By: Dr. Michelle Jones and Dr. Gus Farmakidis
Have you ever tried paying attention in a meeting while you were feeling overwhelmed or preoccupied with your own stressors? Imagine being a student in 2019 where research shows 49% of students report being under a great deal of stress on any given day.
As teachers, we can provide learning conditions necessary to overcome this challenge by addressing the social-emotional needs of students by creating learning environments that prioritizes the social-emotional needs as much as academic mastery. This is a vital practice for us at Jennings Community Learning Center, where many of our students arrive to our classrooms from war-torn countries and refugee camps.
Students experience cognitive lockout when they remain in their stress response system during their classroom instruction. Mindfulness is an awareness of how our bodies respond to stress and the application of meditative strategies to self- regulate this stress. When we address the social-emotional needs of our students we acknowledge that they are unique individuals and part of our job as educators is to help them to develop the skills needed to manage the emotions that might hinder their learning. At Jennings, we use technology as an effective tool to assist with teaching students mindfulness and other empowering calming techniques. The best virtual realities we have found for mindfulness have soothing sounds, natural scenes, and calming music.
Here are some of the technology tools we have used to incorporate virtual reality as a tool for mindfulness activity and guided breathing exercises:
- Relaxation River Virtual Reality
- Guiding Star Virtual Reality
- Guided Meditation Zen Body and Breath Awareness
- TC Studio is a free video production app. We use video production to strengthen social-emotional learning while increasing student confidence and self awareness. Students collaborate with each other while getting a chance to be creative while demonstrating their understanding of rigorous content.
Moving forward, we will explore how technology can be used in the purposeful planning of what Dr. Bruce Perry calls “therapeutic dosing.” Perry reports that intense therapeutic stimulation goes a long way toward helping students be in their learning brain. Therapeutic stimulations are simple to deliver in the classroom and are characterized by the activation of any of the senses, which leads to a feeling of happiness and the safety of a caring environment.
How are you using or how could you be using technology to help students self-regulate their stress and access their learning brain?
Dr. Jones is the instructional specialist and Dr. Farmakidis is the media specialist at Jennings Community Learning Center in Akron Public Schools. They recently presented this topic at GAR’s Educator Conference. Click here to view their presentation.