Pedagogical and Institutional Responses to Student Precarity Illuminated by COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: This paper seeks to understand the withdrawal patterns of students enrolled in an urban community college during the COVID-19 outbreak, by focusing on what students voiced about what made college-going so challenging for them from spring 2020 to fall 2021. What was revealed about their decisions to withdraw offers some important considerations for those who work with first-generation, economically and academically fragile college students throughout the higher education landscape. To contextualize our findings, we draw on some of the writings of educators who have shaped our own pedagogical practices. Research Design: We interviewed 14 students on Zoom—some in small focus groups and others one-on-one—who had withdrawn from at least one course up to an entire semester. Conclusions or Recommendations: Our findings suggest that we take stock of the pre-existing precarities of many students that have been illuminated, carefully balancing what students have voiced about what they need with the very real structural constraints that make “good teaching” difficult to sustain. A salient theme, one that we had not expected, is what students expressed about what good teaching is to them and how much it mattered. This raises not only important pedagogical questions but also structural ones. How do our institutions create the conditions (or not) for good teaching, as defined by students?