Contributed by the CTL Director, Susanmarie Harrington

Provost Prelock announced that as of Saturday, March 19, masks are now optional in most indoor locations at UVM. The policy change announcement acknowledged the ways in which students, faculty, and staff have repeatedly adapted to the pandemic. As we think about coming to campus next Monday for the first classes that will occur with this new policy guidance, we enter a new period of adjustment. Faculty, staff, and students no doubt have a range of thoughts and feelings about studying, living, and working amid COVID, and that range will affect our classrooms. Some of us had the chance yesterday to talk with students about the shift, and heard reactions that included excitement, relief, happiness, worry, sadness, confusion, fear. We’ve been wearing masks, and enduring the pandemic, for so long, that this mix of emotions is completely understandable.

Since March 2020, every aspect of our lives and work have been affected by the pandemic and becoming a mask-optional campus is another milestone in this journey. Some of us will welcome the ability to be on campus without wearing a mask; some of us will continue to wear masks. Some of us will feel relieved by this shift; some of us will have questions, concerns, or fears. It may be helpful to leave some space in our classes to acknowledge that policy changes affect our learning spaces—and to note that we can, with compassion, continue to create learning communities together.

Throughout the pandemic, the CTL’s workshops and consultations have emphasized compassion for students and instructors and the importance of clear communication. We’re using these themes to think through what a pedagogical transition to a mask-optional campus might look like. We welcome your thoughts and questions now, and we look forward to hearing from you as the semester continues.

Approaching change with compassion

Compassionate teaching begins with awareness that each person in the classroom brings a broad lived experience with them. There are many reasons that students and instructors alike might feel some nervousness about being in the presence of unmasked neighbors—for example, immunocompromised people, caretakers of those unable to get vaccinated, people at higher risk for complications from a COVID infection may wish for higher levels of masking in public places. At the same time, other students and instructors might feel pure joy at the return of maskless classes. With a whirl of emotions in play, your students may be sitting near people who are making different masking choices than they are. While our campus policy now emphasizes individual choices about masking, we can encourage everyone to consider their individual choices in context. We will all be navigating anew the ways our individual choices affect the people around us. Just as we took time in the earlier months of the pandemic to recognize how students’ learning was affected by broader change, we can help students think through this new change. Transparency is the best way to assure students that you’re managing class with their learning in mind.

Modifying group work as needed

As we move through the remaining weeks of the semester, group work may be complicated if group members have different approaches to masking. Consider asking groups to be thoughtful of others when making their masking choices. Depending on the nature of your assignments, you may be able to re-form groups so that students are matched with those making similar choices. If groups are solidified in membership, you can support them in using their group skills to negotiate any differences. Groups with divergent masking preferences might use remote tools to complete their work, for example, or may be able to change their work sites. If you guide students to communicate with each other respectfully and clearly, and you assist them in finding ways to accommodate the divergent approaches in their group, it will help to keep them focused on their tasks.

Communicating about classroom experiences

Colleagues on campuses that have already transitioned to mask-optional status report that masking behavior can vary widely. A thoughtful post by the Indiana University CTL suggests that instructors could gather information from students by asking questions about how the shift in mask policy is affecting them, and use the sense of the class as a starting point for conversation. In small classes, we can open up discussion directly.

However, because there is so much about masking that is now up to individuals, opening up this conversation might be challenging. If your class is already in the habit of negotiating classroom agreements about policies or standards, you could be in a good position, with processes and norms for negotiating shared approaches. But in a very large class, or in a class where students are accustomed to simply receiving class policies from you, this isn’t practical. It could generate unfairly critical feedback as the semester ends from students who have strong opinions about behavior you simply can’t control. You can always influence classroom culture by being explicit about your own masking choices, helping students to see how they can think through what difference masking/not masking makes in your particular class.

Masking can be a polarizing issue in the absence of mandates. It makes sense to assume that students have a range of feelings about being near people who are making different mask choices and to do your best to communicate that you welcome and support all students.

