Students Co-creating Canvas to Support Their Mental Health and Wellbeing

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The University of Wolverhampton is leading one of 18 UK national projects funded by the Office for Students. The project represents a partnership with the Students’ Union, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s Recovery College to develop, test and deliver an innovative online suite of tools to support students in managing their own mental health all within Canvas.

‘PACE - A co-explored and co-created solution to address the mental health difficulties of students who undertake placement learning’ uses innovation and intersectional approaches to target mental health support for students. Co-creation is at the heart of the project and so is Canvas. Our priority has been to look at intersectional considerations based on the profile of the students in our target group to tailor provision accordingly throughout their Canvas journey.

The resources will be accessed centrally to all students and specific resources will be embedded into every single Canvas course. In addition to the student-facing resources, curriculum design training and development will be accessible to staff to support them in creating their courses on Canvas and in the classroom. Working with students to utilise Canvas has helped shape its critical role in understanding and supporting their mental health and wellbeing.

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Video Transcript
(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to this presentation, looking at supporting students mental health and wellbeing within Canvas. I'm focusing on our PACE project here at the University of Wolverhampton. My name is Paul Towers. I'm an education developer within the university and I'm lead developer on this particular project. And I wanna hand over to Clare who's our program and lead for the PACE project as well. - Thanks, Paul.

As Paul has just said, this is our Canvas project in relation to the PACE project. And we really wanna show you today where Canvas has been the catalyst for some of the progress that we've made with the actual project. I'm Clare Dickens and I'm the academic lead for mental health and wellbeing at the University of Wolverhampton. So we thought it would be prudent to give you a little bit of background in terms of what the PACE project actually is. So the PACE project is a co-explored and co-created solution to address some of the mental health difficulties of students who undertake placement-based learning.

If you go through to the next slide, Paul, some of the background and the context of the actual project is in relation to its funding stream. So this is an Office for Students-funded project. And there are around 18 projects within this funding stream, and obviously we are one of them. When you look at the brief of the projects, it was with the view of actually exploring the experiences of students who maybe don't experience the typical university journey. And some projects have gone down the roots of specific mental health difficulties or demographics of students in relation to gender, mature learner status, sexuality.

We've gone down the route of placement-based learning, cognizant of the fact that, as I say, for many of them, there are 52-week courses. When we look at transition points and pinch points within our university context, these can be happening every single week. So there's something there with the view to actually explore what those students are experiencing. This is a three-year project from its inception through to its finale and that will be in June 2023. And it's very much a collaboration between ourselves, our own students' union, and the Black Country Partnerships NHS Recovery College.

And we're really looking in the Black Country in England to have a Recovery College, when you explore some of their underpinning philosophy, there's lots that we've actually learned from them around co-production and co-creation. Next slide, please, Paul. So the first year of the project has really been dedicated to co-exploring the experiences of these particular students. So the three groups of students that we've honed in on and focused on within this project are nursing. So nursing within the UK, all nurses trained to a standardized level in the UK.

And our education standards are set by our Nursing and Midwifery Council. So any student nurse who's going through that program has to engage in 2,300 hours of placement experience over the three years of their course. So quite a lot, when you actually break that down. The other group are primary education students. And I think their placement learning profile, in terms of their allocated hours is about 800 over the three hour, three years, sorry.

And then also with our engineering students, it's been fascinating from an intersectional context in terms of different level of study. So we've got PhD students, we've got Master students, and undergrad students involved in this particular project. So some are already working within the industries, but then coming to university as their placement, if that makes sense. So it's been absolutely fascinating to listen to those experiences. As we've said, ultimately the first year of this project has been dedicated specifically to working with groups of students from these particular course strands to actually explore what their experiences are.

And then co-create some of the solutions that, had exposure to those particular principles, knowing what they know now, they feel it would've actually helped them better. There have been student opportunities infused throughout this particular project so far. So for example, as well as paying the students who we've been involved within the co-exploration and the co-creation, we've also recruited visual illustration students who've been sat there within the background of the exploration sessions with the view to illustrate their interpretation of the experiences that the students narrate. And those particular outputs will be hosted within Canvas, once we've set up those particular tools. So absolutely everything about this project so far has been born of students' experiences.

We haven't assumed anything, have we, Paul? - No, not at all. - The problem we have, though, when you explore some elements of co-exploration and co-creation, is that you can have people stuck, then that those individuals who you are working with in the "what is. " So you ask people to narrate their experiences and tell us what's been happening, and then you leave them there. And we reflected, didn't we, Paul, in the design of the actual project that imagination and taking some of those insights away and actually then figuring out what to do with them is a principle of privilege. It's a privilege that we have as educationalists every single day.

