Session Delivery
alone in feeling like this; and it would enable the panel to respond in real-time to students’ feelings and concerns. Fies and Marshall( 2006) identify this capacity for responsiveness as a key advantage of using SRS. However, as Stuart et al( 2004) caution, the responses may come as a surprise to both the teacher and the students, with the possibility that students may experience stress. This was an important practical and ethical consideration, given the sensitive nature of the discussion, but the team was prepared for it and was individually and collectively experienced in dealing with difficult feelings.
Interestingly, newer students had more positive perceptions of SRS than students of longer standing( Wulff et al, 1987). Draper( 2002) highlighted the essential feature of SRS – the immediate and anonymous display of responses. This suggested that SRS might be the way forward for our audience of first years – combined with an innovative presentation style aimed at fostering in our students a sense that they belonged to a supportive learning community in the Law School.
Why Mentimeter?
Mentimeter offered several benefits that supported what we were trying to achieve with the session. Its visual style is informal and accessible, which complemented the style and tone that we wanted the session to have. Moreover, Mentimeter had already been used as part of the Welcome to Law induction sessions, so students were already familiar with how it worked. The capacity to create“ word clouds” was also a considerable bonus; they have strong visual impact and would highlight effectively which feelings were being experienced most commonly. Again, the session planning had included consideration of the practical and ethical implications of difficult feelings being revealed in the word clouds. The team understood that it was important to let the students know that their feelings were being heard and acknowledged, and that they were in‘ safe hands’. The team’ s focus was on empathy combined with positive messaging and signposting to further practical support( see Session Delivery- Responses).
Mentimeter is accessed through the internet, requiring students to have a laptop, tablet or smartphone, and the venue to have a reliable wi-fi connection. Participants sign into the poll using a unique number that is displayed on screen. They can be given the option to vote on a set number of choices, or to add free text. To make sure that students came to the session with the necessary technology, we made it clear, in the flyer and email sent to all first year Law students, that they should bring an internet-enabled device to the session if they wanted to participate in the online polling. 98 % of young people between 16 and 24 own a smartphone( Statista, 2020). While this represents most students, there remains a small minority who risk being excluded through lack of internet-enabled technology( see Limitations).
Session Delivery
The team developed four themes for the session:
1. Life and study – getting the balance right;
2. Coping when things go wrong;
3. Recognising when you’ re not OK; and
4. Support for your mental health and wellbeing.
The session was designed so that students’ responses to the Mentimeter questions would be used by the panel as a springboard for discussion. Panel members were chosen who were willing to share their own experiences of challenges to wellbeing: of feeling inadequate; of coping with setbacks, including failure. The aim was to normalise these experiences: to show students that they need not be ashamed of them; and to demonstrate that it was possible to survive the experience of such difficult feelings. This would open up the conversation about mental health and wellbeing in a non-judgmental way and would give students an improved sense of belonging and community.
During the session introduction, we spoke about the Why Not Me? project and the Look After Your Mate programme and explained how this session fitted with them. We also explained that mental health and mental wellbeing are not necessarily the same thing and can instead be understood as an axis or a spectrum. We wanted the students to recognise that it is possible to have mental ill-health and yet to have good mental wellbeing( and vice versa) – the key being their self-care and the care they receive
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