Missing/sick students: If you believe any of your students are “missing” (i.e., not responding to any of your prompts), please notify Art King. If a student informs you that they have been diagnosed with COVID-19, please notify Andrea Caviness.
>> Student access to the Internet/WiFi: free hotspots and waived Internet fees. 1. Distributing writing assignments As your students will not have in-person time to discuss your assignments, it is all the more important that each assignment clearly articulates the goals, actions, deliverables, and processes/scaffolding/timeline for producing it. For a variety of scaffolded sample assignments, check out the material in Baruch’s Teacher’s Guide to First-Year Writing.
2. Commenting on papers You can comment on papers digitally. The file the student sends you will determine what programs you can use to open it.
You can leave comments with Microsoft Word, Google Doc, Apple Pages files, and PDFs.
To leave a comment in a Microsoft Word, Google Doc, or Apple Pages file: highlight the passage you’d like to comment on and select Insert > Comment. This will open a box to comment on that passage. Save and email Word or Pages files with your comments to students.
To leave a comment in a PDF file, use the Adobe Acrobat Pro program's “Comment" tool. Save and email the PDF with your comments to students.
You can also comment on papers (with written and audio feedback) that students submit via Blackboard. For more information, watch this short video.
3. Conferencing with students Students may especially benefit from one-on-one conferencing opportunities while they are remote. Try re-purposing class or office hours for conferences, which can be check-ins on their writing processes or live feedback on their writing after you’ve evaluated it.
4. Peer review Students benefit from working with each other and reading each other’s work in small groups. Consider ways to guide small group peer review; try including a guiding tool for them such as a cover survey about their peers’ work. Students may have trouble scheduling live peer review sessions and may benefit from having a certain amount of time to reply to each other.
5. Grades Blackboard has a useful “Grade Center” tool for keeping records of students' grades. See the Blackboard Basics page for more info.
6. Creating assignments beyond essays You may decide this is an opportunity to try out a digital assignment, or retool the delivery of one you already planned to give. In either case, consider what other mediums might be useful to explore as vessels for students to learn with. Perhaps students could put together videos and podcasts—just note that many may have various mobility restrictions, meaning it's best to be flexible.