Your class can be disrupted by personal emergencies (for both instructional staff and students), as well as emergencies external to the classroom such as inclement weather. Here we provide strategies to navigate difficult emergency situations and offer a few suggestions for being prepared for such disruptions.
Navigating Class Cancellations
Last-minute class cancellations can be due to unexpected obligations of instructors, such as childcare or fixing a flat tire, or emergencies that impact the larger community, such as snow or an issue with public transportation. Duke provides guidelines that members of the community should follow during weather, fire and other emergencies. Duke will post status updates, including class cancellations, during emergencies related to its operations and services through the DukeAlert system. One option to stay updated is to install the LiveSafe app on your phone.
It is important to communicate changes in the course plan to students. Some options are to post a Canvas announcement or send an email letting your students know that the planned activity (in-person class, office hours, etc.) will not be happening as scheduled. If the emergency impacts their ability to finish assignments, reduce students’ anxiety by adjusting due dates. If needed, you may change due dates in bulk in Canvas. Assure students they can contact you to discuss further changes. You have the option to create an alternate assignment to cover content that needs to be made up. Some options include:
- Record a lecture video and post it online for students to watch and respond to. Panopto allows users to record videos and insert simple quiz questions. If you want to create a more robust interaction with a video, PlayPosit allows you to insert true/false, multiple choice, short answers, as well as insert outside links and videos. For group conversations about media, VoiceThread is designed to allow students to record video/audio or enter text in response to videos, PowerPoints, images and audio.
- Create a discussion board in Canvas and prompt students to reflect and build upon the questions that would have been posed in class lecture or discussions.
- Hypothes.is is a social annotation tool that can be used to have an asynchronous discussion around a text. You could upload a PDF or your slides or an important text and ask students to highlight and discuss important passages based on the prompts you planned to pose in class.
- Adding an online office hour that week can give students the opportunity to get feedback on work and discuss questions they would have posed in class. You can schedule a meeting in Zoom and share the URL with students. Adding Zoom directly into Canvas and scheduling a reoccurring meeting can be useful if you want to hold online office hours at other points in the semester or if classes go online for a period of time.
Supporting Student Well-Being
External events can impact your course long-term. Because of an event on campus, in the Durham community, nationally, or around the world, students may be distracted and have difficulty focusing on your class session or coursework during a period of time. Instructors have found that starting off class informally to spend a few minutes to talk about the external event, even if it has nothing to do with the course subject matter, can help students understand you care about their well-being and empathize with issues they may be facing. This can give an opportunity for everyone to take a “time out” before refocusing on the task at hand. If your students are experiencing stress because of external conditions or events, there are many helpful tips – giving students more choices, journaling, etc. – in this blog post, prepared during the COVID-19 epidemic.
As an instructor, you don’t have to solve all the students’ issues or be a counselor – just showing respect, concern, and empathy demonstrates your commitment to their success as students in your class. You can point them toward campus resources to support them in more depth.
- Blue Devils Care: 24/7 mental telehealth support to all students at no cost. For more information about getting started, see the Blue Devils Care FAQs.
- Counseling & Psychological Services: Provides counseling and mental health support to students, including in-person appointments (full list of services).
- DukeReach: DukeReach works with departments including Housing, Student Health, and the Academic Resource Center to help students succeed.
- Duke’s Academic Resource Center can help students that need tutoring or help with developing study and organizational skills.
- Duke Academic Guides provide academic guidance to students, as well as strategies to combat stress.
For more information about supporting students’ well-being and considering the impact of trauma on learning, explore the tenets of trauma-informed teaching.
Planning Ahead
There are course design decisions that can make it easier to address emergencies if they come up.
- A communication plan can help clarify how students should contact you (for example, email only or a Canvas discussion board) and in what timeframe they should expect a reply. It is important that you are consistent in the ways you reach out to them to ensure good communication.
- You can plan ahead by making sure all materials are online and building a well organized Canvas site. Students should have access to course materials and assignments (and where to submit them) in a timely manner.
- You might think of alternative assessments or activities as part of your course planning in case of emergency. Having alternatives can be helpful when students need an assignment different from their colleagues as well.
- Designing a grading plan that includes some flexibility in due dates or tokens from the beginning of the semester can reduce the amount of deadline negotiations needed when emergencies and other absences arise.
Contact Us
Have a question this page didn’t answer or need more support? Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education staff are available to guide you through how to adjust your course to address in response to emergencies. We can also consult with you about your other teaching and learning needs. You can either email lile@duke.edu to get support or visit our bi-weekly office hours.