Wendy France

Mental healthiness comes from dealing with stress in positive ways and there are many techniques for coping with stress to make you a better teacher.

Mindfulness is important to slow things down and smell the flowers so to speak.  I like the 4 x 4 breathing technique myself.

I have learned there are 2 types of coping with stressful demands:  problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping and what each is.

I like the information regarding PMR (progressive muscle relaxation) and will try this out.

Making the student feel safe and comfortable in the class setting to participate and thrive is very important and I can do better at this. 

I have learned that a motivator can be both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature.  I will try not to use extrinsic rewards as a long-term motivator in the future and I will try to balance both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for students. 

Motivation is based on the student's self-perception not how the instructor tells the student that he/she can do it.  I will help motivate by implementing activities that will increase the student's self-perception of his/her abilities in my classroom.