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Lurking on social media the other day, I listened to colleagues discussing how to respond to a student paper in a philosophy class. The assignment was about our responsibilities towards (nonhuman) animals. The student argued that we can do whatever we want with animals because God has given us dominion over them. Presumably, he had Genesis 1.26 in mind, but none of the course readings mentioned Genesis—or God.People in the social media group had lots of suggestions on how to respond:Tell him that religion has no place in the classroom.Tell him that there should be no theist or atheist premises in academic writing.Just write “Irrelevant” in the margin!That last comment got a lot of likes, hopefully because people found it funny and not because they considered it good advice.The consensus was clear: Tell the student that appeals to scripture are inappropriate in college papers.I don’t think that’s good advice.My colleagues were ignoring something crucial. In this sort of situation, we can do deep damage to our relationship with our student and to the student’s relationship with higher education if we don’t tread carefully. Presumably the student who wrote this paper believes in God and the Bible. His religion will be part of his ethical decision-making going forward, and the Bible will influence his thinking and his actions.Bearing this in mind, let’s not tell this student that his thinking about right and wrong in class must be utterly divorced from his thinking about it outside the classroom.My advice would be: Before writing any comments, identify your larger goals. Here are mine:I want our class discussions to help inform my students’ thinking and actions about ethical issues, and in particular about whether it’s OK to do “whatever you want” with animals.I want students to listen when I try to teach them more things after this and I want other professors to be able to teach them even more things. If I reinforce a student’s likely skepticism about professors and religion, I make that harder.I don’t want my actions to increase the chances that my students go out in the world thinking of higher education as an enemy to religion and God.These goals suggest a different approach. Start by taking the paper seriously:Do you think that’s what the Bible means by ‘dominion’? Some people think so, but I've always thought it meant something more like ‘stewardship.’ I mean, God is the Father, right? So, I think of it like if your parents go out and put you in charge of the family dogs. If they come home and discover that you haven’t fed them or given them water, they’ll be mad at you.What do you think someone who doesn’t believe in God and the Bible would make of your argument? How would you persuade them? For instance, imagine that you’re talking to the author of our second reading or to the other kids in the class.I would count this encounter as a success if the student feels like I’m treating him and his religion with respect and if he realizes two things:“Dominion” could mean “stewardship” instead of “freedom to treat them any way I want,” and I need to think more about which one the Bible meant.I need to talk about this differently or I won’t be able to persuade people who don’t believe in the Bible.That’s a start. Much more has to happen before this student writes at college level. Later, I and his other professors will teach him more.It’s a very small step. Growth and intellectual development takes time. I probably won’t see the result of the learning process that I was part of. But occasionally I do.My greatest success story in this context is a student who came into my Intro to Philosophy class as a freshman, determined to prove that Christ rose from the dead. It was rough going, but by the end of the semester, his sources weren’t cringeworthy anymore, and he was presenting an actual argument. And he still trusted me. He majored in math but took Philosophy of Religion with me as a senior, and he explained that he wanted to continue developing his proof.I braced myself. But during the semester, the class discussed faith and reason extensively, and I was able to ask him (privately): Given that you think about faith as being the important thing, what makes it so important to you to prove that Christ rose? He thought about it for a long time and finally decided that he didn’t need to prove that Christ rose. Instead, he wrote a strong final paper in which he reflected on the meaning of faith, discussing his own experience and the course readings.I rarely get wins that size. But taking my students’ religious views seriously makes them possible.

A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter decided to grade the weekend we spent together. I don’t know where she got this idea. I didn’t love it. Our weekend scored a 70/100. Readers, over the course of this weekend, we ate pizza, hot dogs, and fried chicken. We went to the pool, twice, where she played with two different sets of friends. We got her favorite ice cream flavor at our favorite ice cream place. We watched an animated film of her choosing. We went rollerblading at a nearby playground. We went to a park where she participated in a kid’s mud race. We attended a local Bach concert. We walked down to eat breakfast one morning at a beloved brunch place, which had just recently reopened after having been closed during the pandemic. There were some challenges. I made her rollerblade. Even though they were rollerblades she herself requested from her grandparents for Christmas,  rollerblading is still hard for her, and she doesn’t like doing it, and she grumbled throughout the entire experience, and I got annoyed, and we butted heads. But we cuddled, chatted, and laughed a lot too. And this was a C-?!? I felt disappointed, hurt, even, by the low score. I wanted to protest about how hard I had tried to create a good weekend for her. I wanted to detail all the effort I had put into our plans. I wanted to point out all the good things about my weekend “performance.”I wanted a different score. And I definitely wanted to put way less effort into future weekends, if my best efforts were, at most, going to earn me a 70%. And then I realized precisely what—or rather who—I felt like. I felt like one of my students who had tried really hard, on a paper or a test, and who still didn’t get the grade they wanted, that they thought they deserved. The same students who send seemingly entitled emails late at night or come by my office hours to do the dreaded “grade grubbing.” The same students about whom I sometimes privately think: Tough noogies. Effort isn’t everything. You can work hard and things still won’t necessarily go your way. This is life. Oof. Researchers are coming