Program Overview

Introduction to the EDMH610 Unit

The EDMH610 unit, titled "Teacher and Educator Mental Health: Roles, Responsibility and Identity," is designed to help participants reflect on and articulate a personal account of self as a teacher and educator. This unit aims to strengthen teachers' and educators' knowledge about mental health, recognizing the preventative and protective factors as well as the triggers that lead to decreased mental health.

Unit Rationale, Description, and Aim

The unit examines how individual teachers' and educators' self-identity is tied to their role as a teacher and educator. It offers intellectually stimulating, engaging, safe, and responsive experiences to help participants analyze their own and their colleagues' circumstances in relation to their identity as a teacher and educator. The unit draws on scholarship about teaching and pedagogy, with skills of critical reflection and reasoning, and is a prerequisite for EDMH611.

Learning Outcomes

To successfully complete this unit, participants will be able to:

• Reflect on and apply knowledge of psycho-social learning theories and mental health self-care to understand the impact on teacher and educator role and identity.
• Identify symptoms of mental ill-health common to teachers and educators and examine how these impact and influence personal and professional understandings of the self as a teacher.
• Critically reflect on the impact of mental ill-health and of personal and professional relationships to apply this understanding to create a mental-health action plan.

Unit Content

Topics covered in the unit include:

• I teach therefore I am: My role and identity as a teacher and educator.
• Critical incidents in teaching and education that impact the mental health of teachers and educators.
• Symptoms of reduced mental health, identifying the psycho-social factors that prevent, protect, and promote good mental health.
• The link between teacher and educator mental health and student academic achievement.
• Mental health and its relationship to leisure, creativity, spirituality, and the spiritual self.
• Strengthening influence of personal and collegial relationships on a teacher's and educator's mental health.

Assessment Strategy and Rationale

The assessment tasks are cumulative in their requirements, demonstrating how concepts of agency, autonomy, self-efficacy, and self-actualization are understood and acted upon to strengthen positive mental health. There are three assessment tasks:

1. Reflective Practice Essay: Reflecting on knowledge of educational pedagogy and psycho-social learning theories and of mental health, explore understanding of identity as a teacher and educator.
2. Visual Essay: Select 3+ images and/or diagrams from online media sources and critically write an account of how changes in teaching and schooling during the last ten years have affected the way participants and their colleagues teach and manage school responsibilities.
3. Writing Task: Rationale and Care Plan: Using a range of current literature, develop a mental-health care plan that examines and prioritizes the benefits of developing and maintaining social and collegial networks for positive mental health and well-being.

Learning and Teaching Strategy and Rationale

This unit is designed to be offered fully online and uses an active learning approach to support participants as they explore essential discipline content. The online delivery mode seeks to optimize digital teaching strategies and platforms to retain participant engagement. Because of the sensitive nature of the topics, the lecturer-in-charge will create weekly, regular student consultations for discussion and conversations as a duty-of-care matter.

Representative Texts and References

The unit includes a range of references, such as:

• Andrews, M-A., & Rodger S. (2016). "Pre-service teacher education for mental health and inclusion in schools," Exceptionality Education International , 26 (2): 93-118.
• Bandura, A., Social Cognitive Theory (1989). in Vasta E. (ed), Annals of Child Development Vol 6 Six theories of child development(pp. 1-60), Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• Dings, P.J.M., (2020). Not being oneself: Self ambiguity in the context of mental disorder. PhD Thesis Radboud University, USA.

Credit Points and Year

This unit is worth 10 credit points and is part of the 2026 academic year offerings.