Spark-It Week Message October 23, 2020

October 23, 2020: Final Advice

Dear Colleague,

First the bad news: This is the end of Spark-It Week, so this will be our last Daily Spark. 

Now the good news: There are five more weeks in the semester, so you have plenty of time to try all the Daily Spark ideas. And in the newly renamed 24/7 Hall, you will have a nearly endless supply of time to work out even more ideas with colleagues! (Just don’t set off any stray fireworks.) :()

Silliness aside, we have some important things for you to think about in the weeks ahead.  Attendance in many classes has been sagging, the election is approaching, and you will need to assess your class at the end of the semester. So here’s some final advice:

Improving student attendance and class engagement.  Attendance has been at an all-time low in some classes, yet close to average in others. It appears that the drivers of attendance (when students are not sick or quarantined) are the same as they always have been. Students are more likely to attend in-person or online class sessions when the value of attending is clear and when they know that the instructor knows and cares that they are not there (e.g., in small classes or discussion sections). This section of the CTE website discusses ways to encourage student attendance, and the Flex Teaching Guide discusses considerations for attendance during the pandemic.

We recognize it is complicated to incentivize attendance when you also have to be so flexible. One suggestion is to take some time to share an informal progress report with students, including a brief reminder of what they’ve learned so far; a summary of where the course is going and what students will be asked to do; and the steps to successful completion, including why their attendance in class will matter.

Teaching around or about the election. Given the heightened anxiety and controversy around the 2020 election, many instructors are not sure whether and how to discuss it with students. We have compiled a number of resources to provide guidance on teaching about the election, navigating conversations that may pop up with your students, and supporting vulnerable students and colleagues (and getting support). These resources are available in the Flex Teaching Guide here. The Center for Service Learning has also created a Civic Engagement Hub with resources for both faculty and students on what to do pre- and post-election. In November, CTE will also host conversations on “Navigating the remains of a semester like no other: You and your students.” Stay tuned for the schedule, which we will also post on this page of the Flex Teaching site and the CTE website.

Online Assessment. With finals about six weeks off, you may be wondering how to address the challenges of assessing learning online. We address this topic in our Flex Teaching Guide. We also provide guidance on how to promote academic integrity in online assessment.  We also encourage you to look at a new resource developed by the Bay View Alliance, a consortium of 10 research universities including KU. The BVA has developed a set of design principles and accompanying examples of online learning assessment. Finally, if you want help rethinking your assessments, the faculty consultants and TLCs (Teaching and Learning Corps) would be excellent thought partners.

We hope you’ll continue to use the small ideas from the Spark-It page to help yourself and your students power through the rest of the semester. Just don’t try to do everything. In the end, you are the real spark in your classes. So be kind to yourself.

Best,

Dea and Doug