Pedagogy in the Times of the Pandemic
Opening Remarks & Moderator: Prof. Krishna Menon, Professor, Gender Studies and former Dean of the School of Human Studies at Dr. B R Ambedkar University Delhi.  

Welcome: Ms Seema Kakran, Deputy Director, WISCOMP

Speakers: Prof. Rukmini Sen, School of Liberal Studies, Dr B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi; Dr. Bijayalaxmi Nanda, Acting Principal, Miranda House, Delhi; Prof. Dushyant Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Miranda House, University of Delhi.

The Covid -19 pandemic is changing our world in many ways.  Education, especially higher education, has borne the brunt of the pandemic in very specific ways. Students and teachers have had to keep away from the campus, since distancing norms and lockdown policies across the world made it difficult to have face to face classes and interactions on campus.  As teachers committed to transformative and critical pedagogy, the speakers at the dialogue will highlight the experiences of faculty and students in campuses of higher learning while battling the anxieties and losses unleashed by the pandemic. Meaningful interventions by the students and faculty of educational institutions to extend care and logistical support to the citizens such as in Delhi are a significant initiative that merit a discussion. However, accompanying these efforts have been the accounts of gendered experiences of the teaching/learning process as it shifted online, almost overnight.  The challenges posed by the existing social inequalities have been exacerbated by online processes, how have teachers navigated these inequalities?  The role of leadership in academic institutions, the gendered nature of the struggles of online teaching/learning, the initiatives by the faculty faced with unequal access to digital technology and the mental health concerns of all engaged in the higher education space would form the backdrop of this dialogue. 

(Collaboration: WISCOMP)