As we enter the mid-semester break, I write to offer two suggestions.
First, now is a good time to think about soliciting informal feedback from students about the course. If you feel that aspects of the course aren’t going as well as you’d like, ask the students. After two years of hybrid learning experiences, I am finding it harder to read my classrooms. There are things I don’t think are going well, but when I ask students for feedback, I see that I am reading student responses in the wrong way. Similarly, things that I enjoy doing may not always work for students. Especially if you have room to make changes, ask students for their feedback.
Second, and maybe especially important this semester, I encourage you to come back from break ready to re-orient your students to your courses. Remind them of the roadmap ahead, remind them of the support they have, and get them excited to finish the semester strong.
It may be very obvious to us that there is a lot of semester ahead and more than enough time to steer the ship in a different direction. But our students need to hear this from you. Be explicit. Tell them how they can be successful, and communicate that you want them to get the most from the course experience.
Finally, in whatever way you can, tell an engaging story about what students have to look forward to. Connect students to the countless opportunities on this campus. For our first-years and sophomores, remind them about studying abroad. Remind our students about our alumni network. Talk about jobs and graduate study in our fields. Again, all of these things may be very obvious to us, but our students don’t realize just how powerful a St. Lawrence education can be. It is up to us to tell this story early and often.
I hope everyone has a restful mid-semester break. This certainly hasn’t been the semester I expected it to be. But I trust Robert Frost’s wisdom that the best way out is always through. We need to face the challenges of the long pandemic with courage and moral imagination, and remain alert to new possibilities that are emerging each day. Our students are hungry for purpose and meaning, and we are uniquely positioned–as liberal educators–to offer this great gift to them.