Where we get to design curriculum, design principles of what we want to expose students to. And rarely do they have the opportunity to actually be involved in the design and the dissemination of those particular materials. So within the second stage of the co-exploration sessions, we moved the students on from "what is" to "what if," where they told us some of the principles of what they believed would've actually helped them, had they had exposure to this. And we looked at that from a curriculum point of view. So curriculum content and resources point of view.

We also looked at that from a systems point of view and a culture point of view. And one of the really strong threads that came through is that Canvas is the one virtual learning environment, the one digital environment that they have a relationship with. Because it's where they actually are introduced to their learning and teaching content. It's the one system that they will go to throughout the three years of their particular journeys. So that's really that for that, in terms of the co-exploration sessions.

There were lots of different experiences shared. Some good, some bad, some ugly, in relation to students' experiences. So ultimately, we had to make sense of that together. - So what I want to do now is show you how Canvas actually is being used and the sort of things that are developed in Canvas. We are creating a range of resources that will be quite static, but also interactive within the system.

Because we're working with students in terms of co-producing, every stage they will either write or produce materials. And we'll go back and actually, help them support some of those materials. So things like time and task management, self-esteem for things like nursing, et cetera. But we've also created a range of video resources that will be filtered and underpinned throughout their nursing curriculum while they're on placement, or the primary education area as well, or engineering. And some of these resources are being about top tips from students in a very kind of social media sort of style that been embedded into Canvas pages.

But with nursing, there's one particular video that really speaks volumes in terms of where the nursing placement students came from. And that is, they really want to give thanks to their family and their friends, and actually make them aware of what it's like to be a nursing student for the three years. They're going to see things that they can't talk about. They're going to see things that they maybe don't wanna comprehend at that moment. They're going to be tears.

There's gonna be upset. And it's about a giving thanks to those support networks, either friends or family or other colleagues or other peers within that nursing and what the students did with this video. They created the script. They gave ideas of how it should be directed and what kind of things were processed. And it was simply down to ourselves just to literally hit record and actually edit the video afterwards.

And that has been proven, really powerful to the nursing students and we're hoping to see some of the analytics from how that resource can be used for placements. Students for nursing either been sent out to their friends and family, but also embedded into the curriculum as well. Other resources that are available or will be things like for burnout, for things like prime education, assertiveness, self-esteem. And because of the flexibility of Canvas, we're able to utilize the system and put it into pages and actually allow students to navigate or allow the curriculum to be curated for that journey with those resources. But what I want to do is I want to showcase some of the things that I've actually come about from the actual project itself.

So one of the things that we within the college of learning and teaching were developing sort of slightly beforehand, but really kind of showed the impact for our students was creating a generic university template that would be sent out to all Canvas courses. Because what we heard from, not only from what if events with our students on the PACE project, but other students in other surveys that they wanted consistency and structure within their Canvas course modules. What this would mean is it would break down some of the tension or the barrier tracks. They navigate some of the materials for their learning and teaching. And it just means that it will just free them up to explore their learning journey far more effectively than maybe to hunt round for resources.

So what this template has done is we've sent it out to all Canvas courses for the start of next academic year. And I won't go into the sort of the full depth for the sort of learning teaching aspect, but it breaks down and gives the academics a point of reference to actually start building some of these resources. So what am I doing in week one, we really sort of allow students when the academic develops this page, gives them an understanding of what they're doing for that week. And that is some of the thing that we found with our law society, our law school been developing, but also some of the modules that we've been delivering online for the last few years where it comes really exciting and really important for our students is the student resources below. So there's a lot of information here for students, but the beauty about this is it's generic information.

So the academic doesn't feel that they have to recreate something, specific for their courses, but also it means that students will always have access to these materials in every single course and reaffirming what the students had said in the what if events about Canvas is the vehicle. Canvas is the main focus of their digital university experience. We really felt it important to incorporate some of these materials in there. So they've always got access to them in every single course they might be on. So we have information about the student journey as a whole for the whole three years where they can go off into other courses at a postgraduate and undergraduate.

We have information regarding the student support. So generic sort of student support. We have a system called ASK, which is a phone call or an email service that can ask any question that be divert where they need to go. We have a Glossary of terms for the whole university about what is the role of a Vice Chancellor? You know, what is a module guide? What does it mean to have a credit of a learning credit or whatever it might be? We have information about Financial Support and Student Support and Wellbeing Services as well. The next bit it's information is about the Academic Support.

So focus on things like, the localization of libraries, what information is stored there, how they can actually utilize their libraries. We have wonderful skills for learning team that provide a whole host of training sessions that they can access. And then any information about the Academic English Language Skills at which any student can also apply for as well. Lastly, we also not, lastly, we have academic integrity, which is focusing on, they mainly focus on turn it in and how to reference things correctly. We believe that rather than just being a turn it in, being a bit of a stick and being a bit of punishment for plagiarism, it should be about learning and understanding what plagiarism is and making sure that they reference correctly.

