Helene Hiatus Course Adjustment Guide

As a community, we have heavy concerns weighing on us. You may be celebrating your first shower in several days, navigating insurance claims and conversations with adjusters, anxiously awaiting to hear from loved ones in other hard-hit areas, or finding solace in contributing to relief efforts near and far. As you work to make necessary course adjustments for the remainder of the semester, the following guide prioritizing well-being—both students’ and your own—may be helpful. 

In the book Subtract, Leidy Klotz suggests that our brains are wired to add, and subtraction produces cognitive and affective discomfort due to loss aversion—a cognitive bias in which we tend to avoid losses more than we seek gains of equal value. One recent study attempted to leverage loss aversion to motivate students to engage more in an economics class by subtracting rather than adding points to an economics course grade! (Spoiler alert: it kind of worked.) While we are not necessarily advocating this approach, we wanted to acknowledge the discomfort of loss aversion to normalize how challenging Helene hiatus course adjustments might feel.  As you work through the feasibility of potential changes, consider how they might impact students with accommodations in your courses, and contact the Student Office of Accessibility Resources (SOAR) for guidance as needed.

Step 1. Mindful Assessment of Course Content 

Consider your course content through the lens of student success and apply the “Fink Test” (from Dee Fink, author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences): What do you want students to be able to know and do 5 years after the course concludes? 

• Which topics are essential for student success in future courses or their careers? 

• What content might add unnecessary stress—for students in performing or for you in grading—during this challenging time? 

• What can you and your students do to preserve the most meaningful learning experiences? 

Help your students focus on what truly matters by carefully selecting what to retain and what to release. 

Step 2. Lead with Compassionate Subtraction 

As you revise your syllabus and/or course schedule, start by identifying what can be removed, both from the past week and also moving forward: 

• Which elements, if subtracted, would create the most learning space in the remainder of your course?  

• What repeating assignments (such as reflective journals, quizzes, discussion leading) can be subtracted wholesale? 

• What repeating assignments can be modified and combined in creative ways such that workload for you and your students is not doubled? 

• Which subtractions allow you to preserve activities around core learning objectives? 

• Which subtractions will help you preserve your own bandwidth? 

• What changes would give students more time to process and deeply engage with essential concepts? Some students may have friends or family severely affected by Helene, which may impact their cognitive bandwidth. If needed, consult our repository of trauma-informed pedagogical approaches to guide your first classes/conversations back in the classroom.  

Subtracting assignments may require a recalibration of course points or grades. For instance, you may subtract a 100-point assignment that represents 10% of the total course grade.  In that scenario, you could consider awarding 50 “free points” to students and asking them how they will earn the remaining points—equally distributed across remaining assignments, or in overly weighting existing grade categories, such as class engagement/participation, for example.   

Step 3. Co-Create Noticeable Space for Helping Students Recover their Learning Mindset 

Make changes substantial enough to create breathing room for yourself and your students: 

• What can you do to adjust the pace to allow for cognitive recovery for your students and to ease yourself back in to the everyday classroom rhythm? 

• What opportunities can you create for reflection, connection, and real-time check-ins within your class?   

• What opportunities for review might you create? Cognitive science suggests distributed practice (revisiting or self-testing on the same information) helps with retention. Especially in STEM courses, where the pressure to “cover” is great, how might a less dense curriculum actually enhance learning and retention? 

Step 4. Repurpose with Care

Flag the course material you set aside so you might easily revisit it/consider future opportunities: 

• How might subtracted content be transformed or repurposed? For instance, if you include a discussion leading assignment in your course, can you ask students to interview each other in class to distill insights instead? 

• Could some topics become starting points for future independent projects? 

• Are there ways to preserve the essence of removed material in more manageable forms? 

• If your students are working with community engaged learning partners, what pieces of the project can be repurposed to maintain the most valuable elements (such as interfacing with community members)? How might these projects be adjusted to meet what may be new or more immediate needs of your partners? 

This approach shows students that learning is ongoing and adaptable, even in difficult circumstances. 

Step 5. Communicate Changes and Expectations 

Consider devoting class time to communicating course changes and enlisting students’ ideas in your adjustment plan:  

• Express your understanding of their current challenges and reference the many academic and/or well-being support services for students.

Compassion and flexibility are powerful examples of learning for your students. By modeling adaptability and prioritizing what really matters, you’re providing valuable life lessons alongside your course content that can be an encouragement to our students who are wired to “do all the things, all the time.”