Building STEM teachers’ resilience and pedagogical responsiveness to crisis through creative writing professional development

In crisis-affected regions, STEM teachers must sustain academic progress while also supporting resilience, yet existing professional development (PD) rarely addresses both aims. This qualitative study examined a creative writing-based PD workshop with 21 Arab and Jewish STEM teachers, asking: (1) how teachers described the ways creative writing PD supported cognitive, emotional, and social resilience, and (2) how teachers translated and adapted practices from the creative writing PD into their classroom teaching during crisis. Thematic analysis of interviews, reflective journals, and writing artefacts, framed by a multidimensional resilience model, identified three interrelated processes: cognitive reframing through metaphor and narrative expression, emotional regulation through free writing and sensory writing practices, and social connectedness through cross-cultural story-sharing. Teachers described translating these practices into classrooms through metaphor warm-ups, brief emotional check-ins, and collaborative storytelling activities, which they associated with student engagement, focus, and more inclusive peer interaction. We propose Responsiveness-to-Crisis Pedagogy as a conceptual framework linking low-tech writing routines to cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and social cohesion, and outline adaptable design considerations and emergent themes for future inquiry in protracted crisis contexts.