This session is a 50-minute nature and spiritual health standalone course. It focuses on activating participants’ awareness of their spiritual health and on explaining how nature influences spiritual health in general.
The course was conducted through Zoom with 3 confirmed participants. The participants were my classmates from the PID program. Monika is a botanical scientist, Kiran is a communications arts teacher, and Iulia is a college instructor of Psychology. The demographics of the participants led to interesting group dynamics in a way that everyone had their own perspective of well-being in terms of the 4 dimensions namely physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being. The common ground was that everyone loved to be with nature and have actual experiences on the benefits of being with nature.
Conducting the session online was preferred because the participants come from different geographical areas. Monika is from Vancouver, Kiran is from Dubai, and Iulia is from Dawson Creek. It would be difficult for us to meet in one physical learning space.
On another note, I have a passion for learning about the field of Psychology of religion, spirituality, and well-being. I am currently staying in Vancouver and I have personally experienced the beauty of British Columbia in terms of its natural wonders. I am in awe and connected with nature and believe that it makes me feel peaceful and in tune with the Higher Being. I want to share this personal experience through a learning session on nature and spiritual health.
Aside from that, I wanted to explore the use of audio, video, and file sharing through a Zoom class that is less than an hour. It turned out to be doable, but there are things that need to be improved. Finally, I wanted to conduct a session that can harness multicultural perspectives into a rich conversation of spiritual experiences and well-being. I wanted to provide a culturally sensitive and relevant learning session that can empower them into sharing their own ideas and experiences amid cultural differences. I was happy that I was able to realize it.
What went well? What needs to improve?
The use of a quality camera and microphone worked well in a way that it made the actual video quality better and the audio clear (although the youtube version of it is already not in the high-resolution quality). In my previous synchronous sessions with my PIDP classmates and even with my students, I had poor video and audio quality. I am happy that my investment in a better camera, microphone, and office chair paid off.
I was also pleased with starting with a get-to-know-you-activity to build rapport before introducing the bridge-in activity. Participants chose one picture from the 4 natural wonders of Canada, provided their reasons for liking it, and introduced themselves. This activity helped us know each other better and provided me with an idea that we share the common interest of being with nature. Hence, I anchored on this common ground to establish the idea of the relevance of the course to their personal growth – this reflects a motivational strategy that emphasizes the personal value of the course to the participants.
The bridge-in activity was able to set the tone for our nature and spiritual health session. Listening to the sound of nature for one minute made the participants feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the session. The best thing was it motivated them to know more about how nature influenced their spiritual health. Hence, the bridge-in activity proved to be an effective motivational strategy.
Moreover, using the self-report measure (SHALOM) facilitated increased awareness of the participants’ spiritual health. This activity increased their engagement with the learning session and provided an opportunity to have ownership in the learning process. This reflected the realization of the first course outcome. Participants agreed with their results and were even more willing to share their experiences for each domain of spiritual health.
Finally, asking the participants about their personal experiences and perspective throughout the session helped establish a warm conversation. Here, I emphasized the idea of meaningful learning such that I gave them an opportunity to own their ideas and learning experiences – an effective instructional strategy, especially for adult learners. There were differences in terms of their idea on the Higher Being, but respect was observed all throughout. I was able to establish a culturally sensitive and respectful atmosphere. This facilitated a welcoming learning session.
On the other hand, I was not able to share the excel file containing the self-report measure. I attempted 3 times on sending it through the Zoom chat but it ended up as an error file. So, what I did was we just discussed each item and gathered their response. Thereafter, I encoded all their responses and showed them their spiritual well-being scores. This took 3 minutes more than my allotted time. Yet, we were still able to have a conversation about the results and share our related experiences.
After the session, time was allocated for a quick feedforward session. All were able to give their points for improvement (i.e., feedforward) and I was able to thank them and close the session. However, there may be other ideas that they wanted to share but were not able to because I ended up clicking on the ‘end call’ button instead of the ‘stop recording’ button. I sent them a message apologizing for the abrupt end of the session and invited them to share any ideas that they were not able to share.
In the future synchronous sessions, I will make use of the 5 things that worked well in my nature and spiritual health course. More importantly, establishing a warm, welcoming, and respectful class session motivates learning. However, I must make sure that If I want to share some files, I will create a shareable link wherein my participants can just click on it and be directed to a folder that contains all the files for the course – instead of sharing these files individually. I usually take note of the responses of my participants through pen and paper. Yet, upon reviewing the video, I noticed that it may create an impression that I am not listening to them as I am looking into something that they cannot see on the screen. Thus, in the future session, I have to tell them ahead of time that throughout the conversation I will be taking some notes so they may see me looking down not because I am not paying attention to the conversation but because I am taking note of the relevant points being talked about.
It was an insightful learning experience, and I am looking forward to more of it as I continue to facilitate online learning sessions.
flowjame 