to better appreciate the role of emotions in learning (see here and here, for instance). Grading, in particular, is an “emotional practice,” for students and instructors alike. Getting this score from my daughter was a good reminder for me—and for all of us—of just how difficult the learning process can be for students. Failure (or even a C-level grade, which certainly isn’t failure), on top of everything else going on in their lives (e.g., living away from home for the first time, working part-time jobs, health problems, relationship issues, etc.), can hurt. It can feel frustrating, demoralizing, unfair—even if it is also “a necessary component of learning and growth.” When we get a low score, or other negative feedback, it can affect our motivation, our self-efficacy, our self-worth, our willingness to take risks, as well as our desire to continue. I think it’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of students once in a while, to remember what these feelings—and their potency—are like. As we get older, there’s less of a demand on us to get out of our comfort zones. Kids are learning constantly: how to hold their own heads up, how to use forks, how to not run directly into oncoming traffic. As adults, we can usually opt out of uncomfortable learning experiences. When was the last time you tried to learn something? When was the last time you really struggled with a new skill or knowledge? When was the last time you failed—and it was public and someone else gave you a grade for it? One of the skills that’s important to me to teach in my religion courses is empathy, which I hope students will apply to the people and traditions we study. But this skill is applicable to us too. Experiencing our own failures can be a good reminder that students are people too and that they bring a mix of emotions into our classrooms, all of which affect their learning. This reminder may help us consider how we might, perhaps more delicately or kindly, facilitate those situations in which failure is possible or even inevitable.

“...it’s easy if you try.” In fact, it is not easy for me to imagine no grading. But I’m trying, colleagues. I’m trying really hard. I’m not talking about being finished with this spring term’s grading, though that would be nice, too. When I say, “Imagine there’s no grading,” I mean imagine learning without grades. Okay, wait—don’t go anywhere! How about, imagine learning with fewer grades. Or finally: imagine a learning environment that is designed to encourage learners (and instructors) to focus more on learning, and less on grades. When we put this imagination into practice, we are Ungrading. I’m not doing away with grades and grading. I have invested decades into discovering and sharing grading practices that are more equitable, more just, less biased, and more accurate than many of the grading practices I learned from my own instructors. However, these very discoveries have led me into practices that many describe as ungrading: more formative evaluation and less summative evaluation; peer learning via peer review; more narrative and collaborative evaluation processes; and more openness to surprising demonstrations of learning. This unpredictability of learning is one of two experiences that, today, urgently persuade me to consider more committal practices in Ungrading. Put simply: Learners come from everywhere and are going everywhere. Learners come from everywhere, and therefore, I have very little idea what prior experiences and insights they are pouring into the learning that they mix. (“Constructivism” is a theory of learning holding that learners construct understanding by integrating new information with prior knowledge.) If learners come from everywhere (and bring anything), then how can I be confident in one-size-fits-all grading strategies that presuppose that I already know what “learning” will look like? What is more, learners are going everywhere, and therefore, I have very little idea what an application of learning might look like in their imagined present or future contexts. If learners are going everywhere (and might need anything), then how can I be confident that I already know what a successful application of learning should look like? This is to say: do my evaluation processes have ears? Are they open to challenge? Do they invite surprise? The second experience that today urgently persuades me to evaluate grading more critically is my experience of trustworthiness in learners. This is not a new experience of course, but is fresh on my mind, in part because of a new experience, and in part because of fresh reflection on a frequent experience. This spring, I taught a class that my institution designates as Pass/Fail. Learners responded weekly to a pair of prompts calling on them to engage the readings of the week in particular ways. The rubric for these weekly prompts was unchanging through the semester, and learners got the hang of it all quite early. At that point, I wondered whether student submissions would become minimum-effort, “paint by numbers” exercises in tedium, but things proved otherwise: overwhelmingly, learners engaged the course materials in authentic, often risk-taking ways that showed more than the necessary commitment of time and attention. This was true not only for the habitual overachievers, but also for those learners who had had the most trouble getting the hang of things early in the term. The prior semester, I taught my usual Intro course in my subject matter (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament). This was where I encountered a by-now-familiar phenomenon: the learners became more enthusiastically engaged with the material in the last weeks of the term, once (as an intentional result of course design) most student’s final grades were more or less established. Learners would go on to take low-stakes, short assignments and stretch their creativity, taking provisional ideas out for a spin and testing their own limits freely. Countless times I have reflected, “It’s amazing what’s possible once they feel like their grades are more or less set...” without considering what an indictment that is against the basic presupposition that grading is necessary to coerce performance. Why in the world am I not doing all I can to create those liberating conditions as early in the term as possible? Why am I not doing more to get grades out of the way of learning? This summer, I am once again taking my aspirations as an instructor to the notion of Ungrading. Discover more about Ungrading by reading Susan D. Blum (ed.), Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University (2020). Find active, up-to-date, practice-based discussions about Ungrading by searching Twitter for the hashtag #ungrading.

