Promoting Resilience in Higher Education
What are we discovering
about the link between the dispositions and resilience?
While an examination of our full data set will be presented elsewhere, our focus here is on what we are learning from the on-the-spot interviews conducted with PSTs immediately after their teaching experiences. The interviews show that the thinking dispositions interconnect as a rich resource for supporting resilience in this challenging teaching and learning context. We are interested to see the foundational influence of people-centred thinking in our PSTs and contend that this carefully constructed practice-based teaching and learning experience activates the range of thinking dispositions. This, in turn, enables the PSTs to make informed situational judgements, develop self-awareness and insight, and demonstrate resilience.
Figure 2 illustrates how we are understanding the connections between dispositions and resilience through an adaptation of the resilience processes (Mansfield, Beltman, Weatherby-Fell & Broadley, 2016[1]).
Personal resources
E.g. Prior knowledge, undergraduate degree, personal capacities
Contextual resources
- Values in action (VIA) program
- BRiTE modules
- Journal
- Professional learning community
Dispositions for effective teaching
- People centred
- Critically attentive
- Reflective
- Creative
- Strategic
Resilience outcomes
While a people-centred disposition is foundational, the thinking dispositions work in interconnected ways to enhance situational judgement in teaching and learning contexts, insight into self, and resilience in challenging teaching contexts.
The three case studies which follow (real names are not used) illustrate the dispositions at work as well as their impact.