Please stay in touch

For the past two years, our teaching has worked because of our generous and supportive teaching community that values what matters most for students. In almost every workshop, we come back to the question of what instructors really want students to be learning and how instructors could make sustainable teaching choices in this challenging time. Clarity about this has helped shape your choices about activities and accommodations–what assignments could be put off or redesigned and what activities could be transformed for a pandemic. That same sort of thinking may be helpful now, if you think divergent views about masking may affect the ways your assignments or activities will play out as the end of the semester nears.

The CTL is always ready to partner with you as you teach, and we look forward to hearing from you about what it’s like teaching on a mask-optional campus. What in-class pedagogical questions come up? How are your students navigating in-class changes? What would you like to talk about with your colleagues?

We’re all learning together, and we are more resilient for the conversations we have together.

Contributed by CTL Faculty Associate, Laura Almstead, Plant Biology; Nutrition & Food Sciences

An introductory biochemistry course isn’t the first class you’d think of when considering classes where a discussion board could be used. This is a course I’ve taught almost every fall for the last ten years. It’s undergone multiple, major “renovations” over the years and, this year, the main goals of my changes were to promote peer instruction, increase retention of the material, and better emphasize the relevance of what we discuss to their future educational and career goals. A class discussion board could potentially help me achieve all three. Let’s try it, I thought. If it’s a flop, we’ll drop it and figure out how to readjust assessments. It ended up being far from a flop.

My experiences last year were what sparked the first of my goals – promoting peer instruction. Open-ended class discussion questions, group problem-solving, and iClicker questions had been part of the course right from the start, so students worked with each other, at least some, in every class. Last year, I taught the class using a mixed delivery modality, and majority of students chose to attend remotely. I struggled to get them to engage with the material in class, and students seemed to struggle much more to grasp the material. This was in stark contrast to my introductory biology course, run remotely, where the Teams chat nearly blew up every time I posed a question and students were as successful compared to prior years. Both classes, however, struggled more with iClicker questions in an environment where they couldn’t talk to their classmates. Thus, my experiences teaching remotely reinforced the importance of having students engage with the material in class and peer instruction.

The biochem course this year was set up so that Yellowdig contributions and in-class iClicker questions both counted towards the engagement component of the assessment. Yellowdig posts (40 words minimum) could be questions, important points (e.g. answers to follow-up questions posted for each class; tables, lists, or diagrams summarizing material), or extensions/applications (e.g. related videos or articles). The word count minimum for comments was set a bit higher (60 words), and students were encouraged to answer their classmates’ questions, add additional information related to someone’s post, or explain why they found an extension/application especially interesting or helpful. Students could make up for missed iClicker questions by creating an extra post or comment that week, or contribute more on some weeks so they could take a week off during a “crunch” week in other courses. A majority of students hit their Yellowdig points goal several weeks before the class ended…and most kept right on going.

Day one, I told the students that the success of our Yellowdig discussion board was up to them. They could use it to ask questions, motivate them to answer to the follow-up questions and/or check their answers, help each other, etc. or they could spend the semester figuring out how to say “Hi, so-and-so, this post is very helpful,” in 60 words. It was up to them. I was not going to “police” Yellowdig and take away points for contributions lacking any real content. Instead, I’d invest my time and energy answering questions and reinforcing/clarifying important points.

And invest time I did – because I enjoyed it! I found myself checking Yellowdig four or more times a day, much more than was probably necessary, but I couldn’t stop myself. Although there were only thirty students in the class, it seemed like there were always new contributions to read. At first I jumped on answering questions people asked. Gradually I backed off and waited for other students in the class to chime in with an answer first. By the middle of the semester, I was mainly giving my thumbs up to contributions, providing clarifications when needed, and answering a few of the more challenging questions. Now, were there a few students whose contributions were mostly of the “hey, this is helpful” in 60 words? Certainly, but a whopping majority of the contributions had actual content.

