Teaching Wellbeing
Teach4Reach Webinar 4 (online) on SDG 3 (Good health & wellbeing)
12 October 2022, 10.00-13.00
Programm
10:00-10:10 Opening and welcome
Prof Tiaan de Jager (Dean of Health Sciences, University Pretoria)
10:10-10:50 Keynote address "Embracing well-being for all: why it matters and how it can be strengtened" & Discussion
Prof Tharina Guse (Head of Dept of Psychology, University Pretoria)
10:50-11:20 Postgraduate Student studies on Wellbeing: Teacher wellbeing during a pandemic; Vignettes of hope and youth leadership; Wellbeing of students in Health Sciences & Ensuring wellbeing during PhD-studies
Natalie Muhlmann (University Innsbruck); Megan Swart (University Pretoria), Nthabiseng Mofokeng (University Pretoria); Rosa Modiba (University Pretoria); Sunet Grobler (University Innsbruck); Joseph Sebastian-Steinlechner (University Vienna)
11:20-11:35 Short break
11:35-12:05 Wellbeing Expert Panel discussion: “Wellbeing everywhere” – applications of wellbeing research
Franziska Felder (University Vienna); Motlalepule Mampane (University Pretoria); Angelina Wilson-Fadiji (University Pretoria); Sarina de Jager (University Pretoria)
12:05-12:35 Wellbeing Expert talks (parallel sessions) “30 minutes with: …”
Motlalepule Mampane (University Pretoria); Angelina Wilson-Fadiji (University Pretoria); Sarina de Jager (University Pretoria)
12:35-12:45 Reflection session
Irma Eloff (University Pretoria)
12:45-12:55 Teach4Reach Fellow awards
Michael Schratz, Motlalepule Mampane, Anja Thielmann, Nazime Öztürk, Sara Baroni, Denis Francesconi, Barbara Gross
Wietske Boon, Vincent Schatz
Experts
Opening & Welcoming address
Prof Tiaan de Jager is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Director of the UP ISMC, and a professor in Environmental Health at the School of Health Systems and Public Health at the University of Pretoria. He has a PhD in Reproductive Biology and he completed a post-doctoral study at Laval University, Canada. Prof de Jager is involved in on-going epidemiological and laboratory-based reproductive toxicology, and epigenetic studies. He is keenly involved in malaria, public health and water quality research. Prof de Jager is an internationally recognised researcher (C1 NRF-rated), supervises several post-graduate students, and is dedicated to building research capacity and promoting science in Africa. He maintains multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaborations, is involved in malaria outreach programmes and regularly engages with communities; all looking towards malaria elimination in Africa. He has published more than 55 scientific papers in international Journals. SCOPUS H-index = 16 (citations 1245).
Keynote Speaker
Tharina Guse is a professor of Psychology and Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria. She is also a registered counselling psychologist in South Africa. Her research and teaching focus on positive psychology broadly and well-being in particular. She has developed and presented several courses on positive psychological interventions for student psychologists as well as undergraduate modules on positive psychology. Her current research projects focus on hope and gratitude as psychological strengths across the lifespan and she is one of the lead researchers of the International Hope Barometer Research Programme. She has published several articles and book chapters and co-edited two books related to well-being research.
Expert Panel
Motlalepule Ruth Mampane is a C2 NRF-rated researcher, an Associate Professor, Head of Educational Psychology Department, University of Pretoria and a registered Educational Psychologist with the HPCSA. Her research focus is on academic resilience, family and adolescent resilience. Her scholarly contributions are centred on the influences of context and developmental processes on academic resilience, adolescent and family resilience against multiple adversities that South African families are exposed to. Her research is unique in highlighting family resilience in resource-constrained context of South African townships and cultural influences to family resilience. She received postdoctoral award to the University of Michigan (Ann-Abor), African Presidential Scholar (UMAPS) for the period August 2010 – February 2011. Mampane also received National Research Foundation of South Africa funding (2013-14/ 2018-2021) focusing on the Determinants of family resilience and collaborated in several internationally funded projects. Mampane is a past chairperson of Education Association of South Africa (EASA), a current World Education Research Association (WERA) representative of EASA and a Council Member of UMALUSI Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education of SA.
