The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, and people from many parts of our city, state, country, and the world are still suffering from the public health crisis with minimal support and resources. We are fortunate to be able to meet as a class, albeit remotely, to resume learning during this unusual time. As we pursue learning together, let’s keep the following principles in mind:
1. Nobody signed up for this. Not for COVID-19, not for social distancing, not for the alteration of our collective lives together on campus. Not for mandatory online classes in some programs (like ours), not for teaching remotely, not for learning from home, not for mastering new technologies, not for varied access to learning materials. Not for the unexpected financial hardships of losing your job, or your folks’ losing theirs, or unpaid leave, or increased work responsibilities, or having to invest in a new phone, laptop, webcam, microphone, headphones, or other aspects of a fully or partly online learning or teaching setup. Not for frequent testing and tracing. Not for having to care for siblings, grandparents, parents, yourself. Not for New York State’s first wave, and not for a potential second post-holiday wave with the usual winter flu season upon us.
2. So, the best option is the humane option. As we learn together, we’re going to prioritize supporting each other as humans. We’re going to prioritize simple solutions that make sense for the most of us. We’re going to prioritize sharing resources and communicating clearly. We’re going to prioritize leniency and compassionate understanding, and doing what labor we are capable of doing to learn. To that end, I’ve written some long course documents and guides for our class to better help you. They might look like walls of text, but they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do, where you need to go, how to prepare, and what to expect.
3. We can’t just do the same thing online. Some modes of teaching delivery are no longer possible in virtual formats. Some forms of classroom community are no longer reasonable. Some objectives are no longer valuable. Screen fatigue is very real. We are not living under ordinary conditions, so all this is to be expected. I can’t promise you the same classroom experience you might have received in an F2F setting in pre-pandemic semesters, but I can promise you that as long as you participate and advocate for your own learning—the same as you’d have to in an F2F setting, really—your education will not suffer in our virtual class, and you’ll have space for making friends and building community. We will largely be relying on accessible asynchronous content for diverse access, time zones, difficulties, and contexts, with some live Zoom sessions to learn together and combat isolation. We’ll use these modalities to foster intellectual nourishment, social connection, and personal accommodation.
4. We will remain flexible and adjust to the situation. Nobody knows where this is going and what or how we’ll need to adapt. Everybody needs support and understanding in this unprecedented moment.
5. Don’t panic! Your learning will undoubtedly be different right now, and many of us don’t learn as well (or aren’t used to learning effectively) in remote classes. Embrace that. Even when we fail, we’ll fail up. If you’re striving towards the objectives of our assignments and our class, and I can see that demonstrated in your participation and submissions, I can work with you if you encounter difficulty or need extra accommodation.
6. Talk, talk, talk! We’ll use Slack for our asynchronous activities, and these discussion threads should stay active throughout the week. You can think of it like at least 1 post by Tuesday and at least 1 reply by Friday, every week we have mandatory writing assignments due on Slack (refer to the Calendar). The more active we all are on the platform, the more we can improve our writing skills, and the more we foster a collaborative learning community. When you reply to your classmates, I challenge you to avoid saying “I agree” or “I disagree” but instead to add to what your peers are saying. Start with “I wonder” or “Do you think” or “This reminds me of”—phrases that lead directly into your thinking and your ability to free-associate from and apply what we’ve learned, better demonstrating active engagement. I evaluate and record everyone’s participation and labor by the end of the week, which for us is noon on Friday.
9. Your safety and security. If you experience homelessness, food insecurity, financial difficulty, or illness, make your health, safety, and security your number one priority, and email me to figure out alternate arrangements for class.
Adapted from Prof. Bayne, UNC – Chapel Hill and Jason Tham, TTU.