Being social is essential to both healing and learning. At this time, we need to both heal and cultivate learning. How do we do that when we must limit physical interaction? What’s an instructor to do when what and how you teach is rooted in community engagement?
Take a minute. Your students and community partners need one. So do you.
Be flexible and patient with yourself, your students, and community partners. Take stock of what you are experiencing. Develop your own self-care strategy. Signal the importance of this to your students. Touch base with community partners to see what their capacity is and if a project needs to be sunsetted and how to do this humanely.
Focus on what’s meaningful, not only what’s expedient.
While the immediate concern is just getting students through the spring semester, as we look ahead to summer, it’s important to ask “What is worth prioritizing at this time? What is most important for us to model for our students right now”? How we respond is not only a question of methods. It is also one about the ethos we enact with students and the communities we live in and serve. Consider which values matter most in how you and your students inhabit the classroom and community, including online. Use these values to help you prioritize. Here are some alternate teaching and learning strategies specific to civic and community engagement that may help.
Reach out. You are not alone.
While we are all working virtually, we are all navigating uncertainty and isolation together. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Service-learning and community-engagement across the curriculum: Morgan Studer (ude[dot]iupui[at]sehguhom) and Mary Price (ude[dot]iupui[at]6ecirp).
Support for other high impact educational practices is available through our partners in the Institute for Engaged Learning.