Recently a colleague shared with me the concept of “ungrading,” written about eloquently in a couple of blog posts by writing instructor Jesse Strommel. You can find Strommel’s posts here and here. (I highly recommend his blog, in general, as well as his @jessifer twitter account.) Strommel asks us to consider why we grade, what we want grading to do, what letter grades really mean, how grades and feedback relate (if they do), and what would happen if we didn’t grade. As the name “ungrading” suggests, this approach can encourage or empower instructors to grade less or even not at all. Here are some complaints about grading that I’ve heard (from colleagues, students, and the literature) and shared over the years, which make the idea of ungrading appealing to me: We get so easily behind on grading We don’t grade fast enough for students’ taste Grading takes up so much of our time Grading feels like a joyless, soul-sucking burden Grading has nothing to do with why we became teachers The burdens of grading limit us in the kinds of assignments we think we can give, especially in large classes (and especially without TAs) Grading often pits students against each other (e.g., when they are graded on a curve) Grading is used to gatekeep Grading is a measurement, which is subject to error, and can have a huge impact on students Grading does not always measure what we intend (e.g., we intend to measure learning, but we instead measure test-taking skills, which students may or may not have acquired from our course) Students disagree with and complain about our grades Grade grubbing The standards or criteria are not always clear, which then makes it difficult to know what grade to assign Students don’t know how to understand or interpret our grades Some students don’t seem to care when they get a low grade; others care too much about a slightly-less-than-perfect grade The grades, and any accompanying feedback, aren’t always reviewed by students Grading doesn’t necessarily yield improvement from one assignment to the next Grades can be arbitrary, discriminatory, and unfair Grades become an extrinsic motivation that detracts from the real focus of the course experience—learning So, Strommel says, “If you’re a teacher and you hate grading, stop doing it.” What a freeing idea! Strommel has stopped grading entirely in his classes (though obviously he still has to submit a final grade for each student at the end of the semester, as he, and I bet most of us, are required to do by our institutions). It took him many years to arrive at this point, a journey he describes in his blog, and it’s a change I wouldn’t recommend anyone making all at once. There are ways, however, that we can dip our toes into the ungrading waters and find out how it goes, both for us and our students. Strommel offers several suggestions in his blog, including self-assessment, portfolios, authentic assessment, and peer assessment. I am trying the self-assessment route this semester in my Religion and Pop Culture class, with students’ attendance and engagement grade. This is a small, upper-level course (enrolling majors and nonmajors) and I always lead it like a seminar, expecting students to learn just as much from each other as they may from me. If they’re not there, prepared, and ready to engage, a heck of a lot of learning is just not going to happen. This is why it’s always felt important to me to attach some kind of percentage to this part of the course. Yet grading attendance and engagement has also always felt problematic to me, given its reliance on attendance, which, especially during the pandemic, has seemed inflexible and even inhumane. I also hate getting into the business of having to decide what an excused vs. unexcused absence is (e.g., I don’t want to be looking at doctor’s notes or deciding whether going to your brother’s wedding is excusable). Ungrading has the potential to accomplish my goals while alleviating my problems with this part of the course. Here is how I am describing, excerpted, the expectations for “Attendance and Engagement” this semester on my syllabus (which will be worth 10% of their grade): Reliable attendance and active engagement will be crucial to our learning community. Students can learn just as much from each other as they can from any professor, in a well-designed class. We will decide together what we expect from one another in terms of attendance and engagement by co-creating a set of “community norms” that will guide our time together; it won’t just mean talking a lot! You will then use these community-created expectations to give yourself an attendance and engagement grade at the end of the semester, justified by a reflection letter you will write to me. This is an experiment for me. I think it’s really important to question, experiment, reflect, and iterate as teachers (this is the heart of the scholarship of teaching and learning or “SoTL”). So I do have some questions that I will be looking to answer at the end of the semester: Will there be any patterned differences in the grades among the students (e.g., will the male students grade themselves higher)? If so, what am I going to do about that, for this class and in the future, if I continue to ungrade? Will I need to change any grades, up or down? If so, how many? If so, will this defeat the purpose of ungrading? Will attendance be different (worse, I’m assuming) in this class than my others? This may be difficult to tell, because we’re still in the pandemic and a lot of students are out right now for health reasons. I also typically experience absences throughout the semester anyway. Will the reflections that students write be any good? (What do I mean by “good” anyway?) Will I need to have taught them how to write good reflections? I’m not planning on devoting class time to doing so—and also not intending to grade (!) the reflections—but this is how they are going to justify their grade, so this may matter to me. Instead of alleviating anxiety for students, will ungrading provoke or exacerbate it? (Students often don’t handle such open-ended assignments or responsibilities well.) This is certainly not what they need right now! What did I and my students think about this approach? Were there other unintended benefits or drawbacks, for them or for me? How will I decide whether to continue this kind of assessment? I’m looking forward to finding out how this experiment in ungrading unfolds.

