Frankl: Meaningfulness Matters More Than Happiness

Emily Esfahani Smith. "A Psychiatrist Who Survived The Holocaust Explains Why Meaningfulness Matters More Than Happiness." The Atlantic. Oct. 22, 2014, 2:55 PM.
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-lesson-about-happiness-from-a-holocaust-survivor-2014-10 

Quotes:

• People who spent more time thinking about the future or about past struggles and sufferings felt more meaning in their lives.
• Meaning ... is enduring. It connects the past to the present to the future. 
• People who have meaning in their lives, in the form of a clearly defined purpose, rate their satisfaction with life higher even when they were feeling bad than those who did not have a clearly defined purpose. "If there is meaning in life at all," Frankl wrote, "then there must be meaning in suffering."
• Partly what we do as human beings is to take care of others and contribute to others.
• Frankl worked as a therapist in the camps, and in his book, he gives the example of two suicidal inmates he encountered there. Like many others in the camps, these two men were hopeless and thought that there was nothing more to expect from life, nothing to live for. "In both cases," Frankl writes, "it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them."
• This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love.

Lilly Conference On Evidenced-Based Teaching and Learning, Traverse City, 2014

Presentation:
Ranger, Kim L. and Veenstra, Victoria. (2014) “Informed Learning in Photography: Collaboration through Visual Communication.” 2014 National Lilly Conferences on College and University Teaching & Learning: Traverse City, Refereed.

Via our session, we shared our insights gained from faculty-librarian collaboration in Photography at GVSU with 25 participants.

What I learned / new insights gained: 

"Practicing improvisation as pedagogy" -- explain to students why they have to do the learning (not me the teaching)-they are doing the assignments, not me; they are (or are becoming) the photographer/dancer/PR specialist, etc.

Items to consider for "Interdisciplinary teaching and collaboration:"

• how to handle sharing student evaluations, teaching styles & use of time in class sessions, grading expectations, sit in on a class to observe teaching partner in preparation, assess outcomes to know if student learning was enriched by interdisciplinary team teaching 
• agree on rubrics, norm language between the 2 disciplines; be explicit on expectations for each other in terms of prepping students, class time and content; note how our teaching changed (lecture language, activities, tag-teaming, etc.)

"Exploring unintentional biases and their impact in the classroom:" listen, listen some more, listen again. Don’t rush to connect, empathize, fix, or defend. “Stereotype threat” means that one starts questioning or doubting self; it affects all minorities.

"Meeting student resistance with empathy in the college classroom:"
in library sessions, in order to connect with students’ feelings and perspectives but still be separate, “I didn’t do library research when I was an undergraduate but learned afterward how it helped me save time and write better papers (for better grades); it is important to me that you hve the same opportunity!”

"New science of learning:"

1. students look for meaning and patterns, and stop thinking when they have found something (whatever it is)
2. most effective study techniques:

• high: practice testing, breaking practice or study up into chunks
• moderate: elaborative interrogation (asking questions of oneself about concepts and elaborating on them), explaining concepts to oneself, interweaving practice (connecting concepts to each other)

3. Implementation science: incorporating evidence-based programs or innovations into practice

• builds capacity to sustain innovations
• bridges gap between research and using it or putting plan into action
• learning moment = failure and wish to improve
• goal to change behavior, establish “x” as the norm (even when no one is watching)
• what works:

· diffusion – people talking to others over time
· one-on-one mentors/facilitators/coaches/consultants who show why and how to do it
· people follow the lead of those whom they know and trust
· start with high structure and decrease as skills progress
· keep number of perspectives low at first and increase in complexity
· start with a lower degree of asking learners to connect concepts to their personal lives and increase
· start with small degrees of community and interaction, then increase 

4. National Implementation Research Network core components:

· staff or team selection
· training
· one-on-one mentors/facilitators/coaches/consultants
· support (safety, trust, etc.)
· data systems (collection, analysis, sharing)
· system-wide interventions
· staff performance evaluation

 

5. peer-led team learning (PLTL.org)

· 6-8 people in temas, each team has a peer leader who did well in previous class/training
· cooperation inspires greater efforts to achive than competition or individual striving, results in more positive relationships between team members, and greater psychological health

• mentor qualities:invites people to change, listens, nudges gently, questions, balances, cares, provides avenues for retreat when necessary
• fast idea implementation: idea/innovation is visible, short-term evidence is provided, doesn’t violate previous beliefs, is test-drivable, not tedious, is technically simple, and makes life better for practitioners and clients