Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Tutoring Matters is sponsored by
Covid19: Cope with RemoteDr Fran Longstaff, CPsychol, HCPC Registered Sport and Exercise Psychologist, HEA Fellow
Head of Psychology, Fika
Welcome! Today’s seminar starts at 2pm BST. Please MUTE your microphone.
You can introduce yourself and ask questions in the zoom chat window.
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Webinar Presenters
Andrew PyeHost
Dr Fran Longstaff,
Head of Psychology, Fika
ChairDr Andrew Pye
National Teaching Fellow, University
of Exeter.
Welcome and Housekeeping:
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Overview
• Introduction to Fika, a mental fitness platform for university staff and
students
• Mental health challenges facing the sector and students
• Findings from Fika’s COVID-19: Cope with Remote Roundtable
• An overview of Fika’s Cope with Remote resources
• Practical resources
• Emotional resources
• Existential resources
• Looking to the future
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Fika
Struggling
Incomplete
Mental Illness
Floundering
Complete
Mental Illness
Flourishing
Complete
Mental Health
Languishing
Incomplete
Mental Health
Mental HealthHigh
LowMental Health
Mental IllnessHigh
Mental IllnessLow
Keyes (2002)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Retention
Attainment
Employability
In a format
that
encourages:
Autonomy
Competence
Connection
Emotional
Literacy
Student
Experience
Psychological Processes
Underpinning Fika
Education
Self-Awareness/Reflection
Positive Action
+
MF Skills that Fika
Develops
Positivity
Confidence
Motivation
Connection
Stress
Meaning
Focus
Fika’s Model of Mental Fitness (MF)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
This graph from Fika randomised control trial shows that use of Fika builds self confidence in just 6 weeks.
Psychology ResearchDr. Fran Longstaff Dr. Zoe Dimov
© 2020 Fika Community Limited. All rights reserved.
Scientist led, research and evidence driven
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Fika’s Impact on Managing Transitions
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
* 16-24 year olds. Easton (2020) & Reidy (2020)
COVID-19 & Students: The Numbers
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Roxby (2020)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
COVID-19: Cope with Remote Fika Roundtable, Friday 27th March, 2020
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
What if the company pull the job I applied for? What will I do for work?
All the things that I was looking forward to at the end of this year have just vanished.
Why can’t the Uni just sort this out and tell us what is going to happen with our assignments? It’s so annoying!
My finals have been scrapped and my graduation ceremony is remote? What more can I say?
How am I going to get my assignments done at home? There are so many distractions! I would normally work in the library to avoid them...
What is life going to be like after this and what does it mean for me? Do I want to change anything?
Challenges students are facing
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series Hall & Packham (2020)
The lived experience
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
How do I engage with students who are disengaged at the moment?
I am not an expert, so I am worried I will say or do something wrong.
How do I make sure I send the right resources. I am not even sure what they are and what we have available.
Many students have not come back to me, I am not sure what to do next.
I don’t know how students are doing at the moment and what they feel.
What do I tell students? I am so worried myself and unsure how things will unravel.
● Worries about doing / saying the wrong thing● Lack of awareness about what support is available ● Lack of engagement from students
Challenges PTs are facing
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
What is helping?
Staying connected with friends and family, often online
Hobbies, crafts, reading, films and home improvements
Physical activity, such as walking, running and exercise classes
Staying calm, thanks to mindfulness, meditation, prayer or pets
Information intake - managing access to news and social media
Maintaining routine by having a daily plan
Roxby (2020)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series https://wonkhe.com/blogs/keeping-emotionally-fit-for-the-long-term-starting-now/
Fika’s COVID-19 Provision
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Create a study zone at home
- Creating boundaries and associations
Stay motivated and productive
- Coping without external structures- Daily routines- Daily goal setting- Celebrate achievements
Manage tempting distractions
- Willpower a limited resource?- Avoidance and replacement
activities- ‘If-then’ techniques
Practical resources
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Manage uncertainty and anxiety
- Normalise human intolerance to uncertainty- Control the controllables- Mindfulness and acceptance techniques for
the ‘what ifs’
Stay connected while in isolation
- Connection is a basic psychological need- It’s ok to not be ok, and ask for help- Who needs you- Logistics
Make some time for yourself
- Hypercopresence- The need for ‘me’ time
Give your positivity a boost
- The positivity flourishing ratio- Gratitude- Simple pleasures
Emotional resources
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Stay physically active
- Psychological benefits of PA- PA in the constraints
Keep trying new things
- Psychological flexibility- Accomplishment
Show yourself some self-kindness
- Benefits of self-compassion- Revaluation of expectations- Setting boundaries
Let your values guide you
- Importance of value-guided action
- Congruence and meaning
Make use of your strengths
- Character strengths
- Confidence and happiness
Emotional resources
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
An opportunity to re-evaluate what’s
important?
