In an effort to identify our target learners’ learning problem, we interviewed a fourth-grade team of four teachers from Pender County Schools via phone. During this process our goals were to collect basic demographic data about the teachers as well as gain insight into their need for mental health support due to stress, anxiety and their current working conditions. In terms of demographics, we focused on experience, level of digital literacy and gender.

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Beyond the simple demographics, we needed to ask questions about their levels of stress, anxiety, mental health and ability to be supported in these areas in the workplace.  These teachers are instructing both in-person and virtually, referred to as the HyFlex model. Our review of the literature suggested that the HyFlex model causes its own level of stress as “heightened levels of cognitive/mental load were incurred by teachers” due to teaching students in two sets of cohorts (in class and virtually), operating online technology and  facilitating interactions between the two groups (Bower et al 2015) (Ørngreen et al 2015). We designed five open-ended questions to help us gain insight into this issue.  These questions are listed below.

 

Questions

 

1. What are your major areas of stress in your job?

2. How would you currently rate your level of stress caused by your job as opposed to previous years?

3. How does this stress affect your mental health, ability to perform your job and your personal life? 

4. Are you able to effectively communicate how you feel to your colleagues or leaders?

5. Do you need (or could you use) additional support to deal with your stress caused by your job? 

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These questions were asked, and notes were taken during the interview conversations. Highlights of notes provided below.

 

• Feelings of isolation and a lack of confidence are related. 

• Mental (over)load is an issue. 

• When asked what the greatest impact of the HyFlex model has been, teachers expressed their feelings of isolation and frustration caused by their inability to interact with their colleagues to “bounce off ideas and solutions”.   

• Personal use of social media becomes an overwhelming place to vent, not a place where you could get advice or best practices effectively or efficiently.

• Loss of community has affected mentoring. 

• High priority questions and classroom issues need immediate support.  

• Teachers would like to have a way to communicate issues to leaders without the necessity of being personally identified. 

• Overall feeling of being committed to functioning in this new world but they needed “guard rails” and new support systems.  

 

After reviewing and reflecting on the interviews, we engaged in the exercise of identifying common themes. We identified the following themes of:
 

• Feeling abandoned/isolated 

• Seeking advice for technical issues

• Needing access to experts or mentors

• How are others handling stress (Is it just me?)

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Main Findings  

 

Given the article that was cited earlier regarding the heightened sense of cognitive load teachers were experiencing in the HyFlex model, we were surprised that this issue did not appear more frequently in any of the interviews. Yes, mental overload was being felt, but not as a result of managing two cohorts. Instead, the most emphasized theme was the frustration of having to adhere to a strict social distancing policy within the school building that hampered any ability for teachers to feel connected with their peers during school hours. This lack of community outranked the challenge of implementing new technology in their classroom. 

 

Furthermore, it was not a lack of social interaction that was being described, but rather a sense of loss, and almost grief, that their mentoring community had been dismantled and no real replacement structure had yet to be identified. Teachers could no longer walk across a hall or down to the Teacher’s Lounge during lunch to get advice or “bounce off ideas and solutions” with their peers when it was most needed given the current circumstances. This in turn created a chronic feeling of incompetence that could not be quelled by any form of social media usage. In fact, social media was being viewed as a vehicle for complaining, which was counterproductive for the teachers we interviewed.  

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Problem statement and design needs

 

Public school teachers utilizing a HyFlex model of instruction in their 4th grade classrooms are experiencing high levels of stress as a result of social distancing requirements being imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic which is impacting the overall mental and emotional wellbeing of the target learners. Our interviews and subsequent data analysis suggest two factors that are contributing to this increase in stress. First, the lack of access to any type of wellness education. Second, the lack of access to a “mentor community”.  Based on our data, we believe access to education in mental and emotional wellbeing and the ability to re-engage with some type of mentor community would prove beneficial to our target learners. 

 

Our initial design insight was that teachers are a social community who rely on each other in schools each day. COVID has drastically changed their working conditions by increasing mental stress and limiting physical interactions with other teachers for support - all in an environment in which their voices and opinions are not being heard by their administrators.  

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