Checking In With Students
Hurricane season is making Florida a stressful place to live and study this semester. Although our campus has been fortunate, some of our students’ families have been devastated, and even those who were spared have likely been grappling with anxiety. As we mentioned last week, we all have limited cognitive resources for focus and for learning, and when those resources are tapped out by stress, we can’t learn to our full potential. Students whose families experienced loss or damage may be unable to return to campus for some time.
We all want to respond with flexibility and compassion, and we may also be feeling pressure to keep our courses on track. As we attempt to balance competing demands, this is a good time to check in with students, to find out who’s here, how they’re doing, and how their learning is progressing. One way to do so is to check in with them in class. You can start by acknowledging that this hasn’t been an ordinary semester and allow some time for discussion. Rice University’s teaching center posted a useful resource after Hurricane Harvey, offering advice and strategies for teaching in the aftermath of disaster. As Huston and DePietro learned after Katrina, there isn’t a blueprint for responding perfectly to tragedies or disruptions, but failing to acknowledge them can erode our students’ trust.
Most of us aren’t trained to be counselors for our students, but we can express care and point them to resources. Here are a few:
Steer students to the Student Resilience Project Resources. FSU has a set of online resources, designed by Dr. Karen Oehme and other colleagues from the College of Social Work, that help students grow more resilient in stressful conditions.
Invite a representative from the Counseling Center to your class. You can make a request here. You can ask them to facilitate a discussion of events, or just to let students know about resources.
Refer students to the Counseling Center. As faculty, we naturally wish to support distraught students, but we’re not trained counselors, so we should resist the pressure to assume that role. We can tell students where to find help, and assure them that seeking help is healthy, and a sign of strength. In urgent cases, you can even walk students to the Counseling Center (250 Askew Student Life Building).
Inform students about Food for Thought. The Department of Student Support and Transitions runs this food pantry for currently enrolled students who are facing food insecurity. The pantry is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday and is located in University Center A, Suite 4148. For more information, or to view their wishlist and make a donation, please visit their website.
Take care of yourself, too. At the best of times, good teaching involves a great deal of taxing emotional labor. You cannot be an anchor for your students if you don’t attend to your own mental health. FSU’s Employee Assistance Program provides important support.
Another way to check in with students is to combine your usual midsemester feedback request with a more general inquiry about their well-being. They can do some informal writing about how they’re doing and how the course is going, or you can give them a survey on which they can provide quantitative, qualitative, or both types of feedback on the course. Samples of midsemester feedback forms are available here and here. You can use a template or create and distribute your own survey during or outside of class time, using Canvas, Qualtrics, or another survey app. We’ve developed a sample midterm evaluation that you can import into Canvas, and instructions are available here.
Since we lost some time to Helene, many of us are thinking about how to make the most of the second half of the semester. We can begin by revisiting our priorities for what we want students to learn so that we can focus on the most important goals. We can also assess what students have and haven’t gotten so far, so we can continue to build on what they know. A non-graded quiz can be a useful way to get that information, or you can use other low-stakes or no-stakes assessments. Helping students self-assess and prioritize is also valuable for them.
If you would like support to check in with students or to gather feedback, we’re happy to help you design a method that works well for your course. We can also help you interpret the results, consider any adjustments you’d like to make, and plan how you will discuss the feedback with students. Just send us an email at pro-teaching@fsu.edu, and we’ll be at your service. We look forward to working with you!