One of our most time-consuming and dreaded tasks as humanities faculty is grading student papers. We’re making it worse by writing too many comments. Some of my colleagues correct every single grammatical error. Others fill the margins with thoughtful suggestions, noting all the misunderstandings of the text, the lapses in logic, and the awkward expressions. Of course, extensive feedback is sometimes appropriate, for instance, in commenting on a draft of a strong students’ capstone thesis. But over the years, I’ve come to think that for a lot of undergraduate papers, especially in gen ed courses, it’s counterproductive. I understand the temptation to write a lot of comments because I used to do it myself. I fell into it while I was a teaching assistant at a big university. I was just a few years older than my students, and they kept challenging my grading. My extensive comments were armor, intended to prove to my more obnoxious students that their papers were ridden with errors and deserved an even lower grade than I had assigned. I continued writing extensive comments for many years afterwards. The colleagues that I admired the most did, so I assumed that it was good practice. If I don’t show the students their errors and to explain how to correct those errors, how will they ever learn? I wrote and I wrote. It took forever. And my students’ writing didn’t improve much. They kept making the same mistakes even though I had corrected them in previous papers. Judging from my colleagues’ complaints, they didn’t have better luck. I started understanding why extensive feedback doesn’t work at my Taekwondo dojang. I was watching two intermediate students show a beginner how to turn and do a low block. The beginner’s block was wobbly and weak, and the intermediate students kept shaking their heads and offering lots of helpful suggestions. The beginner kept trying, they gave more feedback, and he tried again. He was looking increasingly confused and his technique started getting worse. After a few minutes, Grandmaster Kim walked over. He quietly watched and then said: “When you turn, step 3 inches wider.” The student tried again and it worked. He wasn’t wobbling, and his block was much more powerful. The move suddenly looked OK. I laughed at the two student-teachers until I realized that as I was acting just like them. What usually happens when we write a lot on student papers? Most students don’t read the marginal comments, especially not in gen ed classes. At best, they read the end comment. If they do read extensive comments, they become overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. They focus on the wrong things. My students frequently focus their revisions on minor issues, ignoring the larger and more important ones. They do this even when I write that comment #1 is very important and that #2-5 are less important. Reflecting on the taekwondo experience made me realize that I was focusing on the wrong task. My job isn’t to provide a thorough critique of the paper; it is to help the students write better next time. A long list of errors won’t help them do that, but brief and simple feedback might. “When you turn, step 3 inches wider.” Focusing on helping the student and not on critiquing the paper is a fundamental shift. I’m no longer assessing an objective product. Instead, I’m interacting with a fellow human being who can get hurt, flattered, or angry, somebody who can listen or tune out. I aim to write so that they will hear, understand, and then choose to act on what I’m saying. It’s a delicate balance. My comments need to be brief and focused because if I overwhelm them with too much information, they’ll get confused and tune out. But if I say too little, they don’t get enough guidance. If I’m too harsh, they get defensive and they’ll stop hearing me altogether. But if I offer empty praise, they won’t understand that their writing needs work. After years of experimenting, I’ve landed on the following approach: I read the whole paper without writing any comments. Sometimes I sit on my hands to keep from writing. (Yes. Seriously. It helps!) I think: What is this person already doing well? What is the next thing they need to learn? And then I comment accordingly: I use their name I mention one specific thing they did well. I give them one or two specific things to work on, and I mark examples of those in the body of the paper. I offer my criticisms clearly but gently, favoring phrases like “I lost you here!” over “this is incoherent,” and “cool, say more about this!” over “poorly developed.” I offer encouragement. I ignore all the other problems in the paper. (Yes. Really.) Commenting on papers is still time consuming, but it takes less time and it’s more rewarding because I sometimes see that my comments help students improve their writing. They’re less likely to repeat the same mistakes in the next paper. And when they revise, they’re working on the more significant problems.

