Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has left many educators grappling with uncertainties about the future of higher education while feeling exhausted from the stress and pressure to deliver quality education in unprecedented ways. While learning to incorporate new technology into remote, hybrid, and flipped classrooms, educators also find themselves responding to the psychosocial needs of students more than ever before. Yet the lack of established promising practices coupled with limited training and support on how to support students’ emotional well-being creates confusion and self-doubt. This conceptual article explores teacher experiences of teaching during a pandemic, missed opportunities, and highlights the need to develop resilience in educators as the next phase of teaching unfolds. Recognizing the shortfalls of traditional definitions of resilience when applied to higher education, the best path forward for building resilient communities in higher education. Resilient communities include an emphasis on well-being at all levels, normalizing stress responses, creating spaces for members to co-create discourse, planning input into future teaching strategies, while providing resources around developing pedagogy and support to build confidence in the face of disruption. The next phase of teaching requires that we move beyond a focus on being content experts and develop collaborative learning environments for the betterment of society.
Recommended Citation
Williams, C., Veloria, C., & Harkins, D. (2022). Building Resilient Higher Education Communities: Lessons Learned from Pandemic Teaching. Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 8 (1). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/phs/vol8/iss1/3
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Learning Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons, Service Learning Commons