Sarina de Jager, PhD is a registered Educational Psychologist and a lecturer in Humanities Education at the University of Pretoria. Her research interests include well-being in education, with her most recent research exploring the connection between students in Higher Education’s well-being and their experiences of vulnerability and worthiness. Sarina also nurtures a key interest in mindfulness in education, wisdom, courage, and self-transcendence.
Dr Angelina Wilson Fadiji is a senior lecturer at the Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education. She is also an extraordinary senior lecturer of the African Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research, North-West University. Dr Wilson Fadiji obtained her PhD in Psychology from University of Stellenbosch which was focused on exploring aspects of mental health among school-going adolescents in the Northern Region of Ghana. Her research interests are centred on understanding the manifestation of well-being in the African context, specifically in terms of experiences of meaning, relational well-being and positive psychological strengths. She had published extensively on the well-being of young people in Africa and has contributed to conceptual framings on an African-centred positive psychology. She is also interested in positive education and how it can be implemented in contexts of adversity. Dr Wilson Fadiji has received the NRF grant for non-rated researchers targeted at understanding meaning in life and relational well-being of South African University students. She was also part of a team that was awarded the NRF social dynamics research grant focused on understanding well-being in the context of violence in South African Higher Education Institutions. Dr Wilson Fadiji is a Y2 rated researcher in South Africa.
Franziska Felder is Professor of Inclusion and Diversity at the University of Zurich. She is primarily concerned with ethical issues around inclusion, well-being and justice. Her latest publication is entitled The Ethics of Inclusion - Presenting a New Theoretical Framework and is published by Routledge in 2022.
Doctoral student discussion
Sunet Grobler is a Researcher and PhD student at the Institute for Teacher Education and School Research at the Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck in Austria. She completed her Master´s degree in Education at the North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa focusing on indigenous knowledge and cooperative learning in Life Sciences. She expanded her research priorities and interests to Teacher Education, Quality Education as a Sustainable Development Goal and Agenda2030.
Mag.rer.Nat. Joseph-Sebastian Steinlechner is a doctoral scholar in the Department of Education at the University of Vienna in Austria. After finishing his Magister Degree in Social Psychology at the University of Vienna, Joseph worked in the esports industry and researched expertise development, before shifting his interest to education and social equality. Currently working as a teacher-researcher at a prevocational school in Vienna, Joseph-Sebastian’s research interests focus on the Sustainable Development Goals, class-room techniques and educational equality. Outside of academia, Joseph-Sebastian is very passionate about disability sports where he leads the Austrian blind football program.
Rosa Modiba is a doctoral scholar in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria. She is currently working as a Lecturer at North West University – Mafikeng Campus . She completed her Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Arts Honours degrees at University of Limpopo, Turfloop Campus in 2006 and 2007 respectively. In 2017, She completed Master of Education degree with Learning Support specialization at the University of Pretoria. Her research interests are in the field (s) of learner support, career guidance and counselling, SDG4(Quality education),educational transitions and Life orientation.
Master's degree student discussion
Natalie Mühlmann is a graduate of the Secondary School Teacher Training Programme for General Education at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. For her master's thesis in 2022, she investigated teacher well-being of secondary education teachers in the Austrian state Tyrol in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. By now, Natalie is a secondary education teacher herself and teaches English, Geography, Physical Education and Computer Sciences in a Tyrolean middle school.
Nthabiseng Mofokeng is a master's candidate in Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria (UP). She is currently a part-time research assistant and a third- year psychology tutor at UP. She completed both her degrees at UP, firstly her undergraduate studies was in Human Physiology - Bachelor of Science (BSc) - 2016, and then went on to study a Bachelor of Social Sciences (BSocSci) Honours in Psychology in 2018. Her Master's research study focuses on the exploration of the factors that support the wellbeing of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Megan Swart is a registered Educational Psychologist, based at the Johannesburg Parent and Child Counselling Centre (JPCCC) and part-time school psychologist at Houghton School. She completed her Maters degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria (UP), where she conducted her research dissertation under the supervision of Prof Irma Eloff. The focus of her study was on the phenomenon of hope and how it manifests for South African youth during times of adversity. She won a UP department award for “Best Methodological Paper”, whereby her study followed a vignette methodology. Megan has attended a number of phenomenologically oriented International Vignette and Anecdote Research Network (VignA) conferences.