The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has created an enormous amount of adversity for people all over the globe. Humans, especially when experiencing stress and hardship, do a lot better with the plan, structure, and explicit expectations. But any “normal” pattern has been turned entirely upside down for us graduate teaching assistants, and our students. We have observed that Zoom meetings and emails can never fully replace our imperfectly perfect in-person classroom experiences. But greater than this unprecedented situation and the uncertainty is the conviction that human beings are resilient.

Do you remember the time when, as a kid, you couldn’t score that decisive penalty goal, so your soccer team lost in the final match? Or when your scholarship application was rejected? Or when your artwork was not selected for the annual exhibition? If you remember those times, then you will also remember how you subsequently coped. Maybe you cried in your room for the rest of the day--or even week--but then decided to embrace an even more rigorous training schedule to further polish your skills. And by doing so, you learned from a failure and became better equipped to move past future obstacles of similar or different nature. Revisiting these old memories makes us understand that we have been resilient in the past and that we were able to respond to challenges and setbacks in constructive ways. Read on to learn what resilience is and get tips on critical pedagogy that you can use to promote resilience in your classroom, in the processes of your students’ learning, and in your own teaching. 

 

[Image Description: A rabbit runs towards an obstacle made up of four parallel horizontal bars, easily dislodges the second one from the bottom with its mouth, and jumps over the bottom-most bar to clear the obstacle]

Pictured: Us, resiliently overcoming obstacles

 

What is Resilience?

Resilience has been described as an individual’s ability to rebound from adversity and overcome difficult circumstances. Being resilient means being able to rebound. The word resilience is derived from the Latin word "salire," which means to jump or to leap. It shares its root with “salient,” used in the seventeenth century to describe the heartbeat of a fetus, which seemed to almost leap into existence. This highlights the understanding of resilience as leaping into a new life and as something more than bouncing back. Groups of people or individuals that are resilient tend to have an ability that comprises at least three factors.

• Manageability: This is defined as individuals who recognize the resources needed to meet the demands of the circumstances and their willingness to explore those.
• Comprehensibility: This is defined as an individual’s perception of the world as being meaningful, orderly, understandable, and consistent, rather than chaotic, unpredictable, and random.
• Meaningfulness: This is defined as an individual’s lived experience that this stressful situation makes sense in their life and thus coping with it is desirable for sustenance.

However, resilience is not an innate trait that we are born with. So, the question remains whether resilience as a life skill can be learned. Fortunately, the answer is yes! There is convincing evidence that we can learn or acquire resilient qualities.

First, let us visualize resilience as a balance scale or seesaw. The negative stressors tip the scale towards non-constructive outcomes, whereas the positive experiences and resources tip the scale towards constructive outcomes. For TAs and their undergraduate students, this scale looks almost the same during the COVID-19 pandemic, as depicted in the following picture. Now, the point at which the resilience scale rests and pivots is called a “fulcrum”. If the fulcrum is situated more towards either side, it will be easier or harder to tip the scale towards positive outcomes. Every individual has their fulcrum in a different position, and that explains how easy or hard it is for someone to neutralize the hardships in life. But the good news is you can change the position of the fulcrum by developing a toolkit of skills and tip the scale towards positivity even when you may or may not be in a situation to reduce the stressors or further load up the positive sides.

[Image Description: A seesaw balancing on a fulcrum depicts that the resources like responsive relationships and fulfilled basic needs lead to positive outcomes; as well as stressors like physical distancing and uncertainty about future lead to negative outcomes]

Pictured: Balancing our lives as we build resilience

Online instruction during the pandemic has proved to be challenging. Facilitation of student engagement and seamless translation of our in-person teaching persona have both been difficult to achieve in remote instruction in its synchronous as well as asynchronous form. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. We as TAs can utilize the following focused cognitive behaviors and pedagogical approaches in our online classrooms. They discourage a defeatist mindset in students and allow students to become more adaptive and resilient in their learning process thus, making online teaching and learning a fruitful experience for both you and your students even amidst all the vicissitudes of the outside world. Before we begin, note that it is not easy to teach resilience in the classroom, it requires engagement and interaction but the instructors who have taught it, have changed the trajectory of their students’ lives. Therefore:

1. Promote and foster a feeling of competence: In order to begin building resilience in our classroom, we must understand that each one of us has the capacity to become resilient. It is not a skill that we should foster because of the current stressful situation and it is not just for students at a higher risk of failure. Building resilience is an ongoing process and everyone in your class should be a part of it.

