreak, WHO
• Talking to Children About COVID-19, Calgary Board of Education
• Virtual roller coaster rides, Canada Wonderland
• Virtual museum or zoo tours list, Good housekeeping
• Coping Strategies for Children & Young Adults section of the COVID-19 Resource List, Métis Nation – Saskatchewan
• Just For Kids: A Comic Exploring The New Coronavirus, NPR

Socializing Online

• • Ideas for socializing online, The wirecutter

Cooking

• • Skinny Taste (a community member’s favourite recipe site, has a freezer meal section, usually serve 4-6 people.

Financial

• • Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), Government of Canada – taxable benefit, will cover people who lost their jobs, are sick, quarantined, taking care of someone who is sick, working parents who now must stay home with no school/daycare. Applies to employees, contractors and self-employed people who otherwise would not be eligible for EI benefits. Did not exist prior to COVID-19; Available from March 15, 2020 to October 3, 2020.
  • Canada Child Benefit (CCB) – tax free monthly benefit, increased in 2019-2020 in response to COVID-19
  • Employment Insurance (EI) Sickness Benefits, Government of Canada  – up to 15 weeks of taxable financial assistance for those who cannot work due to medical reasons (includes illness, injury or quarantine). Shifted waiting periods and signed medical certificate requirements for COVID-19.
  • Resources to Help Canadians with the Financial Impacts of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, No more debts.org

Movies & Films

• 6 picks to start free catalogue of Indigenous films online, CBC
• Indigenous cinema, National Film Board of Canada (an extensive online library of over 200 films by Indigenous directors)

Inforgraphic for organizations and individuals

• Staying Well in Times of Distress, Leslie Flynn & Amber Hastings Truelove. Created for STLHE.

• Coronavirus resources, Student Minds UK including:
  • Staying at home and your mental health

Institutional Wellbeing Pages

• Your mental health during the COVID-19 Outbreak, UBC
• Wellbeing Portal, University of Windsor

Videos for Instructors supporting students

• 12 free training videos for University Tutor (UK term for instructor) to support students with their mental wellbeing, Jonathan Phelan of The Evenhood Organisation (SEDA list recommended)

Inequity concerns

• The Shift to Remote Learning: The Human Element, Inside Higher Education (notes the effects fo going remote on equity)
• Inequality at school: What’s behind the racial disparity in our education system?, American Psychology Association
• I Was a Low-Income College Student Classes Weren’t the Hard Part: Schools must learn that when you come from poverty, you need more than financial aid to succeed by Anthony Abraham Jack, The New York Times Magazine

Additional resources

• How universities can support students’ mental health amid Covid-19 crisis, Times Higher Education
• Resources for Students’ unions supporting their members, CFS
• Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis, Greater Good in Education, Berkeley (University of California)
• In addition, each institution has supports available for students. Consult your institutional emails and websites. Refer students to institutional supports, and you are welcome to share these resources too.

Advice

• Please do a bad job of putting your courses online by Rebecca Barrett-Fox – specific, practical, experienced advice including not requiring synchronous work, don’t worry about umms in videos, use a textbook’s test but “change the wording on the questions so they can’t easily paste them into Google”, self-grading or low stakes assessment if you can, and listen to students asking for help.
• Supporting Learning and Well-being during the Coronavirus Crisis, Greater Good in Education, Berkeley

Humour

• Keep it human – Twitter thread (humour)
• Song “I Will Survive, Coronavirus version for teachers going online” by Michael Bruening, Associate Professor Missouri S&T (also posted by Inside Higher Education)

Community Suggestions from March 17th Webinar

• • Don’t have to replicate what you would do face to face online and keeping things simple for students
  • “We are all learning together how to cope with this, and our cognitive / emotional loads are all understandably high, so it’s hard”
  • the idea that “good enough” or not even good enough is gonna have to be good enough
  • A bit of humour about this learning curve (note of caution: sarcasm and satire abound): Welcome to your hastily, prepared online college course by Ryan Weber
  • Simplifying what they are doing, encouraging them to focus on the essential knowledge and skills that students need rather than trying to do everything they had planned
  • Use what’s familiar, simple, and what’s supported centrally (that’s been our message at Keep Learning site at the University of Waterloo)

The well-being of those who support is equally important. Individuals in teaching centres, support units, online learning centres, administrative and leadership roles are faced with concerns and needs of their colleagues.

Well-being of Educational Developers and Teaching Centres

• A call to action: exploring and responding to educational developers’ workplace burnout and well-being in higher education, IJAD Article, Klodiana Kolomitro, Natasha Kenny, & Suzanne Le-May Sheffield
• Preventing Burnout & Promoting Well-being in the Workplace, Flourishing Leaders Symposium in Kingston Ontario, 2019, Klodiana Kolomitro, Natasha Kenny, & Suzanne Le-May Sheffield
• Transforming teaching and learning cultures to foster workplace well-being for faculty and educational developers, EDC 2020 Conference, Natasha Kenny, Klodiana Kolomitro, & Suzanne Le-May Sheffield
• Suggestions from March 17th Webinar
  • Encouraging: the idea that “good enough” or not even good enough is gonna have to be good enough
  • we are in the first initial go around in what will need to be a spiral learning approach for how to teach like this, particularly those who have not taught online before, and for all of us
  • Remember, everyone is stressed and sometimes that results in snarkiness that is unintended
• Suggestions to keep staff morale up (March 17th webinar)
  • Having online resources – so can direct people to self-help
  • Considering having group team meetings for the CTL that will be virtual to check-in
  • Someone suggested virtual coffee time for staff — once things are a little less frantic, this might be a good option

Health care providers

• Supporting the Psychosocial Well-being of Health Care Providers During the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, BC Ministry of Health

• How Admin Assistants & PAs Can Work From Home Effectively, Oriel Partners
• How to look professional on camera while suddenly working from home? (free online “course” video) by Ann Emery who teaches data reporting. “Suddenly working from home? With barking dogs and screaming kids? With less-than-desirable tech equipment – or none at all?”
• How to Work From Home: 20 Tips From People Who Do It Successfully, HubSpot Marketing
  • Get started early
  • Pretend like you are going to the office
  • Structure your day
  • Work when you’re at your most productive…
  • Try to group solitary tasks
  • Take clear Breaks
  • (for distancing purposes ignore the ones about not staying home)