Part 5: Practice

Practice developing skills relating to resilience via targeted activities and situations.

Each activity in this list models a skill known to be linked to resilience, and you may already know some of these. Critically, reflect on how these activities are linked to the concepts explored in parts 1-4 of the module, as this will help you draw connections between the concepts of academic resilience and how the skills are being practiced in the context of your life.

1. Effort: Improvement through deliberate practice

Sample activity 1 Sample activity 2 Sample activity 3

Annotated bibliography/reference list

Create an annotated bibliography for 5 different articles/sources of information for a topic you are interested in.
Then compare your 1^st and 5^th attempt and reflect on the differences between (e.g., which is more concise?)

Practice 2-3-minute talks (flash talks)

Get a group of peers and develop and do a 2-3-minute talk among yourselves about your current research.

This can be done as a large group, in smaller peer groups, or even as a pre-recorded video at home.

Provide feedback to everyone in the form of areas of strength and areas for growth.
Allow everyone to repeat the 2-3-minute talk twice more (could be done over the course of several days or within one session), focusing on improving one area at a time.
Have everyone reflect on the experience and how their skills have developed through practice and feedback.

Drafting an abstract

Write a 250-300 word abstract for one of your current projects.
Swap abstracts with a peer or friend to receive honest feedback (Tip: you can provide a rubric/guide for peers to give constructive and productive feedback).
Then, update your drafts based on the feedback. Repeat this process (swapping with a new peer, if possible) until everyone has 2-3 drafts.
Have everyone review their initial draft alongside their subsequent drafts and discuss (e.g., in class, in a written reflection) how much the draft has improved, what they learned from the feedback, and what lessons they can apply to future writing.

2. Skill transfer: Same skill, new deliverable

Sample activity 1

Written/Oral assignment mirror

Complete an assignment in two formats (e.g., a paper and presentation on the same topic).
Highlight the skills which will be necessary to be successful in both formats, and which skills may differ.
Reflect on the experience and how they used similar skills across each assessment.

Sample activity 2

Knowledge translation

Perform a task with a goal of reaching an academic (i.e., expert) audience (can be a written piece, a presentation, an activity, etc.).
Then, do the same task for a non-expert audience (e.g., different age, knowledge level, interests).
Reflect on the experience and which elements stayed the same across the two assessments, and which had to be altered and how.

3. Normalizing failure

Shadow CVs

A shadow curriculum vitae (CV) is an “alternative CV of failures” which logs every unsuccessful application, refused grant proposal, and rejected paper. The goal of these CVs is to normalize, share, and even embrace failure in academia (Stefan, 2010; Looser, 2015; Holdsworth, 2020). Some professionals will have these publicly posted on their websites and profiles, and they are sometimes called ‘negative CVs’ or ‘CVs of failures’.
Find and review the shadow CVs of a few academics online (could be a stranger, someone you know, someone successful in their field, etc.).
Create your own shadow CV and exchange it with your peers for to model normalization of failure.
Reflect on how you all feel about your successes and failures after seeing how normal it is to “fail” – even in people who are successful in their fields.

4. Social connectedness