Resources

Covid-19 is not the first crisis through which I’ve taught. The past year has been one of intense personal crisis for me, and I’ve had to keep teaching right through it. Now we’re all in personal crisis. Everyone is doing a new thing in higher education. No one was prepared for this, we’re all learning how to do it, and we’re not doing it in a vacuum. Many of us are suddenly in crisis; people we know and love may be out of jobs or ill with Covid-19, or suffering in some other way. I have learned an important thing in this past year: When in personal crisis and needing to keep teaching, I have to change my expectations of myself. When I am in crisis, I will not be everything I think I should be as a teacher. (Even when I’m not in crisis, I will not always be everything I think I should be as a teacher.) In crisis, though, I have to let go of those expectations and get realistic. I will not have energy to meet with every student about his or her paper drafts like I usually manage to do. I will not have energy to create an imaginative new assignment or even, perhaps, a new exam. I will not have energy to have lunch with students every week to get to know them better. My energy will be expended by caring for myself—making sure I eat properly, see supportive friends, and work through my own stuff. There will only be so much energy left after those basic things. I have to make energy choices. Am I caring for myself before my students? Yes. In the same way that airline attendants insist we put the oxygen masks on ourselves before we put them on our children. If I am taking care of myself, I am some good to my students. If I ignore myself in order to do the things I think I should be doing, I will be no good to my students because I will be exhausted inside of a month. Start by checking in with yourself. Reflect on where you are and what you need. What are you thinking and feeling? What do you need for your physical health? What do you need for your mental and emotional health? What structures will enable you to feel somewhat stable and keep moving? Who do you need to help you? Once you’ve established where you are and what you need in this moment (and these things may change day-to-day), take steps to put these things in place. Get yourself set. Then look at your syllabus. What are the 2-3 things you most want your students to get from class? What on your syllabus will accomplish those? What can you cut and still make sure students receive those things? If you’re reading this blog, you’re a good teacher. Because you are a good teacher, even if you cut some things, your students will still have a good experience and learn what you want them to learn. Readers of this blog are professors who care about our students. We want to do well by them, to teach and mentor for their lives. This means we probably have exceptionally high standards for our teaching. We are probably inclined to forge ahead trying to make this new learning environment work for our students or even to make sure they have what they need in their personal experience of the crisis. But if we forget to attend to ourselves, we’ll pass out from exhaustion before we have a chance to help our students.

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. 

There's an old adage that says "The worst teaching method is the one you always use." We may consistently use a particular teaching method because "it works," or, because we may be unaware of other methods that can help engage students to bring about learning outcomes. Admittedly, we sometimes don't use a greater variety of methods because we fear risking that it may not work, students may not like it, or, it's beyond our comfort zone. Expanding our teaching repertoire by offering a greater variety of student learning methods and activities is not about making things interesting or entertaining (though those are not bad in themselves). Learning activities: Tap into multiple intelligences Increase student engagement Aid in concepts-attainment Help tap into different facets of understanding (Explanation, Application, Interpretation, Perspective, Self-knowledge, Empathy) Provide an opportunity for application Tease out creativity Help students make connections (the brain learns by making connections) Help students retain what they have learned (if a student has not retained it, they haven't learned it). Attached is a Student Engagement Methods checklist that can help expand your teaching repertoire. Methods applicable to the online learning environment are identified by an asterisk. Note that most classroom learning methods can be applied to the online virtual context to some extent or in some form. Review the checklist and check those methods you use most frequently. Then, check those methods you have never used. Finally, review the list to determine which (new) methods can serve as effective student engagement learning activities that can help your students achieve your course or lesson learning outcomes. Be adventurous, try something new!