Looking at trends in frequency of Yellowdig contributions, quiz scores, and homework scores there was a definite pattern – more Yellowdig contributions were correlated with higher quiz and homework scores. My guess is that some of this is due to the fact that students who contributed more were simply more invested in the class, but does suggest that actively engaging with the material and peer instruction outside of class through Yellowdig helped promote understanding. Nearly all of the students who responded to an anonymous end-of-course survey also said Yellowdig was at least “sort of” helpful and the vast majority said they’d recommend using Yellowdig next year.

So, will I use Yellowdig next year? Yes. Will it be as successful? Who knows? Ultimately, it’s the students that will make it or break it. What I do know, is that, overall, students were more successful in the course, their interest in course material was higher than usual, and I was able to connect much more with the students this year than in the past.

I was prompted to write this blog piece after reading the responses to a mid-semester survey and reflecting on input I’d received through one-on-one conversations with students.

Listening to our students is a powerful way to answer the all-important question: Is what I’m doing working? Seeking student input is even more important as we all make adjustments, or in some cases monumental shifts, in our courses to navigate the new landscape of COVID-19.

Below is a compilation of take-home messages from my students as well as the students in other CTL Faculty Associates’ courses. These messages come from a range of course sizes and formats, yet the underlying themes are the same. As we look towards spring, hopefully these messages can help inform and guide our course development.

Technical glitches freak students out, and they often blame themselves.

One of my great surprises this semester was how frequently students blamed themselves for technical glitches such as not being able to log into Teams, not being able to type in the chat, etc. Choose your technologies carefully and keep the number of different technologies you use to a minimum. Most importantly, be kind, be patient, be lenient, and constantly reassure students that they’re not to blame for these glitches.

Be yourself, be human – it works.

Students want professors who are “real people.” As we strive to garner the respect of our students, it can also help to let them see our vulnerability. Whether that’s by sharing your love for Schitt’s Creek and the Bachelorette, or introducing your pet in a Teams meeting, it all helps to build community. Even in remote or asynchronous online classes where you may never meet your students, sharing who you are outside the classroom builds connections that make you more than just a face on the screen.

Provide structure to support student learning during stressful times.

Structure is essential component of inclusive teaching under normal conditions, and even more important now in these topsy-turvy times. Set patterns and reminders go a long way towards helping students stay on track. Have a clear, consistent pattern to class activities and assignments, and regularly remind students of due dates via class announcements and emails. Take the time to clearly communicate the details of your course, such as how technologies will be used and how to contact you.

Give students ways to interact during class to promote engagement.

It’s easy for students to “zone out” in class, especially if they’re joining remotely. Keep people engaged by providing frequent, simple ways for them to respond to or interact with class content. Ask a question and have people respond verbally or by typing in the chat, or simply have them write the answer in their notes. Assign “chat buddies” and have people message each other to discuss a question. The remote response system iClicker Reef provides a relatively simple way to incorporate participation as a graded component of the class. Whatever methods you choose, students appreciate and want interactive classes.

Create opportunities for students to build connections with each other.

In these times of social distancing, students crave opportunities to connect and interact with their peers. Encourage students to respond to each other’s answers in the chat during class, promote and support formation of study groups, find ways to incorporate group discussions, and include low-stakes group projects. Consider what’s appropriate for your course, and try to find at least one way to increase student-student interaction.

Be flexible with in-person attendance in mixed and in-person classes.

As much as many students want to attend class in person, some may feel safer joining remotely and others may struggle to navigate the logistics of juggling mixed, remote, and in-person classes. We must also be prepared for students to be in quarantine or isolation. Give students the choice of coming in person or joining remotely in mixed classes. For in-person classes, have a clear plan outlined in your syllabus for students that are unable to attend in person due to health concerns. Remember that what’s important is not how your students join class, but rather that they are easily able to join class in the manner that makes them comfortable and keeps everyone safe.