COVID-19 forced a long-overdue reckoning with various problematic aspects of the academy. Ranging from creating equitable classrooms and workspaces to securing meaningful job placements for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx faculty, the issues that we are now dealing with “out loud” are ones that many of us have been contending with for a long time. Considering the challenges students face in this COVID-19 world, I suggest that we take close stock of how we communicate with one another. What kind of language is in the welcome sign we are holding out for our students during these unprecedented times? I propose that we begin our journey toward pedagogical justice with our syllabi. Specifically, I want to remove punitive language in higher education syllabi. For context, I arrived at this topic as a result of the move to online learning in the spring of 2020. Due to the pandemic, higher learning institutions across the country quickly transitioned to online learning when it became clear that social distancing must be enacted immediately to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus transmissions. The summer offered a reprieve from the chaos of the spring. Many institutions launched programs to equip faculty to teach online, some for the first time in their careers. I was hired as a facilitator by a university to learn and deliver a standardized online teaching curriculum to a cohort of nearly thirty professors in the humanities. The end goal was for professors to revise their fall syllabi to reflect some of the best practices they learned during their three-week crash course. While reviewing the syllabi my cohort submitted, I noticed a trend that starkly stuck out to me because of the temporal proximity to the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Rayshard Brooks. Professors, both junior and senior in tenure, were using punitive language in their syllabi. I was shocked by the use of words like “penalty” and “penalizing.” This made me wonder, “Are professors actually comfortable using punitive language and punishment as a fear tactic for control of their classrooms when instead they could say “points will be deducted?” The etymology of the word “penalty” originates circa 1500. By the 1510s, “penalty” came to specifically mean “the punishment laid out by law or judicial decision for a violation of the law.”[1] The etymological example for “penalty” suffices to get my point across without going down a rabbit hole about the origin of other terms or on a Foucauldian tangent about punishment. The words we use matter. As a scholar of religion, this concern is about more than semantics. The discipline of religious studies spends an inordinate amount of time defining terms and unpacking language. Personally, I have lost count of the number of classroom hours I spend debating the meaning of terms and arguing for the continued use or disuse of certain words. Like other disciplines in the humanities, religious studies is one where language and context matter. In light of the pandemic, issues of social justice, and police violence against Black bodies that arose in 2020, I want to understand why professors continue to use punitive language—which clearly ties into the penal system—in their syllabi. I also want to advocate for removing punitive language as a necessary first step of pedagogical justice. The words “penalty” and “penalize” convey that the power differential between teachers and students is so great that teachers not only have the ability but somehow the right to inflict punishment on students if they fail to perform to a certain standard. I am equating the use of the words “penalty” and “penalize” to punishment not just based on etymology or contemporary definitions, but instead based on how I saw them used in syllabi. The samples below illustrate my point: “Late assignments are penalized.” “You may miss one meeting without penalty.” “I will penalize students who merely pretend to be present in the synchronous meeting…” No matter what privileges a teacher has bestowed upon them, punishment should never be one of them. Effective and just pedagogy is a two-way street where learning and teaching are always in constant motion, coming and going side-by-side. This means that while the academy might differentiate between teacher and student, the apt educator knows that this difference is arbitrary and detrimental to the dialogical nature of effective teaching. While this issue of language should have been addressed before the pandemic and the most current police violence events, we must tackle this head-on as scholars of religion at this particular moment in history. As a result of the pandemic and the needs of her students, Yohana Junker suggests, “A set of pedagogical choices that are trauma-informed may prove helpful in designing our fall courses as the global pandemic has barely subsided, [and] our communities continue to be in danger…. A trauma-informed approach would not only affirm that suffering, pain, and distress is present among us but would also seek to actively mitigate or foresee potential challenges.”[2] Through an approach like Junker’s “pedagogy of affection,” the real-world concerns of students take center stage in the classroom. Socially-just pedagogies are crucial, particularly in times of peril. In order to heed the reminder by Cornel West that “justice is what love looks like in public,” we must show love for our students and communities by changing syllabi language.[3] bell hooks reminds us that “all the great movements for social justice in our society have strongly emphasized a love ethic.”[4] Love is the root of pedagogical justice. According to Paulo Freire, the dialogical nature of effective teaching and thus pedagogical justice would not be possible if love were absent from its core, “Because love is an act of courage, not fear, love is the commitment to others.”[5] My commitment to pedagogical justice is rooted in love, both for students and the field of study. Through this commitment, my pedagogy seeks to contribute to liberatory practices that counter oppressive systems that invalidate and devalue ways of being and knowing that differ from dominant educational paradigms. Punitive language in syllabi impedes us from crafting pedagogies that allow our students and ourselves to heal. Ultimately, if we want to practice socially-just pedagogies, then we have to understand the impact that our communication choices have on students. Syllabi are the first encounter students have with their instructors. As such, we must be mindful of how we construct these documents for this particular COVID-19 moment and for the long term if we are interested in pedagogical justice. Removing punitive language from syllabi is one of the first steps we must take towards pedagogical justice. By taking this step, we begin to break the cycle in the use of violent language as a means of disciplining or coercing students to comply with constricted ideas of what it means to provide and receive education. Using exact language to say what we mean, which in most cases is a grade deduction, shows our students that language matters. If syllabi are contracts between instructors and students, they must reflect the type of world that we want to see for ourselves. Words that are life-giving instead of punitive allow us to create learning experiences that help our students flourish. If there are consequences for students who turn in late assignments or miss class sessions, let us name them using clear and precise language. We must never forget that we are educators, not judges or wardens. Punitive language has no place in the classroom, pre- or post-COVID-19. The pandemic and the circumstances it engenders make our awareness and attentiveness to these issues much more critical. The worlds we create are formed by the words we use. We carry our socialization into the classroom. Therefore, we need to change how we use language and the language we use if we want our pedagogy to embrace and contribute to social justice. Notes [1] “Penalty," Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=penalty&utm_source=extension_submit. [2] Yohana Junker, “Pedagogies of Affection: Designing Experiences of Presence and Regard,” accessed October 20, 2020, https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/2020/08/pedagogies-of-affection-designing-experiences-of-presence-and-regard/. [3] Cornel West, "Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public," Facebook, October 28, 2010, https://www.facebook.com/drcornelwest/posts/never-forget-that-justice-is-what-love-looks-like-in-public/119696361424073/. [4] bell hooks, All about Love: New Visions (New York: William Morrow, 2000), xix. [5] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2000), 89.