Help students establish study habits that are independent of deadlines: Guide your students on developing self-study habits, with specific realistic tasks to finish that gives students a sense of achievement at the end of the day. Students tend to feel incompetent when they see assignments piling up and deadlines looming large. Therefore, helping them create a manageable schedule has never been more important and relevant than now. You can show your students how to use free apps like Trello so that they can work their way back from the deadlines or midterms and can follow the schedule.

Promote self-reflection on personal growth: Research has shown that when factors like optimism, purpose, problem-solving skills, effective coping style, and a positive self-image combine, a student becomes resilient. Now cultivating each of these factors require a significant amount of self-reflection, which we can help students with. The statements and questions to use when asking students to reflect on personal growth are:

• What were you persistent at in learning last week’s material?
• What have you learned from today’s discussion?
• What is a mistake that you made in the last midterm that you learned from?
• How will you address the next time you see this question?
• We can control our thoughts. If you use them in the right way, you can strengthen your mind.
• Wow, you got a really good grade. You must have worked hard to be able to achieve it.

2. Incorporate activities in your lesson plan that promote resilience: When we include the following activities that prioritize students’ growth in our lesson plans, our students are able to reflect on their own progress and develop resilience. It is essential to remember that the objective of using these activities is not about encouraging victory or flawlessness. The purpose is to value the attempt over the outcome and acknowledge the challenges that are involved in the process.

• Activity I: Learning Pyramid- Ask your students to fill in the learning pyramid (see the following picture), so that they can reflect on a particular lesson. You can modify the pyramid to help students reflect on their test performances as well so that they learn from their mistakes.  Click here to see another useful example of an exam wrapper that can help your students in tracking their progress in your course after an exam.

[Image Description: A sample activity to promote resilience depicts a learning pyramid with different questions in each level which students fill up to reflect on a day’s lesson]

Pictured: A learning pyramid to promote resilience

• Activity II: Tracking Proficiency using Backward Mapping- Tell your students to fill up the worksheet as seen in the following picture so that they can track the level of mastery they have achieved in a skill needed to succeed in your course. This activity helps the students who have yet to achieve the required proficiency and they can create a roadmap for the coming days.

[Image Description: Another sample activity to promote resilience depicts a table with five columns; students fill up each column to track their progress towards achieving mastery in a skill needed to succeed in your class]

Pictured: Building new skills makes your students resilient

3. Develop a community: A sense of belonging is absolutely necessary to build resilience. During times of crisis, we tend to feel more isolated. Therefore, it is particularly important to nurture meaningful relationships during this time by creating opportunities for your students to interact with you and with one another.

• Create a culture of caring: Letting students know that you are worried about them and that you care could drastically change a student’s engagement with the material and overall commitment to a course. It could start with a simple conversation like “You seem distressed about the course load/ this assignment. How can I help you with this?”
• Create opportunities for peer-support and peer-instruction: Studies show college students turn to one another 67% of the time when they need help. They do not willingly seek help from an instructor or a professional. Group projects, Discussion Forums, shared Google Docs are just a few low-tech tools you can use to create opportunities for students to interact with one another.
• Offer both open and confidential office hours: Although I have regular study/office hours where I help groups of students to answer questions, I also create 10-15 minutes of one-on-one appointment slots for students using Calendly. This not only eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails and saves my time but also helps a student who wants to have a confidential conversation that they are not comfortable holding in front of other students. Calendly also supports free integration with video conferencing tools like Zoom.
• Stay connected: Connectedness is a protective factor and is shown to promote resilience. Connectedness to even one instructor or TA on the campus can increase a student’s sense of connectedness to the course, to the program, and to the school. Use the announcement function in Canvas or iLearn to send students weekly reminders about assignments, what to expect during that week’s sessions, and relevant news about the course you teach. Alternatively, you can use Google Hangouts and Slack. However, I have seen students being confused about too many tools being used in the class. So, if you are using tools other than Canvas or iLearn to communicate with the students, make sure to explain to the students the reason behind using these tools at the beginning of the quarter.

