Some thoughts about the wellbeing of a university community and its member during the remote working (that may be applicable to other communities, too).

In the fully remote mode we are not able to meet some of the very basic needs. Thread.

1/13 https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/teaching-studying-at-the-university/university-students-wellbeing-continues-to-decline

In the news article Professor Katariina Salmela-Aro points out that "the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy, belongingness and meaningfulness have not been met in remote learning".

Maybe we could take a closer look of the basic human needs.

2/13

When thinking needs you can't really overpass the Maslow's theory of hierarchy of needs. If we think universities we should aim to mee the need for self-actualization and transcendence (meta-motivation).

3/13

You remember that according to Maslow's theory the most basic needs must be met before people get motivated to achieve higher level needs. There are good reasons to challenge this, but if you are hungry, cold and scared you do not have time to look for self-fulfilment.

4/13

You might be now asking what really are these self-fulfilment and self-actualisation?

I define them as development as a human being or growth leading to more full potential as a human and a conscious creature in the universe. Often this is also called simply learning.

5/13

And this leads me back to the question of university community. We — like all good communities — should be designed for learning. You may call it learning environment, if you wish.

6/13

So what makes a learning environment great? Right. You got it. It should meet all the needs of the people. Then we may think how these are met? This leads us to another theory.

7/13

Steven Reiss (2000) has present a theory of 16 basic desires that motivates human action. There aren't a lot of empirical research evidence, but I see it as an interesting design framework when thinking about learning environments and universities.

8/13

Reiss see that there are individual differences in these 16 desires, we priorities different things. As a community, however, we should consider all these individual needs are served. Some people desire one more than an other.

9/13

This leads us back to the question of wellbeing of a university community and its members. We should think the human basic needs and desires and how do we meet them in the community. I'll pick some desires as examples.

10/13

In the context of a university the needs like power, independence and curiosity are easy.

How about acceptance, idealism and family?

Do we appreciate everyone as they are?
Do we have possibilities to advance social justice?
Do we make it possible to have family life?

11/13

Most of these desires are difficult to meet in remote working. Online courses are done in a lousy learning environment.

University is so much more than degrees, courses, credits and research outputs.

The quality of these depends on the quality of other things.

12/13

Finally. What learning, research and creative work needs the most is psychological safety.

Poor working conditions, bad workspaces, continuous organisational reforms and redundancies do not increase this.

13/13

And now some real scholars of motivation and learning, like @Heta_Tuominen or @mniemivirta,
may shoot down my kitchen theories.

Disclaimer: These are just some bases used in learning environment design research.