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Spark-It Week Message October 19, 2020

Today's Daily Spark: Do Something Good For Yourself

Dear Colleagues,

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Monday with a reminder that today is the first day of Spark-It Week, a lovingly fabricated five-day collection of activities and advice designed to add spark to your classes and propel you and your students into the last six weeks of the semester.

We begin the week with a reminder to be good to yourself. Have the dog take YOU for a walk, change into real pants, or turn your books and devices upside down to shake up your routine. For more practical advice, check out this podcast titled From Treading Water to Thriving in an Uncertain Environment, developed by three KU faculty members for the 2020 Teaching Summit. You will also find the transcript, a self-care checklist, a resilience guide, and several other resources on the Summit page here (scroll to the bottom). 

Our Daily Spark Recommendations

We’ve already heard from several of you who have shared inspirational ideas for Spark-It Week—thank you! Here are two of them:

  • Let your students in on it. To celebrate Spark-It Week, Psychology instructor and faculty consultant Susan Marshall invited her classes to vote on something fun to do in Zoom class… pets in class, class Spotify playlist, wear a costume/accessory/funny hat, use Bitmojis… (as of Friday afternoon the playlist was winning, but the votes were still rolling in).
  • Take a little time to just check-in with your students. One KU faculty member who was feeling low last week responded by taking some class time to ask students how they were feeling and what they were doing to cope. They were all energized through the process. In the words of the faculty member:

It’s a great time for us all to remember to look out for others and to share kindness. I was better about checking in with students last spring, when all this was new… I worry we so get used to the new as normal we forget it’s not and how hard it all is, even as we do good jobs of coping and faking. I first remembered to bring all this up in my Wednesday class because I was feeling worn down by everything and felt that my teaching was suffering; after talking about what the class, including me, was going through, I had a really great class. It helps to talk and share.

Here are more suggestions for caring for oneself and for students on the Flex Teaching website.

You can find many more ideas for reconnecting and recharging your class on our Spark-It page.  If you try something from the list that you like, or make up a Daily Spark of your own, share it with us and the teaching and learning community on Twitter using the hashtag #KUSparkitWeek. Most importantly, take care of yourselves.

Best,

Dea and Doug