Leaflet presenting overview of student resilience course
This project is now complete.
- Stage 1: Systematic review of the literature highlighted that resilience is a complex concept that encompasses adaptability, recovery from adversity, and coping skills. Resilience can be supported and trained, and there already exist a number of interventions and exercises designed to enhance resilience. The intern (Caitlin Tawse) evaluated and collated these interventions across three themes: metacognition, mental health, self management, with the aim of providing a baseline of activities for the proposed student resilience course.
- Stage 2: The second intern (Sophie Westhead) conducted a series of focus groups with students of varying levels and disciplines from the University of Aberdeen. The students were positive regarding the development of a student resilience course and highlighted the need for the course to be interactive, include student development content, and utilise a more informal presentation style (such as podcasts and short TED talk style videos). They were particularly interested in the idea of completing guided tasks and developing social networks within the course.
- Stage 3: The preliminary framework of the course has been developed, with the plan being for an online, asynchronous course over 5 weeks, with the emphasis being on introducing the concept of resilience, guiding students through self-evaluation and resilience enhancement tasks, building social connections and reflecting on self and progress.
- Stage 4: The course content is currently being developed, including student developed materials (organised by intern Alice Alcaras). The course has been approved and is now included in the University of Aberdeen course catalogue.
- Stage 5: The course is now available as a zero credit course to all University of Aberdeen students.