The ETSU Center for Teaching Excellence shared tips for educators 
on navigating their classrooms in the wake of Hurricane Helene's destruction.

The ETSU Center for Teaching Excellence is sharing tips for educators to support their students as the region grapples with the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene. 

The Center for Teaching Excellence’s purpose is to foster equity and success for students by nurturing excellence in teaching. With many across the region grappling with unimaginable losses, the center underscored the need for educators to be flexible with coursework and empathetic to student needs. 

“This is a time when we need to empathize with our students and trust that they are being honest with us about their current situation,” said Dr. Alison Barton, director of the center. “With this empathy and trust in their expressed needs, we need to be as flexible as we can with our students.” 

Advice for Educators 

Communicate care and empathy with students by checking in on them and asking if they are OK, and what ways they could be supported in their class work. It’s also important to communicate respect and trust in your students by not requiring documentation of their situations if they request flexibility. 

It may also be helpful to collect responses from students about their current needs by using an online form, which will help keep responses in one place and make it easier to track student needs. 

Additionally, educators can check in with students by utilizing a visual scale to acknowledge the disruption and get a sense of where your students are as you begin teaching again.

Adapting Coursework and Assignments

With significant disruption to students impacted by the hurricane, as well as time lost in the classroom, educators should examine their course content and remaining assignments. Be sure not to sacrifice key learning goals, however, cutting out certain assignments may make life easier for students and teachers. 

For course-critical lesson plans derailed or delayed as a result of the storm, consider if there are ways you might be able to break up the lesson and have students complete it gradually. Feathering in this work and content may be a less stressful way to ensure your students are getting the knowledge and practice they need without sacrificing course learning goals. 

Abbreviating assignments may also be beneficial, so long as all the learning goals for that assignment are still being met, even if it’s not as robust. And when it comes to grading assignments, alternative grading methods – such as specifications grading and student-grading – could lower student stress and make it easier for you as you grade assignments. 

Deadline and Learning Flexibility 

After gauging your students' needs, examine your current and upcoming course assignments and assessments. If, to meet learning goals, you cannot go beyond a week or so of extension time, be sure to communicate why with your students, and be prepared to deal with special cases where greater flexibility is still needed. 

Some tips include: 

  • Automatically reset deadlines for the next few weeks by a week or two. 
  • Include a grace period for when late work will continue to be accepted without penalty.
  • For remaining deadlines, permit students to request extensions. 
  • With exceptions for particularly hard-hit students who may need individualized plans, consider offering all other students a limited number of opportunities for extension requests to help cap the number of late-incoming assignments. 

It’s also important to check in with your students to ensure your deadline adjustments are working, or if they have further suggestions. If you can’t adjust to their requests, be clear and transparent as to why. 

It is possible students may work to meet the updated deadlines but are doing so in a stressed and distracted state – not their best learning. 

The Center for Teaching Excellence always advocates for providing students opportunities to learn from their mistakes and get second chances on their work. If these opportunities are not yet built into your course, consider adding them this semester.

Some tips for this include: 

  • Include automatic re-attempts for online quizzes and exams. 
  • Set up a request for revision form. 
  • Require marked changes on written or other visual work. 
  • Limit re-attempts to ensure students try their best on a first attempt while giving them space for failure. 

The Center for Teaching Excellence is committed to helping educators and students continue to succeed in the classroom during these trying times. For educators with questions or needing support, visit etsu.edu/teaching or email teaching@etsu.edu. For more information on emergency course adjustments, check out the center’s online toolkit at https://bit.ly/3ZM6xEe.  

East Tennessee State University was founded in 1911 with a singular mission: to improve the quality of life for people in the region and beyond. Through its world-class health sciences programs and interprofessional approach to health care education, ETSU is a highly respected leader in rural health research and practices. The university also boasts nationally ranked programs in the arts, technology, computing, and media studies. ETSU serves approximately 14,000 students each year and is ranked among the top 10 percent of colleges in the nation for students graduating with the least amount of debt.

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