EDF4599 The psychology of wellbeing and human flourishing

A number of teaching methods and learning activities will be employed in this unit to engage students from different backgrounds and with varying personal and professional experiences and future aspirations. Teaching pedagogy will include a variety of methods including: flipped classroom whereby pre-class reading and activities will develop your knowledge whilst class discussion and case studies will provide opportunities to apply and extend this knowledge.

Each week will be comprised of a workshop, readings/supplementary materials, a weekly practice and a journal reflection. This unit employs an innovative assessment strategy designed with student wellbeing at its core, structured to promote deep engagement with positive psychology principles through practical application and reflection, distribute workload evenly across the semester, encourage personal growth alongside academic development, provide flexibility in topic selection to align with individual professional interests, and integrate cutting-edge tools like AI to enhance learning while developing critical evaluation skills.

A novel pedagogy for this unit is embodied learning whereby you will be guided to embody positive psychology processes which encourages you to think deeply and meaningfully about that process. Opportunities for you to reflect – individually and collectively – on what you have learned from the experience is a key component of this learning approach. This unit is taught from a learner-centered perspective with opportunities for you to learn and engage in material both in and out of class (Weimer, 2002). This approach will extend your capability to critically examine the relevance and applicability of positive psychology in professional practice by enabling you to integrate knowledge gained through empirical studies with knowledge gained from personal experience.