Teaching that prioritizes inclusion and equity is an essential task for instructors. However, teaching remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic presents unique questions that faculty should address to support their students’ emotional and cognitive well-being. Below, I present six tips to promote an inclusive and equitable remote learning space for this moment. Acknowledge your own and students’ emotions Given the current moment, many students are experiencing stress and trauma. A trauma-informed pedagogy asks instructors to acknowledge and reflect on their own emotions as they prepare to enter this new learning space. Similarly, provide a space for students to process their own emotions as well. This can be done through individual reflection prompts, asynchronous discussion boards, or a guided discussion in a synchronous space. Consider if you can give students agency in the course Since we know students may be experiencing additional burdens and stress, consider ways that you may be able to provide students flexibility in the remainder of the course. A first step is to allow students to help shape the learning environment, including considerations for engagement and their expectations for themselves and others in the course. Additionally, it may be beneficial to give students choice in the types of assignments or tasks remaining in the course. Giving students some agency will allow them to feel some sense of control in a time of great uncertainty. Understand students’ unequal access to technology in determining how to run your course A recent post from PhysPort, a blog about teaching in physics provides considerations for what faculty should consider when thinking about students ability to access the course: Recognize that not all your students will be able to attend synchronous online classes due to internet access, connectivity, scheduling, health, and family situations. Some platforms allow participants to call in via phone, which allow them to hear and participate in audio conversations, but not see slides, screenshare, or video. Find ways for students who can't connect in real time to still participate (e.g. by making recordings available after class), or consider not running synchronous classes at all: asynchronous learning can be much more equitable for students with different levels of access, health and privilege. These are also good things to keep in mind when you are teaching in-person classes. Consider available grading options This may be difficult for some faculty in professional schools and in some undergraduate programs, but I encourage instructors to be open to new ideas for grading. For example, some have suggested that you tell students that they cannot receive a grade lower than what they currently have in the class. Such an approach will help deescalate student stress levels and acknowledge that not all students will have equal opportunities or access to complete the rest of the work for the course. Ensure your materials and technology are accessible As you integrate new ways to engage students and access materials for your course, ensure that these new platforms and methods are accessible. You should consider how students who use assistive technologies can engage the course as well as best ways to students with accommodations. Do what you can to promote your own self-care We recognize that this is a difficult time for you as instructors as well. For some, this new reality may mean balancing professional and personal responsibilities in unique ways. For others, this can heighten feelings of loneliness and isolation. Regardless, of your situation, it is important to do what you need to do to take care of yourself. It is though caring for our own well-being that we can best support our students. These six steps are only a beginning for how to foster inclusion and equity in your remote course. I recognize that this moment presents many challenges. I also recognize that others may have ideas to promote an inclusive and equitable course environment. If you have additional ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments for others to read. Additional Resources “As Human as Possible” by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed “Hope Matters” by Mays Imad, Inside Higher Ed “Inclusion, Equity, and Access While Teaching Remotely” from Rice University Center for Teaching Excellence “Maintaining Equity and Inclusion in Virtual Learning Environments” from san Diego State University “Please Do a Bad Job of Putting Your Courses Online” by Rebecca Barrett-Fox

Over the last two months, my partner and I have had many discussions about how Covid-19 has affected our relationship with our students. My partner teaches a generally underserved population of students at a CUNY school in the Bronx, Lehman College, whereas my students are mostly well-off undergraduates and graduate students at a small, religiously-affiliated institution. Nonetheless, the pandemic has taught us similar lessons about how we ought to be thinking about our students, and what they need from us and our institutions—not just during a time of crisis, but all of the time. What follows are the main lessons that I hope to carry forward from this challenging time. None of the insights I’ve had into my students are new to me, and they may not be to you either, but the pandemic has brought their importance home to me much more clearly. Students face mental and physical health challenges. Since we transitioned to online learning, students have let me know that they would have to miss class because of flu, coronavirus, insomnia, and OCD flareups. They have also told me that they may need to stand up and stretch during class, and that they are fine but experiencing stress because of ongoing health concerns that would make the virus more dangerous to them if they caught it. While some of these factors are situational, others are part of the students’ ongoing physical and mental lives, and I wonder if they would feel as comfortable sharing their challenges with me at a time when they had less expectation of support. What can we do under normal circumstances to make clear to students that we do not see them as a (neurotypical) brain in a vat, and that their education can accommodate care for their health? Can we be more thoughtful about language on the syllabus, more empathic in how we treat deadlines and absences? Students find grades stressful. My students took midterms shortly before my school’s transition to Zoom. As I was working on grading them, the school announced that all courses for the semester would be default pass/fail unless the student explicitly requested a letter grade. Realizing that thinking about grades could be an unnecessary additional source of stress, I gave my students three options: they could get feedback with a grade; they could get feedback with no grade; or I could just tell them whether or not they passed. I had takers for all three choices. What would it look like to come up with evaluation and feedback systems that keep students apprised of how they are doing in the course, while accounting for the fact that grades can carry unhelpful emotional weight and even detract from their’ ability to take in feedback? Can we grant students more agency in how and when they receive feedback from us? Students get the most out of active learning. I am teaching two classes this semester. One is a seminar with 18 students, and the other is a course built around hevruta, a Jewish practice of reading and discussing texts aloud in pairs. Of the two, the hevruta course has been vastly more successful over Zoom. The students were already spending more than 50% of in-class time in paired group work, and when they transitioned to doing so online, they remained engaged and active. What would it be like post-pandemic to consider what keeps students engaged during class time, whether it is happening online or not? My institution, like most others, does not yet know what classes will look like in September.  As I begin to think about my fall courses, my intention is that my increased awareness of student needs will continue to inform my pedagogy—regardless of whether I will be teaching virtually or in a physical classroom.