And it uses a learning tool rather than to be penalized with. So some wonder information and videos about academic integrity within these pages. And as I say, this is also available in every single course as well. Technical support, we all need technical support. So again, that's all there regarding the IT services portal, the Assisted Applications, but also the things like Canvas High Contrast Feature.

And then lastly is the sort of the area that myself and Claire have been working on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Support. So again, this information is out in every single course because that is what we've found from the students. So first off, any kind of emergency, they've obviously got the ability to call 999, which is our emergency services, but also they can find out additional information. And then we have some things that we've derived sort of like the key areas for the mental health support, for all learning teaching. Personal safety, student support wellbeing services, togetherall, which is a community where people can ask questions and they can get support that way.

We also have the advice for sort of course-based support. So things like we've got a range of academic coaches, student transition teachers, what your personal tutors can do, skills for learning and things like the doctoral college for researching, etc. Safeguarding information. Safeguarding obviously is a huge topic over the last say, 10 years. And we've got obviously information about that supporting safeguarding awareness.

And then the Hub of Hope, which is an external website, which is a fantastic website that allows students and anyone, really, any member of staff or any individual to find out support networks or support groups within their local area. And we have that available throughout all our Canvas courses. They can always access it. One key thing, as well, as I mentioned is there's additional information in the Canvas help and guidance. But what we've also found is because Canvas is very much the vehicle for a lot of the things that we do and it's the main focus for our student journey under the Help menu here, we have the dedicated link that actually goes to additional Mental Health and Wellbeing Support.

So at any point, if they're in a course, or if they're not in a course, they're on their dashboard, they can always access this sort of material. And this material here is a simple page with dedicated links that go to a range of information and range of support. We are building the placement learning support from a lot of the things that have come out from the PACE project. And we continue to build those sort of things, not quite ready yet, but we'll get some of those resources in there as well. But also those are more generic information for our students.

Myself and Claire will be working on a number of specific placement stuff, placement resources for our nursing engineering and our primary education students as well. And what we're hoping to do with the PACE project is expand that to other placement areas as well, further down the line. And it's really been a beneficial for the students. One last thing I want to show in terms of the, sort of the power that we've been able to utilize and things that we want you to do is because cameras gives us the flexibility to showcase some of its functionality and actually embed some of the material. I've been working with a wonderful colleague in primary education called Carl Longmore, who allows us to really be quite creative with primary education.

And this has come directly from the PACE project as well. So Carl is a primary educational lecturer and what his role is and what is done within the Canvas course, he's built a fictitious school and we've just called it the Carl Longmore School for ease or CLC for sure. And what we've done is we've actually captured a 360 school. Actually, this is my daughter's school as a bit of a dry run and as a bit of a test. What we're actually doing next week is be capturing a whole primary school and actually utilizing Matterport technology to which they capture a school and then embed it into Canvas.

Now, the beauty about, again, the Canvas system, but also allowing us to embed this sort of material is we can not only create this sort of virtual space that allows students to get a feel of a placement before they enter. But what we can also do is add hyperlinks to gain, incorporate additional material and resources. So if I just go to the map, we've got the blue spots, which are generic information, but then what we've also got here is links that actually go off into different quizzes or discussions within that Canvas page. So while the students walk around this virtual school and they can use things like a VR headset if they so wish, they can also click on the information here and actually go off into areas of the Canvas course itself. So for example, this is a particular discussion about disability, so they can go off and click on there and it's still all within that Canvas course environment as well.

We have information if they scroll around, they can locate. If I just zoom out, we can go into another area of the school. This is actually my daughter's classroom. Before she moved up. So you can look at code of practice.

We've looked at, we can look at things like the medical and social model quiz. So again, we can click on these areas and they can have reference points to certain information there as well. So that's kind of thing that we want to do. We want to sort of develop that further with engineering as well, maybe capture a construction yard and not only have things that will be useful for that environment, but also internally within Canvas as well, to point them to additional quizzes surveys, or even, additional meetings that they might need to take, et cetera. So that's been really sort of worthwhile experience to actually capture that environment and allow students that freedom to explore a sort of a real life, primary school before they actually come into a placement area.

So I hope that's been useful to see some of the things that we've been doing with the PACE project. We'll be doing a lot more communications further down the line when we launch the sort of the findings and the other information and other presentations, et cetera. But I think from myself and Claire, thank you very much for watching and hopefully we'll see you all soon. Cheer. - Thank you very much. Thank you.
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