APPROACH: Balancing Structure & Flexibility
One of the ways that the past few years has been challenging and exhausting is the constantly shifting landscape. As circumstances have changed, we have had to pivot, alter plans, push through constraints in our own lives, and accommodate students as their own worlds shift. Some of your students are needing to isolate and quarantine. I have been hearing from many of you that it has been difficult to navigate the between structure and flexibility in your teaching. Unfortunately, I don’t have an easy answer, but I will offer that both structure and flexibility are important. Here are a few resources/ideas:
Last year, we shared this resilient pedagogy course activity matrix that might prove useful again in planning ahead for disruptions. Looking to replace a high-stakes exam, paper or big project with something a bit different? I offer several assessment for learning approaches: unessays, eleven alternative assessments, and a beautiful Jesse Stommel slide deck on the subject.
Focus in on what is essential for students to know and be able to do by the end of the course. Are there ways to simplify your course plans and policies? I recommend this Chronicle piece about flexibility, The Student-Centered Syllabus. Consider adding an “I need an extension” button in Blackboard.
Structure is particularly helpful right now in terms of clear expectations, frequent communication, and opportunities for collaborative decision-making. Enlist your students as partners in the course. Bring your students into the planning; ask for their feedback. These conversations held early in the semester hold the twin power of improving the learning environment and helping you understand students’ prior knowledge, learning goals, etc. Particularly in light of trauma-informed practice, please make liberal use of reflection.
Flexibility in terms of policies, deadlines, assignment formats is a sensitive topic, I realize. One of the best ways of putting it appeared a Twitter thread by Jayme Dyer last week: Flexible classroom policies, if applied equally to all students, disproportionately help students who have experienced opportunity gaps and who continue to experience challenges outside of their control, without hurting privileged students who regularly meet deadlines.
For an excellent treatment of both structure and flexibility, I recommend this Chronicle piece, How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive.
Don’t have time to explore these links? No worries. Keep these ideas in mind and you will be in great shape: trust, empathy, kindness, openness.
STRATEGY: A “Stop Doing” List
My guess is that many of us are list-makers. Consider adding a section to your to-do’s: the “stop doing” list. Something has to give. It is worth taking a step back and checking alignment of your lists and plans to your own passions and values.
On a related note, I encourage you to respect your own boundaries. I am deeply grateful to work with so many of you; what we do in the Pew FTLC is made so much richer through collaborative efforts. It is okay for you to say no (to me and others) and acknowledge the fact that your cup is already be full. If you have room, that is also okay! Let us know how we can best support you and your work.
Ready to say goodbye to remote proctoring? Here’s what to try instead, a post from our colleagues at Oakland University and UM, Dearborn about their “unproctoring” initiatives, with helpful background and specific recommendations. In part, they suggest reaching out to your friendly teaching and learning center. Yes, that is us. Each instructors’ course and context are different, so let us help you make a plan that works for you and your students.
BIG PICTURE: Mentors Matter
A few weeks ago, we lost a friend and mentor, Catherine Frerichs, Pew FTLC Director from 1997 to 2009. When I came to GVSU in 2009, Catherine had done much to set me up for success, from establishing successful programs and sustained faculty conversations around teaching and learning to handing off her well-organized files and protocols. She continued to serve as a mentor, stalwart champion of Center efforts, and a friend. I know that I am not unique among those who knew her to have learned from her clear, steady, no BS approach. What you may not realize is the extent to which GVSU became known in higher ed circles because of Catherine’s work. Attending national conferences even a dozen years into my tenure as Director, I would mention being from Grand Valley only to be met with an enthusiastic, “You must know Catherine Frerichs then!” In addition to her many life and professional accomplishments, she was a pioneer in the field of educational development and a true model of a people-first approach. Her passing has prompted me to sit with a few things I have read recently that I think she would appreciate:
Pedagogy before tech. People before pedagogy. – Karen Costa
Give us a moment to recalibrate. We’ve changed. All of us. We are different now than we were pre-COVID. Yet almost all the measures of success we are using were created in that time before. No wonder we feel like failures all the time. It is exhausting. Let. Us. Recalibrate. – Jess Lifshitz
Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping. – Thich Nhat Hanh
VISUAL: Stop - Start - Continue
Gathering feedback from students around mid-semester is important in so many ways. It allows for adjustments and/or clarifications that can lead to a smoother, more successful rest of the semester. It provides a metacognitive pause for students, promoting reflection on learning and their own actions in support of learning. There is no one right way to collect feedback, as detailed on our Mid-Semester Student Feedback page. Use a slip of paper, a Blackboard survey, Google form, Zoom poll, etc. The main point is to enlist your students as partners in the learning enterprise, listen, engage, and be open. I fully admit that there is a nerve-wracking aspect to asking your students how things are going, necessitating a deep, deep breath and a particularly willingness to be vulnerable. Let us help you gather feedback in a deeply meaningful way by requesting a Mid-Semester Interview about Teaching (MIT). I feel so strongly about the value of this protocol that I just wrote a book about it. :)
There is no one “right” set of questions to solicit mid-semester feedback from your students. A popular format is the Stop-Start-Continue, described nicely in this infographic from the University of Delaware Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning:
