Resilient Teaching Through Times of Crisis and Change

Resilient teaching is the ability to facilitate learning experiences that are designed to be adaptable to fluctuating conditions and disruptions. This teaching ability can be seen as an outcome of a design approach that attends to the relationship between learning goals and activities, and the environments they are situated in. Resilient teaching approaches take into account how a dynamic learning context may require new forms of interactions between teachers, students, content, and tools. Additionally, they necessitate the capacity to rethink the design of learning experiences based on a nuanced understanding of context. The course is designed with higher education faculty, lecturers, and graduate student instructors in mind, but may also be applicable to educators in a wide variety of instructional environments. The course is aimed at participants who may be asked to rethink how they teach in the immediate or near future due to the ever-changing circumstances of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

While the creation of this course is motivated by the current crisis, we expect it will remain relevant to instructors who are faced with disruptions and change to their teaching for any number of reasons and must quickly adapt their course designs. To support learning and reflection, we are introducing a new journaling tool within the course that provides a place for participants to reflect on their own experiences. To support community growth, participants can choose to share their journal entries with the wider course community in an interactive gallery space.