Providing Agile Faculty Development in Times of Uncertainty: Case of the American University in Cairo

Abstract

The move toward emergency remote teaching meant educational development centers suddenly had to train and support all who teach at their institutions simultaneously. This article will focus on the agile, responsive and value-centric faculty development done locally via the American University in Cairo’s Center for Learning & Teaching, the “glocal” opportunities offered via DigPINS (see Bali and Caines, Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15(46):1–24, 2018), and the curation of openly available community-building resources available to educators worldwide. Central to all of these initiatives is that centering equity and care in how we support faculty (Czerniewicz, Agherdien, Badenhorst, Postdigit Sci Educ 2:946–967, 2020) will trickle down to the ways faculty treat their students during the trauma of the pandemic. We conclude that the pandemic has taught us the importance of centering values of equity and care while supporting faculty during a time of uncertainty and trauma (Imad, TIA 39, 2021), that fostering agency and imagination is more valuable than offering one-size-fits all standard solutions, and that faculty developers need to model adaptability and good pedagogy. Moreover, it is important to nurture and leverage learning communities, take advantage of “glocal” and “open” learning opportunities, and to build capability long-term via developing digital literacies and creativity.