In remote teaching we all wrestle with how to effectively translate our typical assessments of student learning, and possibly, how to create new assessments.  This requires (re)determining what we most want our students to achieve and thinking creatively about how they can best demonstrate their learning in an online environment.  While there are tips to discourage cheating online, many instructors are concerned about academic integrity in online high-stakes, closed-book exams. Because students are more likely to learn from (and less likely to cheat on) assessments that provide authentic experiences or reflection on learning, it is valuable to think broadly about how best to assess our students learning in creative ways online. The principles of inclusivity and sustainability can guide our development of online assessments from the beginning to the end of the course. Sustainable assessments are those that help students develop skills necessary to direct and monitor their future learning.  Shifting students’ expectations from all feedback originating from the instructor to using self and peer assessment will help them reflect on their learning processes, and identify gaps in their skills and understanding. Making this shift will allow students to begin to assess and monitor their own learning, making it sustainable a skill that students can use after leaving your course. Inclusive assessments are those designed to measure students equitably, and in ways that are sensitive to cultural, economic and social differences. Transparency and clear communication regarding expectations for successful completion of work is key so that students understand its purpose, the necessary tasks to successfully complete the work, and upon what specific criteria they will be evaluated. This approach levels the playing field for diverse students while facilitating learning for all students. To apply these principles in your online course: Begin by seeking input from your students At the beginning of a course, surveys can be used to discover students’ incoming knowledge and skills as well as something about them as a person.  Rather than focusing on knowledge ‘deficits’ that the curriculum must fill, this kind of preassessment will allow you to discover students’ interests, lived experiences and motivations.  Equitable assessments should be accessible and responsive to students whose abilities, access to computational tools and reliable high-speed internet, access to quiet work spaces, and extent of flexibility in setting their study schedules may vary. Therefore, it will be important for you to know about your students for your course planning. Ask students to share what they are most excited about in the class, unique skills they are proud of, past educational experiences, and their own perceptions of their current knowledge and skills.  Use students’ input to help them build connections between the course content and their interests. To help them take ownership in creating spaces that welcome all members of the class, invite students to contribute to ground rules for class interactions. Where possible, provide opportunities for students to make choices about an assessment topic or format that leverages their skills and interests to help them feel more empowered and engaged in the course.  Use frequent low-stakes assessment to guide students’ learning throughout the course As your course progresses, assessments are a learning tool that can develop the students’ sense of belonging in the course community, as well as a shared responsibility for and awareness of their learning. There are many ways to accomplish this. Here are a few: Include a variety of low-stakes activities and assignments early and frequently such as short quizzes, reflective writing prompts, group projects, and synchronous or asynchronous discussions. This allows students to calibrate your expectations, get feedback they can incorporate, and understand their individual progress. Use online discussions to build opportunities for interaction that develop students’ sense of belonging, and motivate them to learn from each other in their responses and question of each other.  In both asynchronous discussions and synchronous sessions, guide opportunities for effective peer feedback by modeling it yourself, highlighting examples of productive exchanges, prompting them to ask each other guiding questions and asking them to use rubrics / clear criteria to guide and assess their responses. Before students hand in work, ask them to self-evaluate according to the grading criteria and to identify areas where they would most benefit from your feedback. Culminate the course with authentic applications of course knowledge and skills with integrative assessments Students can demonstrate their achievement of the course goals by applying disciplinary tools to real-world situations, analyzing authentic data or exploring solutions to so called “wicked problems.”  These are problems that have changing parameters, are resistant to solutions, involve incomplete data, or are difficult to recognize (Hanstedt 2018).   Creative projects with formative feedback will support students in developing the sustainable assessment skills necessary for lifelong learning. Consider To synthesize key ideas or reflect on what they’ve taken away, have students write research reports or papers. These can provide opportunities to practice disciplinary language and styles of communication.   To creatively demonstrate learning, have students create artifacts such as maps, figures, photo essays, journals, videos, blogs, podcasts, or portfolios. Structure checkpoints and opportunities for formative feedback to support students in successfully completing these projects.  To learn to self-assess the quality of their work, have students use use rubrics, peer-feedback, and/or compare it to exemplary examples.  Whatever forms of assessment you choose, clear communication is critical to their success.  Consider starting each unit with a brief overview of how all the course components fit together and alerting them to upcoming deadlines.  