Morgan, Rhian, and Moody, Lisa (2023) Promoting Equity and Inclusion through Critical Resilience Pedagogy. In: Castillo Planas, Melissa, and Castillo, Debra A., (eds.) Scholars in Covid Times. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, USA, pp. 131-151.

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Abstract

On 12 April 2020, during the height of the global Covid-19 lockdown, the Australian Government announced their “higher education relief package” (Australian Government, 2020). The policy included funding for a range of short courses aimed at helping unemployed and underemployed Australians gain access to higher education and retrain in the wake of the pandemic. The courses were to be targeted at identified areas of national priority, including Health, Education, IT, and Science with a particular focus on flexible delivery, expedience, online learning, and fee subsidisation. As a response to the global economic downturn caused by Covid-19, these courses point to the role higher education can play in community-building initiatives for a post-pandemic world. Although, without careful course design, the imperative to upskill and reskill in order to mediate workplace precarity, risks foregrounding neoliberal productivity agendas (Ferguson, 2016), at the expense of student wellbeing during a period of significant societal disruption. The proposed chapter provides a reflective case study of the challenges, successes, and lessons learned during a period of expedited course development that occurred between April and June 2020, in response to this government initiative. The short courses developed during this timeframe consist of two general education subjects, focused on academic and digital literacies. The subjects were intended to provide people impacted by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown with an avenue for engagement in higher education and serve as a preparatory pathway for further study. In the context of a regional Australian university, the case study documents the design and implementation of a holistic resilience framework to all stages of the teaching and learning process, from curriculum and content design, to classroom practice, and reflective evaluation. Curriculum development and analysis was conducted using an action research framework (Levin & Greenwood, 2011). During this process, recorded bi-weekly virtual development meetings and cloud-based documents were used to facilitate the design and implementation of an Integrated Curriculum Alignment Framework (ICAF). The framework aligns learning outcomes, assessment items, and teaching episodes across the two subjects, while concurrently integrating explicit resilience strategies, mapped to the student lifecycle (Lizzio & Wilson, 2012). As such, the ICAF responds to White and Kern’s (2018) call for a pedagogy of positive education capable of integrating “learning and teaching for wellbeing and academic mastery” (p. 2). By foregrounding the promotion of academic self-efficacy and processes of cumulative learning (Maton, 2009), the case study demonstrates how practitioners can leverage curriculum to promote equitable access to higher education for non-traditional students through holistic and resilience orientated practice. Essentially, the researchers and practitioners consciously aim, through the integration of a curated series of resilience strategies, combined with intentional curriculum and flexible delivery, to empower individuals and communities through education.

Item ID:	80271
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN:	9781501771613
Keywords:	Pedagogy, Scholars, COVID-19, higher education, curriculum development, horizontal alignment, resilience, critical resilience pedagogy, ICAF
Copyright Information:	© Cornell University Press 2023.
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2023 00:13
FoR Codes:	39 EDUCATION > 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy > 390102 Curriculum and pedagogy theory and development @ 70% 39 EDUCATION > 3902 Education policy, sociology and philosophy > 390299 Education policy, sociology and philosophy not elsewhere classified @ 10% 39 EDUCATION > 3903 Education systems > 390303 Higher education @ 20%
SEO Codes:	16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1603 Teaching and curriculum > 160302 Pedagogy @ 50% 16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1603 Teaching and curriculum > 160301 Assessment, development and evaluation of curriculum @ 25% 16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1601 Learner and learning > 160102 Higher education @ 25%
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