Website: Instructional Strategies

Teaching in Times of Crisis

Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching

Rick’s Recommendation

I like this evidence-based resource because it offers ideas that you can immediately enact in your teaching and can be adapted to the resources your institution has available for students.

Whether local, national, or international in scope, times of crisis can have a significant impact on the college classroom. The students need not be directly related or personally involved to experience anxiety or trauma. While proximity (a local event) may lead to a more obvious impact on your students, the effects can be just as difficult based on “the sheer magnitude and scale (national events with wide media coverage)” and “the degree to which students are likely to identify with the victim(s) of the tragedy and feel like ’vicarious victims’” (fellow students, fellow women, fellow members of a group targeted by a hate crime, fellow Americans) (Huston & DiPietro, 2007, p. 219).