At first blush, the rest of the world’s shift to virtual learning in March seemed immaterial to our constituents who are in a heavily online MA in Jewish Education. We are lucky to boast well-trained and experienced online faculty and, perhaps even more important, students who are whizzes with Zoom, Schoology, and an array of online educational tools. Our people are at home in their virtual academic community. They already knew to mute themselves when not speaking in a teleconference, so we were really ahead of the game!  Honestly, we felt immune to the whiplash others were experiencing with the very abrupt shift to online teaching and learning. And yet, ‘business as usual’ has been very UNusual. As a parent of three myself, I was quick to recognize the double demands that would be placed on working parents. This affects both our faculty and student body, many of whom are caring for young children and/or aging parents while working full-time in Jewish education. With childcare centers closed and many dual-career families trying to work remotely, this complexity appeared on our radar quickly. A few weeks after moving all courses online, we announced that Hebrew College would not be holding an in-person graduation in June. Especially for distance students, who cannot wait to finally bring their families to campus, hug their classmates and teachers, and wear a cap and gown to symbolize all that they have invested in their degrees, this was a huge blow. And now, we have gone from a trickle to a steadier flow of job losses, furloughs, and professional uncertainty. For the soon-to-be-graduates, many have gone from looking at the many pathways forward for their careers to worrying about their next paycheck in their current role. Even though our students are well-versed in learning online and forging and maintaining deep relationships over Zoom and FaceTime, this experience has been difficult. And so, I imagine for those faculty and students for whom virtual learning is new, and are experiencing the same stressors and uncertainties as I’ve described, this experience is multi-layered and fraught. With that in mind, I’d like to share my approach to graduate education, which builds on what I’ve learned over a decade-plus teaching virtually and adapts it for the moment at hand. • Focus first on the ‘extracurricular.’ With so much uncertainty and added stress in their personal and professional lives, students need to use the reflective space of the classroom to process their experiences—and to channel them into future material for growth. To my mind, this now trumps any other course objective. Once grounded and feeling seen (and this must happen repeatedly throughout the crisis), students will have greater capacity to engage in the material and hopefully reach many of the original course objectives. Do this by creating distinct spaces and times for processing and opportunities to grieve for whatever feels lost—this may be one-to-ones with faculty, a discussion board set aside for this purpose only, and/or facilitated/recurring peer conversations. These multiple entries allow for all types of processing so that students can find their comfort zone. • Uncoverage over coverage. Given time lost in the shift to online learning, and significant class time invested in shoring students up by reinvesting in relationships and care, it seems impossible that everything can still be covered. Though I toyed with it briefly, I shied away from upping the expectations of time for my course this spring in recognition of the physical and emotional work so many students were balancing on the home front. So, I focus on uncoverage rather than coverage. What happens when we let go of covering every thinker in a time period? Does it allow us to delve more deeply into one theologian?  Or perhaps explore a single theme across many generations of thinkers?  Allowing students the space to unpack (or uncover) texts, analyze them critically, and relate them to what’s happening in their lives today may make for better integration and assimilation of the material in the end. • Expect less, but give more. Where you can, lighten the reading load by removing a non-essential reading, mark one or more tangential sessions optional, and let students know that you will approach their work with an especially generous heart this semester. This is not meant to suggest compromising our academic standards, but to adjust them in places where flexibility exists. Recognize that students may have less to give academically but at the same time need more mentorship, empathy, and care—and try to navigate your own personal-professional juggle to accommodate those needs. To me, this is the most important thing I will ever teach my students. As teachers of theology, religion, religious education and thought, we have an added responsibility—and privilege—to create caring communities that recognize the holistic nature of our students’ lives. I am always mindful that when I teach these students, who are themselves the shapers of young Jewish hearts and minds, I am modeling both a pedagogical and ethical approach to creating a classroom community—be it ‘real’ or really virtual.  

On October 22, 1939, six weeks after World War II had broken out, C. S. Lewis preached to a large crowd of Oxford University students, who were wondering what the point of the academic life might be at that time of international emergency. His address was titled, “Learning in War-Time.” My meditation this afternoon will be much shorter than Lewis’s great sermon, and to some extent dependent on its content. But in view of my present audience and the current world situation, I’m flipping the focus and the title. I’m calling this, “Teaching in Plague-Time.” Speaking as a teacher, I’ve been haunted since the coronavirus pandemic broke out by two rather strong fears. Maybe you have, too. I want to say a few words about each of these fears and to encourage us to face and conquer them. My first fear is that I won’t be able to teach effectively this quarter given that I’ll be using technologies I haven’t yet mastered. I’ve been feverishly revising my PowerPoints, glumly redesigning my Canvas sites, and fiercely cursing the intricacies of Zoom and Panopto. Countless times I’ve asked myself, “How can I possibly teach under these restrictive conditions? How will I ever figure out these complicated programs?” As a teacher, I’ve always been the “sage on the stage,” not the “guide by the side,” but these days I feel more like the “rube on the tube.” I feel silly wearing headphones. I fumble with the Zoom controls. I look at the screen instead of the camera and realize I’m watching myself looking away from myself. Understandable as this fear of pedagogical failure may be, it springs from a deeper source than shame for my technological ineptitude. It springs from the subconscious assumption that my professorial persona is more important than the intrinsic value of the subject matter I am called to teach, more important than the spiritual and intellectual needs of my students. This is more than wrong. It’s sinful. My performance anxiety exposes the vanity that lurks beneath my ineptitude. My conscious fears may subside as my competence improves in coming weeks. But I must repent of my need for my students’ admiration. If you’re in the same boat, maybe these emergency measures will give you, too, an opportunity for spiritual healing. My second fear is that the material I will be teaching this quarter will seem wholly irrelevant to my students given that it seems so far removed from the pressing needs of our time. What have the decrees of the Sixth Ecumenical Council to do with the shortage of ventilators and facemasks? Am I doing no more than offering them a brief diversion from the daily news, or feeding their hope that things will soon be back to normal, or contributing my mite to the completion of a credential they need before venturing into the “real world”? This second fear springs not from my vanity, but from my tendency to forget what Christian higher education is for. Here Lewis’s sermon is very helpful. His audience worried that it was unethical to pursue their studies while Hitler was gobbling up Europe. They assumed that the world situation had changed the academic situation. Here’s what Lewis told them: “The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If [people] had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal.”[1] Was Lewis minimizing or trivializing the dangers and disruptions of the political situation of his day? No. He was remarking on the ontology of human life as such. True, as Heraclitus taught us, “All things are always changing.”[2] The only constant is flux. And at the surface level, a great many things were changing in 1939, very suddenly and very alarmingly—just as they are today. But if we view human life through the lens of the Christian gospel, this pandemic “creates no absolutely new situation” for us, any more than war did for Lewis and his students. “It simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it.” Yet the pandemic does create a fresh opportunity for us to see the real point of what we’ve been doing all along. It is to engage in, and to invite our students to engage in, “the search for knowledge and beauty.” This search is not an irrelevancy or a distraction. It is an end in itself, an intrinsic good. To be sure, current events provide riveting illustrations of timeless principles and new opportunities for the practical application of those principles. We rightly want our teaching to be “relevant” in this time of worldwide pestilence. Yet there is nothing more irrelevant than relevance, if “relevance” is nothing more than a kneejerk reaction to the immediate and the ephemeral. P. T. Forsyth put it this way: “If within us, we find nothing over us, we succumb to what is around us.”[3] As Christian educators, we must take account of what is changing “around” us, lest we fail to respond wisely and creatively. But as Christian educators, we must not forget what is “above” us—the eternally Good, the abidingly True, and the enduringly Beautiful. The quest for the three great transcendentals is the ultimate aim of all higher learning, as mediated through the particularities of our various disciplines. They are the guises in which God becomes manifest “within us,” and lifts us from our sins and sufferings. And it is our task and privilege to put our students (and ourselves) into daily contact with them. Thus, it is precisely by doing our workaday job as scholars and teachers, as well as we can, that we bring steadiness, sobriety, wisdom, patience, and courage into the grim urgencies of the hour. [1] C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 47-63. [2] Plato, Cratylus 402A. [3] Peter Taylor Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907), p. 47.