Make sure to inform students how each assessment will be useful for their learning, make expectations as transparent as possible, and be clear about where students can find answers to questions as they arise.  Learn More The Art & Science of Successful Online Discussions (Faculty Focus) Five Discussion Ground Rules for the Online Classroom (Colorado State University Online Blog) Professors Share Ideas for Building Online Community (Inside Higher Ed) Alternative to Exams for Remote Teaching (Teaching@Tufts) Creating Epic Finales or Limping Across the Finish Line (Teaching@Tufts) Curricula for Wicked Problems (Wicked Problems Project) Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT Higher Ed) Inclusive Assessment: Equal or Equitable? (Teaching@Tufts) Selected References Dewsbury, Bryan, and Cynthia J. Brame. “Inclusive Teaching.” CBE—Life Sciences Education 18, no. 2 (April 26, 2019): fe2. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-01-0021. Gikandi, J. W., D. Morrow, and N. E. Davis. “Online Formative Assessment in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature.” Computers & Education 57, no. 4 (December 1, 2011): 2333–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004. Hanstedt, P. (2018). Creating wicked students: Designing courses for a complex world. Stylus Publishing, LLC.   Kelly, D., J. S. Baxter, and A. Anderson. “Engaging First-Year Students through Online Collaborative Assessments.” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 26, no. 6 (2010): 535–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00361.x.

What simple gestures and accommodations at the end of a semester can lighten the load without compromising teaching and learning? Educators expect waning energy as a semester and academic year conclude. Students are overwhelmed trying to finish overdue assignments, final projects, and exams. Faculty are at the breaking point with grading, administrative tasks, and work/life balance. While student energy for learning flags, most faculty tap into their very last teaching reserves to end courses in the best possible spirit. This normal rhythm of attenuating energy is intensifying in the Covid-19 crisis. End of year celebrations like graduation are not there to provide momentum, needed affirmation, and closure. Educators have become a last line of continuity and support for increasingly vulnerable students. We are teachers turned life-coach, counselor, parent, and pastor. All the while, grief and loss are mounting on every side. Here are four simple ways to lighten the teaching and learning load to finish well: Take a hard look at any remaining assignments left in the semester. Chances are, only one or two assignments are crucial assessment indicators for final grades. In one of my courses, it is a final exam. In another, it is an accumulative writing project. Other smaller-scale learning assignments that support student engagement and course tracking won’t impact an overall course grade to any significant degree. In the last few weeks of teaching, be transparent about which few assignments are crucial to finishing well in order to lighten the teaching and learning load. In one course, I’ve made other assignments optional or extra credit. In another, I’ve made select assignments pass/fail. Options and clarity help students make informed decisions about where they should focus their waning energy, and faculty can save significant time doing less low priority grading. Diversify ways an assignment can be submitted. In one of my courses, students are required to write a formal film review. I’ve offered them the alternative of submitting a slide presentation with audio narration. Or they can choose a creative project connecting a film’s themes to the challenges of Covid-19. Different choices allow students to meet assignment objectives with less fatigue and anxiety or less intensive editing help from remote support services. Including opportunities to connect with Covid-19 fosters learning engagement and helpful conversations in their life circles. Students reveal surprisingly diverse and creative communication skills when modes of presentation are flexible. And diverse submissions make the drudgery of grading … almost … fun. Allow students to partner with peers on assignments. In one of my courses, students were writing individual reviews on one of three books to complete the semester. Fifteen papers to write, fifteen papers to read and grade. I adjusted the assignment and asked students reading the same book to submit one review written collaboratively. They divided tasks and wrote with improved shared insight while bolstering their peer-to-peer relationships weakened by less classroom interaction. Overall, shared grades were higher, everyone benefited, and I graded 3 book reviews instead of 15. Most important: reassure, reassure, reassure. Students need a strong ongoing word of encouragement to finish well. Let them know expectations and goals are shifting and simplifying in response to Covid-19. I remind students at every possible moment that their singular task is to stay engaged in course learning to the degree they are able and maintain good communication about their circumstances and needs. In return, it is my responsibility to make sure they have every possible opportunity to finish their courses well. Reassurance means hosting conversations on Zoom or other discussion platforms about specific challenges or griefs impacting students’ lives. Reassurance means reminding them that, even in very uncertain times, they have value and gifts and a future. Reassurance means sharing our passion for our area of study and its resourcefulness during a pandemic. Reassure, reassure, reassure. It is less time intensive than grading, and it will help students reach the finish line with wellbeing in mind. Teaching and learning are life-giving and can be a lifeline. Though our energy is low, and our grief is high, we can do some simple things to ease the load and finish well.