Pedagogies for Unknown Futures: COVID-19 as Motif and Theme for Project-based Learning

COVID-19 has manifested itself as a social, cultural, and economic disrupter in many regions of the world. Among the fields that were seriously impacted was education, which had to move to Emergency Remote Teaching, often with minimal resources and support. This paper describes how COVID-19 was used as a motif and a theme to reconceptualise a project-based Master’s course in Media Studies at Maastricht University in The Netherlands. By outlining the pedagogic philosophy of this approach and the premises of the redesigned curriculum, as well as drawing from student feedback, the authors argue that a project-based course that revolved around the experience of the pandemic, not only provided students with well-sought lifelong and transferable skills, but also enabled them to cope with social isolation, providing them with an opportunity to contribute to a broader conversation about the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing them with an opportunity to both draw on and acknowledge the societal relevance of their studies.