The current Covid-19 crisis is an extraordinary example of how knowledge, in every discipline, is expanding globally at an accelerating rate. Within months of the virus’ first appearance, hundreds of research projects were mounted: an examination of its interaction with human genomes, the impact on transmission of various social distancing models, the usefulness of masks and ventilators, potential drug treatments, and so on. Every day, experts modify their understanding of the disease and its impact. This explosion of knowledge is a global phenomenon that is not restricted to Covid-19. Every field of study is constantly being flooded with new data, theories and practices. As a result, no individual can hope to master a field. And, no matter how narrowly a teacher defines a course, its content is inevitably outdated by the first class. What then do teachers really have to offer? When our seminary decided to move into online learning in 2013, I participated in a Wabash seminar to help me design an asynchronous course on 20th Century Theologians. In that seminar, I discovered one of the paradoxical things about online learning: the student has a large portion of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, but can be paralyzed by its volume. They need help developing skills to hunt down and organize the specific information that matters most for them in their current project. “Tiny talking heads” dispensing wisdom (the content of many early online courses) won’t give them that. Nor will simple Google searches. The Wabash seminar showed us that our job as teachers is to show our students how to hunt: places where their elusive quarry tends to hide, which guides to trust, how to recognize it, make choices, bring it in. Or to use another metaphor, the seminar suggested that we are cartographers and guides. We help students map out a field of knowledge and then hunt for hidden treasure. We give them a satellite view of the landscape, and then drop them into the jungle with a set of experiments, landmarks, and search strategies that may lead them to a mind-blowing discovery. It is these skills that will enable them to find what they need in our evolving knowledge-scape long after I’m gone and my own knowledge is obsolete. There are, however, several challenges to this way of learning. First of all, hunting is hard work. And adult students have many demands on their lives. Often, they register for asynchronous courses because they can work on them in the “cracks” of student life—after work, when the kids are in bed, on lunch breaks and weekends. So adult students may only take up the hunt seriously if the course design—especially its upfront presentation and initial exercises—grip their imagination and fire their passions. They have to feel that this hunt could lead them to something that will make a real difference in the career for which they are preparing. And even still (perhaps especially) when they are convinced of the value of the knowledge, they have frequently implored me to “just tell me what I’m supposed to know!” Secondly, students live in a constant barrage of information from TV, internet, social media and cellphones--especially during a crisis like the one we are in. To stay sane, they learn to filter much of it out. And that’s good--staying focused is important on a hunt. However, students’ particular filters may not be set for the learning they need—their filters may strain out exactly the data most important for their growth. So, part of the teacher’s task is to help students wake up, notice, and critique those filters. I’ve used the “Monkey Business Illusion” on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY) to illustrate the problem. Finally, creating learning maps and discovery exercises isn’t always easy for teachers trained in an older “sage on the stage” paradigm. Often our own hunting skills have been developed intuitively. We know how to find what matters, but it isn’t always easy to articulate the process. Nor is it easy to craft an engaging way to introduce the process to students. I’ve found it enormously helpful to build connections with others who are teaching online. They’ve shared creative apps and mashups for introducing students to the search process and for presenting what they find, and they have been sympathetic guides for me when I too have gotten lost in the knowledge jungle.