During local, national or international crises, students and faculty can become emotionally charged, feel mentally drained, and be uncertain about how to respond to opposing viewpoints with humility. The links below provide strategies to help faculty create teachable moments in times of crises and develop respectful rapport despite varied perspectives.

• Responding to Critical Incidents, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia
• Teaching After Charlottesville, The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University
• "Defining Academic Freedom," Inside Higher Ed, December 21, 2010

As the recent coronavirus outbreak continues to capture our attention, we thought that it might be helpful to expand the scope of this page and provide faculty with resources specific to COVID-19 and the particular teaching and learning challenges posed. Faculty play a crucial role in helping students critically evaluate information from various sources and also engage with others in a respectful manner. Your students likely have questions. Prepare yourself to not only direct students to reliable sources of information, but also to have an authentic, considered discussion about the outbreak and related concerns/issues. Care for your students and for one another. 

As new resources come to our attention, we will update this page. We welcome your suggestions/additions, as well. 

Campus Information & Learning More About COVID-19

• The GVSU Incident Management Team is maintaining a site to help the community stay informed: https://www.gvsu.edu/lakerstogether/
• University Libraries have put together a COVID-19: Novel Coronavirus Subject Guide that will continue to develop over the coming weeks
• The COVID-19 & Big Data Repository contains links to visualizations, articles, and data sources related to COVID-19.  
• Padnos International Center 
• Faculty resources related to academic continuity in the event of a partial or complete campus closure
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• World Health Organization
• John Hopkins Map of Global Cases
• American Association of State Colleges & Universities Resources on the Coronavirus 
• Coursera Course offered by Imperial College of London - Science Matters: Let's Talk about COVID-19

Responding to Fear, Bias and Discrimination Associated with COVID-19

• Anti-stigma Resources, King County, Washington - consider reviewing the "Viruses Don't Discriminate and Neither Should We" resources with your students
• The Science of Why Coronavirus Exposes Racism and Xenophobia, Marshall Shepherd, Forbes, February 28, 2020 
• Coronavirus: Fear of Asians rooted in long American history of prejudicial policies, Ivan Natividad, UC Berkeley News, February 12, 2020 
• GVSU expert: Constant messages about coronavirus can amp up anxiety, affect how you assess personal risk, Peg West, GVNext, March 4, 2020
• I'm Worried...Higher education isn't focused at all on COVID-19's psychological toll, Karen Gross, New England Board of Education journal, March 9, 2020  
• Treating Yellow Peril: Resources to Address Coronavirus Racism, Jason Oliver Chang, University of Connecticut, a dynamic, editable resource with content in multiple languages  

Encouraging critical thinking in online threaded discussions, Journal of Educators Online. Arend, B. (2009).

Designing and orchestrating online discussions. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Baker, D.L. (2011).

Facilitating class discussions around current and controversial issues. Ezzedeen, S. (2008).

Practical teaching How to lead effective group discussions.  Muller, J., & Irby, D. M. (2005).

Teaching critical thinking through online discussions, Educause Quarterly, Macknight, C. (2000).

Addressing controversial issues, Flinders University

Facilitating Challenging Discussions in Effective Ways, Queens College, CUNY

Listen, Affirm, Respond, Add – The LARA Method to Create Dialogue, The Program on Intergroup Relations, University of Michigan

Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education, Kay Landis, editor, University of Alaska, Anchorage & Alaska Pacific University

Mastering online discussion board facilitation: Resource Guide, Edutopia

Sample rubrics:

• Rubric for asynchronous discussion participation
• Online discussion rubric
• Class discussion rubrics - undergraduate and graduate courses