Back from Crisis Mode: Exploring Care-Centered Approaches to Teaching in LIS

While implementing COVID-era online education caused frustration for many, the hasty change in educational format put a spotlight on the existing challenges faced by many students. Students experience struggles related to child care, elder care, unstable housing conditions, poverty, unemployment, lack of internet access, and mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic thrust faculty and students into unknown territory with the urgent need to simultaneously navigate personal, professional, and educational responsibilities in a digital environment. In addition to highlighting structural and economic issues concerning digital access, this moment of crisis revealed the need to question and overhaul existing pedagogical approaches in all online and in-person settings. Drawing on insights from bell hooks, Nel Noddings, and Joan Tronto, this commentary focuses on the following question: What do care-centered pedagogical approaches have to offer library and information science faculty as we continue operating in a new normal? Four approaches are offered for consideration and discussion.