[Image Description: Dory from Finding Nemo sways sideways, makes gestures of swimming using her fins, and says “When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” as a visibly dejected Marlin looks on.]

Pictured: The resilient inner-self of your students telling them to persevere

4. Educate Your Students About Campus Resources: 

• Meeting basic needs is a struggle for many students at this time. Help your students connect with on-campus programs like R’Pantry where any student experiencing food insecurity can pick up rice, pasta, sauces, a variety of canned goods, assorted snacks, fresh produce, hygiene, and baby care products. R’Pantry is currently open by appointment only (limited to 1 visit per week). Appointments can be booked here: https://rpantry.youcanbook.me.
• CAPS (Counselling and Psychological Services) offers free, professional, and confidential mental health services to UCR students.
• ARC (Academic Resource Center) offers a wide variety of remote programs and services to support undergraduate students at UCR. The support programs include tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, writing support and Early Assist. Also, ARC offers Assistance, Coaching, and Encouragement (ACE) peer mentoring program and R’Success Workshops designed to help students in personal growth and development to be successful at UCR and beyond.
• The UCR Keep Learning website has several useful strategies for success in online learning.
• Several other useful campus resources are listed at UCR Student Affairs website which you can share with your students.

5. Give your students a sense of purpose and agency: In the current situation, it is imperative that many of us are questioning our purposes and are trying to find out where we can contribute? Your students are no exception. Therefore, you should try to incorporate tangible opportunities for them to chip in. In my experience, students can be surprisingly involved and supportive in the learning process if given the agency.

• Assign the students specific roles during each session. If you are using breakout rooms for group discussions or think-pair-share activities, then assign students roles of recorder/reporter, who will summarize the key points from their individual group discussion and present that in front of the whole class. It is productive if you assign the roles to the students at the beginning of the quarter, so students get adequate time to prepare.

• Be open in discussing learning objectives for topics with the students and talk about changes in your approach if you have planned any as you moved from in-class to online.
• Explicitly discuss why the topic learned in this class matters and invite the students to add their inputs or ask them to make the connections by themselves.
• Administer a mid-quarter feedback survey to know your students’ opinions on what is going well in the course and what could be adjusted.

6. Be flexible to accommodate different learning styles: While you take all the above steps to foster resilience in your classroom, it is critical to remember that you have students with all learning styles and abilities. When students have the option to use different modalities, they are able to gain control of their learning process which is particularly true for neurodivergent students.

• Make sure to tell your students during the first day of the class that you welcome students with all abilities in your class and you are committed to supporting them. Also, remind them that they can request accommodations through SDRC (Student Disability Resource Center) in case they have a disability or chronic health conditions.
• Don’t automatically assume the students will understand how to access the course material particularly if you have many first-year or transfer students in your class. Invest some time to offer guidance on the instructions for various assignments as well.
• Be mindful of accessibility. If you record your lectures and distribute the recordings for future viewing, ensure that you are providing captions. I highly encourage you to use YuJa automated captioning tool for this purpose which is available to all UCR TAs. You can also use PowerPoint to capture the audio notes for each slide.

 

[Image Description: Jeff Goldblum looks at someone not visible to the viewer and emphatically says “ You’re in a new chapter, you’ve blossomed”.]

Pictured: Us, when we will come out on the other side of this

 

Now that we have discussed various approaches to foster resilience in our classrooms, I wanted to remind you of a proverb: “If you don't have your cup full, you have nothing left to give or share with others.” And it has never been more accurate under the current circumstances than ever before. So, it is essential that you continue (or even start) taking care of yourself to be able to support your students. It could be simple things like preparing a healthy meal, taking a walk, connecting to friends and family. While we are unsure about a lot of things going on right now, one thing I am absolutely sure about is we will definitely come out on the other side of this as better instructors for our resilient students. Remember, we at GradSuccess are always here to help you on this journey. In case you need a little bit of extra support or have questions about teaching, visit the Graduate Student Resource Center and Teaching Assistant Development Program or book an appointment with one of us for Grad-to-Grad Office Hours.