Chapter 2- Productive Disruptions: Resilient Pedagogies that Advocate for Equity

When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered universities in March 2020, many students and faculty were thrown into shifting uncertainties regarding course delivery and pedagogy. As the pandemic persisted, faculty and students experienced new stressors caused by social isolation, unequal access to technology and resources, economic distress, and many other factors. In addition, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others in the Black community sparked widespread social unrest that added to and compounded the emotional and material weight of the pandemic. Amid this tumult, higher-education faculty began asking questions about how to move forward with pedagogies resistant to unpredictable and unprecedented disruptions. Might it be possible to design learning that is resilient to disruption? Can learning be more responsive to shifting material circumstances? These questions and others form the core of what many call “resilient pedagogy,” which the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center (2020) defines as “an approach to teaching that takes into account the resiliency of course design, faculty, and students during uncertain times and changing circumstances” (para. 1). Values such as flexibility, adaptability, and stability inform this and related definitions, suggesting that ideal pedagogies can remain functional and productive even during times of great disruption