In a departure from sport-related tweets I want talk about teaching online during a pandemic, and how a lot of what I see is really worrying to me.

Teaching during a pandemic isn't a normal circumstance, and expecting students to perform as normal is not helpful. 1/

Plenty of instructors were not prepared to transfer their courses online, and a lot of what has been done is *adding* work to make sure students experience the "rigor" of the in-person course. This isn't helpful, because it fails to take the context into account. 2/

Students are in hugely varying circumstances (from stuck alone all day to cramped in a family home to homeless), and it's important to know that they did not sign up for an online course during a pandemic. Our job is not to maintain rigor, but to allow for the most benefit. 3/

I've also seen some instructors upset at the quality of work turned in, all while scoffing at the idea of lowering their grading standards. Often the defense is that no students are communicating with them to tell them they're having a rough time. Look, they shouldn't have to. 4/

The thing about trauma is that we all react to it differently, & often can't reflect on how it's affecting us in the moment. Some students might react by trying harder rather than doing less; in other words, your best student might be just as traumatized as your worst. 5/

Now, no instructor is trained for teaching mid-pandemic, and all instructors are ALSO dealing with this stressful context. We need to divorce ourselves from the idea that our courses can do the same thing right now that they could do in a normal semester. 6/

Instead of trying to intimidate students by using a normal or harder grading scale, pay attention to patterns, ask students questions (I wanted x, but a lot of you missed that; how can we get there?), and try to maintain feedback standards whilst lowering grading standards. 7/

If your main goal is that students learn, surely your feedback was always what was important, right? Streamline your course as much as possible, take away some of your objectives to focus on main ones. This is a MESS, you can only do so much; be forgiving of yourself, too. 8/