Abstract
Drawing from experiences of cross-disciplinary educators who teach Communication, Latino Studies, and Women Studies, this auto-ethnographic research discusses the “new normal” COVID environment that will not disappear. We describe and define what “trauma-informed” means in the literature and realistically for academic lives, and curriculum. Our insights come from a small private and a large public university. We acknowledge how pedagogical approaches, assessments, reading selections, have permanently shifted to meet increased psycho-social needs of students, whose learning challenges have been accentuated by crisis. Our educational organizations are playing catch-up to update instruction-related policies/guidelines. “New normal” means heightened sensitivity working with larger percentages of students with problems in emotional health, physical health, cognitive processing, poverty, intersections of race/gender, etc. We pose that all educators will need to acknowledge/plan a future that domestic and global crises have impacted, and that this new teaching environment will not retreat. Temporary assignments during lockdown, racial, civic, and political strife, may become standard assignments for students who continue to take blended, hybrid, distance education. For example exercises such as “ice cream pizza”, “badge of courage”, “affirmations to yourself”, “congratulatory note to self”, are morale boosters that can be integrated. The US is a patchwork of COVID hotspots, or disaster zones. Higher education organizations are still planning how to best nurture young minds in crisis. While policies are being changed and updated for the organization, cross-disciplinarians in the classrooms cannot wait. We must reinvent ourselves, be resilient, revise our curriculum and goals to best serve students in need.
Presenters
Diana RiosFaculty Communication and EL Instituto: Latino-Latin American Caribbean Studies, University of Connecticut, Connecticut, United States Graciela Quinones-Rodriguez
Psychiatric Social Worker-Mental Health Clinician, Student Health and Wellness-Mental Health Services, University of Connecticut, Connecticut, United States Mary Helen Millham
Contributing Faculty, School of Communication, University of Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Education and Learning Worlds of Differences
KEYWORDS
HIGHER EDUCATION, DIVERSE-LEARNING, STUDENTS, STRESS, UNIVERSITIES, TRAUMA-INFORMED, CRISIS, CROSS-DISCIPLINARY, FACULTY
