You have a lot to balance teaching online right now. Our infographic highlights some common situations that may arise during the term around technical issues, family concerns, illness, frontline workers and mental health, so that you can think about these issues ahead of time and save yourself some stress.
Consider creating a table indicating how you will respond if these situations do occur for your students – you may even wish to include email language so you don’t have to worry about it later. Don’t forget your compassion. When students share personal situations with you, acknowledge them with compassion (e.g., thank you for your email – I am glad you were comfortable enough to share that with me) – even if what follows is, “Unfortunately, I cannot accommodate an extension on this assignment.”
You can also use ‘best of’ for certain assessments (e.g., best 8/10) or build some ‘assignment forgiveness’ into your course design (e.g., allowing students to submit X number of assessments 48 hours late without penalty).
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