The sessions are the second webinar series presented by the University of Melbourne's Department of Rural Health based in Shepparton.
Tuesday evening's webinar will be presented by Professor Jim Watterson of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education on the theme "Education during COVID-19 - A catalyst for change or a retreat into the safety of the past?”
Prof Waterson's webinar aims to identify six key challenges that all schools should be currently considering to optimise student performance and outcomes in a post-pandemic world.
Professor in Psychology at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences Brock Bastian will present the second webinar on Thursday, September 17.
Prof Bastian will talk about his research into the role of pain and adversity in building personal and community resilience.
Prof Bastian said continually promoting happiness can have a downside and that valuing negative or painful experiences in life can be useful.
“While it's good to promote happiness, it can also set up expectations where over-promoting happiness can mean people feel it's no longer OK to experience down days and feel blue - and that can cause problems,” Prof Bastian said.
“The best way to respond to negative experiences in life is not to just see them as bad things we need to avoid, but to see the value in them because it will help us respond to those experiences in a better way.
“A lot of us actually seek out negative and difficult experiences as a way to find happiness. A good example is marathon running. People run marathons because they are painful - we wouldn't get that sense of achievement if it was too easy,” Prof Bastian said.
The third webinar on Thursday, November 5, is by Professor Kanta Subbarao from Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Melbourne University. Prof Subbarao is based at the Peter Doherty Institute for infection and immunity and will provide an insight into the virus COVID-19 and the race for a vaccine.
All three webinar sessions start at 5.30 pm.
To register for Tuesday, September 1, evening's webinar go to: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/5qej
To register for Prof Bastian's session, go to: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/26sj
To register for Prof Subbarao's session go to: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/z6sj
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