8 Dimensions of Educator Wellness
Teachers often sacrifice their own well-being to support their students' social, emotional, and academic needs. Yet research shows that teacher wellness contributes to a stable, positive, and equitable school culture. It has never been more important for educators to focus on their own well-being, minimize stress, and avoid burnout for themselves as well as their colleagues and students. As their own wellness needs are met, educators have more space to be engaged in equity work and teach in a more critically conscious manner.
In this course, participants will implement accessible strategies for their own well-being in eight key areas, including emotional, occupational, social, environmental, intellectual, financial, spiritual, and physical wellness. Through collaborative live sessions, self-selected wellness activities, and reflective discussions, Laura Lee Summers will share wellness strategies to support participants in developing an actionable self-care plan that supports their personal wellness for the coming school year and beyond.
Participants in this course will:
- Implement a self-care plan that includes personal, actionable strategies and activities for each dimension of wellness.
- Self-assess how well the dimensions of wellness inform their own well-being.
- Practice and share self-care strategies with colleagues in a safe learning environment.
- Use learned wellness strategies to support the social and emotional well-being of colleagues and students.
Course Facilitator
Laura Lee Summers is an Associate Clinical Professor and Program Leader for the Professional Learning, Learning Design & Technology graduate programs, as well as an instructor and dissertation mentor in the Leadership for Educational Equity EdD program within the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado-Denver. She has spent nineteen years leading in the areas of executive and instructional coaching for equity; educational effectiveness; measuring the impact of professional learning; culturally responsive education; digital literacy; hybrid pedagogy; and SEL - Social, Emotional Learning. She has been a panelist for Learning Forward webinars; and her most recent publications for The Learning Professional are “The right blend: SEL supports teacher learning in person and online” (August 2020) and “Eight dimensions of wellness for educators” (February 2021). Laura shares more resources on her website here and can be followed on twitter: @lsummers