- Goals
- Values
What are you learning about life and yourself?
- Personal resources- Purpose and meaning
Resources for the big Qs
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
The future for universities
Over 230,000 fewer students predicted to enter higher education in 2020, over half of which are
international students (Grady, 2020)
Universities face at least £2.5bn loss in fee and grant income for 2020-21 as students both in the UK
and around the world defer or abandon their plans to study here (Grady, 2020)
Some universities are preparing to teach first year
students online from Sept 2020 (Fazackerley,
2020)
Retention of students may be problematic as
graduation rates can be lower than 22%
for remote learners (Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua &
Simpson, 2018; Simpson, 2013)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
The future for staff & students
It anticipated that there may be long-term
consequences for the mental health of
incoming, current and graduating students (Roxby,
2020)
Before COVID19 84% of academic tutors reported that
they felt least confident in supporting
students with mental health (Basi et al., 2019).
Pre-COVID19, 17% of a sample of 478 students reported approaching their personal tutors for
mental health support. This was higher than the number who accessed centralised centralised
counselling services (10%; Russell, 2008).
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Are universities and tutors ready for a move to remote pastoral support?
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Fika and the future
● Free COVID-19 support for all interested universities until December 2020
● On-going remote COVID-19 content development (students and staff)
● Development of a mental fitness diagnostic tool to support the assignment of support to students
● Development of a portal, to accompany the Fika app, to allow PTs to assign mental fitness programmes and communities to students remotely
● Remote personal tutoring support
● UK GOV grant application: Remote mental fitness support for FE and HE students during and post COVID-19
● On-going academic research: The effects of social isolation and COVID-19 on university staff and students mental and physical health and fitness (this study is carried out in collaboration with Middlesex University and approved by Middlesex University ethics committee)
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Basi, A., Broglia, E., Ayton, R., McKeever, M., Stenton, A., Attenborough, C. (2019). Raising Awareness, Raising Aspiration: Personal Tutors helping to
tackle attainment gaps. The University of Sheffield, UK. http://www.raratutor.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/A4-RARA-Report-2019_FINAL.pdf
Easton, M. (2020, April 9). Coronavirus: Significant minority find lockdown 'extremely difficult', poll suggests. BBC News. Retrieved fromhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52228169
Fazackerley, A. (2020, April 3). Forget freshers' week: universities prepare to teach new first years online. The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/03/forget-freshers-week-universities-prepare-to-teach-new-first-years-online
Grady, J. (2020, April 23). Universities are expecting 230,000 fewer students – that's serious financial pain. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/23/universities-are-expecting-230000-fewer-students-thats-serious-financial-pain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Hall, R. & Packham, A. (2020, April 6). 'A weird time': students tell of a future snatched away. The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/06/students-tell-of-a-future-snatched-away-covid-19
Keyes, C. L. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 207-222.
Reidy, T. (2020, April 10). 'Recruitment is on hold': the students graduating into the Covid-19 recession. The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/10/recruitment-is-on-hold-the-students-graduating-into-the-covid-19-recession?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Roxby, P. (2020, April 16). ‘Coronavirus: 'Profound' mental health impact prompts calls for urgent research. BBC News. Retrieved fromhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52295894
Russell, G. 2008. “Student Social Anxiety.” University of Plymouth.
Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, A., & Simpson, O. (2018). Developing student support for open and distance learning: The EMPOWER project. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2018(1).
Savage, M. (2020, April 11). Universities brace for huge losses as foreign students drop out. The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/11/universities-brace-for-huge-losses-as-foreign-students-drop-out?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Simpson, O. (2013). Supporting students for success in online and distance education: Routledge.
References
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
UKAT Professional Recognition
• Recognises professional practice in personal tutoring
• Evidence-based application (e-portfolio)
• Three levels of recognition
• Recognised Practitioner in Advising(RPA)
• Recognised Senior Advisor (RSA)
• Recognised Leader in Advising (RLA)
• Launches May 2020; currently in pilot with 13 institutions and 68 participants
• Bulk discounts for institutional members
• Demonstrates institutional commitment to personalised learning and student success
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
Sharing practice through the UKAT Blog:
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series Sign up at https://learning.ukat.uk/courses/36
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
7 May – Advising in Turbulent TimesKaren Sullivan-Vance, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
28 May - Training personal tutors to support the needs of diverse student populationsSean Bridgen, University of Pittsburgh; National Science Foundation
Forthcoming Webinars:
Tutoring Matters Webinar Series
See you again soon at our next event: https://www.ukat.uk/events/webinars/current/