Crisis-Informed Pedagogy

We are in the midst of a triple crisis: a health crisis, a financial crisis and a long-overdue reckoning over racial injustice.

I can tell you firsthand that the crises occurring outside the academy are already making their way into our classes.

My students are anxious, depressed, frustrated and, in some cases, angry. Stress, social isolation, uncertainty and trauma have severely and adversely affected their educational performance and ability to learn.

Attention, memory, cognition and a capacity to plan and regulate emotions all suffer when students are under overwhelming stress, hindering their ability to focus, process information, organize their time or cope with frustrations and disappointments.

This fall, all instructors will encounter students negatively affected, to varying degrees, by pandemic-, economic- and politically induced stress and trauma. As a result, all of us owe it to our students to familiarize ourselves with crisis-informed pedagogy and apply that understanding to the design and delivery of our courses.

Crisis-aware teaching offers a set of guiding principles to inform pedagogical practices. Here are 12 principles that will help you better support your students as they navigate these uncertain times.

1. Be Attentive and Responsive

Be aware of the issues that your students are struggling with as you design your class. Tell your students about the learning challenges that all students face as they confront the current health and financial crises and explain how your awareness of today’s societal challenges and controversies has informed your class’s structure, content and pedagogy.

2. Be Clear

Students, especially those studying online, need structure. We have a responsibility to help furnish that structure -- and ensure that our students understand our requirements and expectations. Make sure your course’s structure, policies and grading rubrics are patently obvious.

3. Communicate

Clear communication is essential if students are to remain on track. Keep in touch with them and provide them with an easily understandable schedule, reminders of when assignments are due and timely feedback on their performance. Regularly check in on your students, express concern for their well-being and make it clear that you are there to help them to the best of your ability.

4. Inoculate

Prepare students for potentially difficult or controversial topics that are likely to evoke strong emotional reactions. Give them time to achieve the degree of emotional distance that academic analysis requires.

5. Connect

We need to foster connections. A first step is to create a class atmosphere that is respectful, supportive, compassionate, sensitive and inclusive. Then use breakout sessions, discussions and collaborative assignments to connect classmates to one another and allow them opportunities for interaction.

6. Engage

Now more than ever, students need to feel that their schoolwork is meaningful, relevant and worth an investment of their time and energy. Consider authentic assessments modeled on professional practice, such as a policy brief or set of policy recommendations, a public awareness campaign, a conflict resolution plan, an investigative report, or an assessment of alternate tools or strategies to address a particular challenge. Also, consider having them undertake a data analysis or verify or refute a social media claim.

7. Model Appropriate Academic Behavior

I experienced more hot moments in my summer classes than ever before. Crisis-informed pedagogy does not imply that you should avoid difficult issues. Rather, it means that you and your students should treat these issues appropriately, sensitively and with an awareness of nuance and complexity. To the best of your ability, anticipate possible land mines or sources of controversy and contention. Lay a foundation for discussion of potentially explosive topics. Make sure you spell out the ground rules for civil academic discussion.

8. Empower

Help students feel a sense of agency. One way to empower students is to give them a voice. Brainstorm with your students. Give them an opportunity to discuss the class’s curriculum. Find out what students are interested in and integrate those topics into your course. Invite them to share their opinions and request their feedback.

Another way to empower students is to provide some flexibility or choice in activities and assignments. Consider possible alternatives. Students might, for example, participate in a role-playing activity or a debate or analyze a case study.

9. Monitor

Be on the lookout for signs and symptoms of anxiety and trauma. Closely monitor students’ academic performance in order to catch problems early. Frequent low-stakes quizzes and required drafts of papers offer ways to keep an eye out for problems in the making.

10. Follow Up

Respond proactively to warning signs. Reach out to students who are disengaged or performing poorly and provide them with a path forward. Worrisome performance needs a timely response.

11. Refer

If you encounter a student who is clearly suffering from acute anxiety or trauma, make sure you refer them to the appropriate support services -- and follow up to ensure that they reached out for and received help.

12. Be Flexible and Empathetic

It is possible to be compassionate and adaptable without sacrificing rigor or compromising standards. Consider giving students some flexibility in deadlines, pace and in the ways that they demonstrate mastery of essential knowledge and skills.

The current crises should remind us that a faculty member is much more than a subject matter expert, a transmitter of information or a dispenser of wisdom. We need to think of ourselves as first responders. We serve on the front lines and are more likely to detect incipient student problems than anyone else.

We also need to embrace our role as mentor, counselor, adviser, tutor and coach. The days when colleges and universities could let students sink or swim are long over. We have a duty to help bring all of our students to some level of success, whether through the design of our learning activities or the supplemental support we offer.

Perhaps most important of all, in these contentious, politically and emotionally charged, highly partisan times, we have a special duty to serve as role models and stand up for certain enduring academic values. These include the importance of the life of the mind and the worth of balance, nuance and critical analysis even in the midst of societal upheaval.

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.