Teaching Resources

Teaching Through Disruptions

Resource Overview

Strategies for teaching through disruptions

Anything from technology outages to extreme weather to family emergencies can disrupt scheduled courses, and instructors should prepare for these events. A campus might shut down (flu epidemic), or some students might be unable to attend class (flooded roads), or the instructor might not be able to make it to campus (sprained ankle). In any of these scenarios, it is essential to have a plan. The official term for such plans is continuity of instruction. We prefer to think of it as “how can I keep teaching and how can students keep learning?” through disruptions.

Though many disruptions are unexpected, a little planning can help you keep teaching. Depending on the nature of the emergency and your individual school’s relevant policies, it may be appropriate to conduct class virtually on Canvas or via Zoom. WashU has an enterprise license for Zoom, and once instructors set up a Zoom meeting, students can join from any device at the regular class time. If you are not already familiar with Zoom, practicing now will allow you to make use of it during an unexpected disruption.

WashU Emergency Management also provides detailed guidance on responding to a variety of potential hazards, including fires, floods, tornadoes, active shooter situations, and more. Below, you’ll find some general strategies for teaching through disruptions, along with advice on how to respond to more specific situations. You can also find additional ideas and resources at:

Guiding Principles

These guiding principles are relevant to most of the disruptions you could encounter during the semester:

  • Communicate with your students right away: Even if you don’t have a plan in place yet, communicate with your students as soon as possible, informing them that changes are coming and what your expectations are for checking email or Canvas so you can get them more details soon.
  • If there is a university-wide or community-wide emergency, point students towards authoritative sources of information like WashU Emergency Management and make sure you are using the WUSTL App for Apple or Android
  • Preview your course schedule to determine priorities: Identify your priorities during the disruption—providing lectures, structuring new opportunities for discussion or group work, collecting assignments, etc.
  • Think about what aspects of a course are essential and focus on those elements. Give yourself a little flexibility in that schedule, just in case the situation takes longer to resolve than you think.
  • If possible, pick tools and approaches familiar to you and your students: Try to rely on tools and workflows that are familiar to you and your students and roll out new tools only when absolutely necessary. Practice using tools (like Zoom) before you use them live.
  • Clarify expectations for students including participation, communication, and deadlines. As you think through those changes, keep in mind the impact this situation may have on students’ ability to meet those expectations, including illness, lack of power or internet connections, or needing to care for family members. Be ready to handle requests for extensions or accommodations equitably.
Canvas Outage

While Canvas outages are extremely rare, technology issues do happen. If Canvas becomes unavailable at any time during the semester, a little preparation will help you and your students keep moving forward with minimal disruptions.

Know how to locate your roster and other student information in Workday

If you lose access to Canvas, you don’t lose access to your class list or your ability to contact your students. Your official course roster lives in Workday. Once you’ve logged into Workday using your WashU credentials and navigated to the Instructor Teaching Dashboard, you can:

Build a simple contingency plan, and tell your students about it

Take a few minutes early in the semester to:

  • Decide on a backup method to share materials or collect assignments. Will you want to use email, a shared Box folder, paper printouts, or another tool or method familiar to you and your students?
  • Add language to your syllabus that tells students what to do if Canvas is down. For example: “In the case of a Canvas outage, please make sure to check your WashU email as soon as possible for important class information.”

If an outage occurs, provide your students with prompt, clear directions for moving forward

  • Let your students know that you are aware of the issue. Remind them of your contingency plan, and outline your expectations of any actions they may need to take and any deadlines for those actions.
  • Remember that, if Canvas is down, your students are likely navigating multiple contingency plans for all of their courses. Where possible, consider being more flexible with deadlines.

Other Considerations

  • Direct students to authoritative sources for information to stay informed about technology outages, like WashU IT’s Status Page, which posts real-time updates on known issues, or Instructure’s status page, which lists outages specific to Canvas.
  • While keeping external copies of all your materials is too time-consuming to be practical for most instructors, you may take the additional step of storing copies of your most essential course materials (like exams or major assignments) outside of Canvas.
    • TIP: You can make quick PDFs of almost anything in Canvas by pressing CTRL + P (Windows) or COMMAND + P (Mac) on your keyboard. You can also right-click on most pages and select the “Print” option. Make sure you change your printer destination to “Save to PDF” or “Print to PDF.”
  • You can periodically back up your Canvas gradebook by exporting your grades as a CSV file. It can be helpful to export your gradebook mid-semester, after classes end, or after significant assignments in the course.
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