by Julie Dodd

If you’re a college faculty member, adjunct faculty or teaching assistant, I’d encourage you to read Jennine Capó Crucet’s New York Times commentary about the challenges that Thanksgiving presents for First Generation college students  – How First-Generation College Students Do Thanksgiving Break

Her commentary made me think about adjustments I’d made in my syllabus and teaching outlook during the week of Thanksgiving.

Some students will be in class because they don’t have other options. These students can’t afford to travel home for Thanksgiving and, in some cases, need to stay in town to work. They often are annoyed when their classes are canceled during Thanksgiving week when the university still is open and classes are being held.

Other students, as Crucet noted in her commentary, can only afford to travel home if they book flights for several days before Thanksgiving. So those students will miss class during Thanksgiving week.

At the University of Florida, classes are not held Wednesday through Friday of the week of Thanksgiving. So what about classes held on Monday and Tuesday and the students who do or don’t attend?

Here are strategies I’ve used both to encourage class attendance and to not penalize those who won’t be in class the week of Thanksgiving.

Don’t schedule quizzes, tests or major projects for the week of Thanksgiving. Having assignments or quizzes that week means that anyone who won’t be in class will be penalized. Students who regularly attend class but who will miss class due to Thanksgiving plans will resent you making those Thanksgiving week classes critical to their grade. And if you have quizzes, tests or projects but decide to make accommodations on a case-by-case basis, you need to spend time making arrangements for makeup quizzes and tests and accepting work turned in early or submitted electronically.

Plan classes for Thanksgiving that will be a bonus in learning for those who do attend.

• Invite a special guest speaker. If the speaker will be in class, let the speaker know that attendance may be smaller than usual. Remember the potential to Skype in a speaker. (You should plan to have relevant speakers during the semester, so this speaker is a bonus.)
• Provide some type of one-on-one or small group feedback. In a graduate class I taught, I asked students who were attending the class that was held during Thanksgiving week to bring a draft of an assignment (paper or digital), and we did small group critiques with me providing overall feedback. (You should be providing feedback to students throughout the semester, so this is a bonus.)
• Schedule something that you couldn’t do with the full class. I taught an auditorium class with 180+ students. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, typically only about half the students would attend. I decided to take advantage of the smaller number of students to take those who did attend on a tour of the college. I recruited some of my teaching assistants and former students of the course to be tour guides and provided them with an agenda and talking points for the tour – the Coaching Center, the Innovation News Center, the weather station studio, the advising center and departmental offices. I also included some college trivia, including the college’s artwork. Most of the students had never seen several of those facilities and appreciated learning more about the college. When class started, I divided the students into small groups and assigned them to the tour guides. The students would tweet about their tour experience.

Provide an activity for a small amount of extra credit.
Note that I recommend a “small” amount of extra credit. I’d also suggest that the extra credit be tied to a learning activity and not just for showing up for class.

Give a treat – candy (often bought on sale after Halloween) and non-candy treats (like boxes of raisins).

Yes, some students could “take advantage” of you not requiring attendance — missing class even if they don’t have the kind of situation that Crucet describes of students needing to schedule early flights home for financial reasons. But I’ve found that in the big scheme of things, there aren’t too many students who are trying to game the system.

If you explain to the class ahead of time what you are doing in class during Thanksgiving week and why, most will appreciate you being aware of the challenges that they or their classmates may be facing and will be thankful for your consideration.