Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/1003100
Following your Teaching Passions and Maintaining a Work-Life Balance Being in the family therapy field, it's easy to become passionate about a variety of topics and interests! There is so much to choose from and focus on. It's also easy to get overwhelmed with the number of choices and goals we want to pursue as a faculty member and family therapist. Being someone who self-identifies as an overachiever, I love to get as involved as possible and am very passionate about teaching and engaging with students. I love teaching many different family therapy topics and love working with all types of students. However, it is also easy for me to realize that I sometimes work seven days a week! This is not hard to do and I am sure many of you can relate. In order to create more of a work-life balance for myself, I have begun implementing a few tips that I have found useful. First, I find it useful to have alone time and time for reflection. This allows me to see where I may need to fit in more time for myself throughout the week and participate more in some of my favorite hobbies, like exercising, a spa day or shopping (if I am being honest)! Second, I believe time spent in nature is always time well spent, so creating a relaxing space outdoors or taking my dog for a walk is a time to decompress and refocus my passions and intentions. I have found that when we are able to navigate a work-life balance, both our professional and personal worlds benefit and our students do too! Jenna Wilson, PhD Adjunct Faculty, Department of Marriage and Family Sciences Mindi Mull, PhD Associate Director of Faculty, Support and Development, SSBS I agree with Jenna that maintaining a healthy work-life balance is really important. A big part of that is finding ways to do your work efficiently so that you have more time for non-work activities. Using new tools, such as the screencasting tool Adia wrote about, is a great way to do this. While there is a very user-friendly video feedback tool built into NCUOne, this tool currently does not allow you to record what is on your screen. So, if there are times when you want to show students something, a screencasting tool such as Jing or Screencast-O-Matic is a great option. These tools are easy to use and I find they save me time. It is often a lot faster to say something than it is to type it, and it is another way to engage with students in a meaningful and helpful way. Thanks to Adia and Jenna for their strategies and suggestions! Do you have a teaching approach, strategy or suggestion you think others would find useful? Please share! You can send your ideas to me (mmull@ncu.edu) and I would be happy to include them in an upcoming faculty newsletter. Thanks! TEACHINGTIPS