October 8, 2021

This message is distributed to All-Instructors, Academic-Assistant-Deans, and Academic-Department-Managers. (Click here to view description of distribution groups.)

The following is being sent on behalf of the Instructional Support Team

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Dear Colleagues,
Some brief updates from the Instructional Support Team:


Anticipate student absences: We can anticipate that a certain fraction of students will have Covid symptoms each day and therefore will not be allowed to come to campus. Please remember that students should not be penalized for these absences. We encourage instructors to post clear instructions for students who must miss class on the course GauchoSpace site, directing them to class materials (e.g. lecture recordings, readings) and any required or optional make-up work. Instructors might consider the following approaches to ameliorate the impact of students who miss exams:
For students who miss EXAMS:

  • Plan a make-up exam in advance.  This could be a similar exam, with nuanced changes, or you could change the format (e.g. Exam 1 is multiple choice while make-up in essay form).
  • If you have multiple assessments/exams, consider dropping students’ lowest score. This way, if they are sick for one exam , their score of 0 for the missed exam will be dropped.
  • While you could ask students for a doctors’ note for missed exams, we urge you to instead use one of the above approaches. These will reinforce the importance of your course and of academic integrity, as well as the message that students should not come to campus while ill.



Engaging Teaching Symposium and Happy Hour
The Engaging Teaching Symposium showcases the outstanding work done in teaching and learning by UCSB faculty as well as faculty beyond our campus, presented by both instructors and learners. The Symposium will run mostly virtually from October 13–26, with an in-person Happy Hour on October 14, 5-6pm, and three keynote events on October 13 and 26. More details are on the symposium’s full program and webpage.

 
We’ll be back next week!
The IS Team