Remote Alternatives to Attendance
Attending class sessions in real time, during the scheduled hours, remains a requirement of all my classes, with no exceptions, necessary in order to earn Actual Attendance and Engagement and Participation credit and impossible to replace after the fact.
For my classes, which focus specifically on gathering, presence, and shared in-person reading as learning tools, I generally require students to attend real-time discussions in person in order to earn credit. However, I allow all students to replace ONE in-person session (except for tutorial sessions) with remote learning, using the “Current Zoom Meeting Link” listed here, and will still assign credit for attending that class; you still have to demonstrate your attention and engagement (and, ideally, participation) while attending remotely. (See below for guidelines on expanding the one-session limit on remote learning.)
IMPORTANT (ENG 202 only): Remote attendance cannot be used to replace TA-led tutorial sessions UNLESS you have pre-registered in an online-only tutorial. If there is sufficient student interest in a given semester, I will ask one TA to locate one tutorial online for the full semester — but I cannot ask TAs to run hybrid sessions as I do, so one-off replacements and switches back and forth won’t be possible. Any student interested in remote tutorial sessions will have to commit to solely remote tutorials for the full term.
IMPORTANT (ENG 202, 330, 331): On days when an in-person test or quiz is being offered, all students MUST attend class in person (unless they have pre-arranged with me for an accommodation that allows them to take the quiz or test in a special location). Test and quiz days will be clearly announced on the course syllabus from the beginning. If you have an emergency arise on a quiz or test day, you must contact me immediately, and no later than two hours after the quiz or test has closed, so that we can figure out an emergency arrangement.
REMEMBER: unless you make a special arrangement with me ahead of time (see below), each student can only attend remotely ONCE in order to receive credit for attending. Please DO NOT email me ahead of time in order to let me know you’ll be attending remotely: just attend according to the instructions below.
Rules and Requirements for Remote Attendance
These instructions apply to any session I am teaching (and the TA for an online-only tutorial may adopt them or modify them as well):
All students attending remotely must meet the U of T minimum technical requirements for online learning (click here to see what those are). If your connection is not strong enough or reliable enough for you to hear every word I say (and most of what your classmates say), then you cannot receive credit for attending remotely.
All students attending remotely must know ahead of time how to submit their Comprehension Questions remotely — for ENG 330 and 331, email them to me at sergi.utoronto@gmail.com; for ENG 202, email the admin TA. Know that I will never repeat the Comprehension Questions (CQs) at the end of class for remote students whose connection or audio settings prevented them from hearing them on the first ask — and repeating the questions in the Zoom chat is not allowed, and may result in a student losing remote learning access: the CQs are there precisely to determine whether your connection and audio settings were sufficient enough to hear and understand the full class session in the first place.
Simulcasts led by me will always be in the same Zoom room: check Resources in the menu bar above, or just click here, to find out what the current link is. For TA-led online only tutorials, check with your TA for the Zoom link.
I will be running the Zoom session/camera during class: if you are having trouble seeing or hearing the action, alert me by direct message right away! We can pause class, if need be, and sort it through together (but it’s better, of course, to figure things out in the minutes before class begins — try to come early). If you cannot see or hear class, do not just let it slide—you’re expected not only to attend class but also to know what is happening (and you may be asked to answer questions during class, in addition to the CQs, to show you are doing so)!
I will share electronic versions of our course handouts via links in the Zoom chat to anyone attending remotely that day. If you can’t access what is shared, or if it’s slipped my mind to share the remote version, let me know immediately—do not let it slide.
You do not have to have your camera on if you don’t want to, but I strongly encourage you to turn it on if you can. I also recommend the “Turn Off Self View” function (try hovering your mouse over your own image to find it)—it will hide your image from yourself so you can attend better to others.
IMPORTANT: Any participation requirements that would apply for the in-person version of a class should be considered double-strength for anyone attending remotely. Remote attendance can often cause instructors to lose track of students, or vice versa; you should be taking proactive steps to ensure that you are actively contributing.
IMPORTANT: By attending remotely, you are agreeing to be called on directly, by the name you have listed on Zoom, at any time I (or the TA) pleases — without your hand being raised (virtually or otherwise). If being called on directly is a problem for you, contact me (or the TA) ahead of time to let us know.
By attending remotely, you are agreeing to give the class and instructor your undivided and full attention for the full duration of the scheduled session. Obviously, you should minimize distractions on your end as much as possible; NEVER open up windows other than the one the remote session is in; NEVER schedule any other commitments of any kind during the time of your remote session (if you do either of those things, I will eject you from the class and reduce your Engagement/Participation grade by a massive amount). If you expect there to be an interruption to your attention during a particular class, contact me (or the TA) ahead of time to let us know; if connectivity issues arise, let me (or your TA) know immediately through email. Otherwise, if I (or the TA) call on you and you do not answer, I (or the TA) may eject you from the Zoom room and put you on record as absent for that day (and if this happens more than once you may be barred from attending remotely in the future).
I may likely project the Zoom room onto the classroom screen during our meetings—make your decisions about your displayed name and image with that in mind.
You can log on under a fake name or nickname if you wish, as long as you let me know ahead of time who you are and what to expect. If it’s easier for you to contribute ideas without your name being visibly attached to those ideas, that’s fine — but, of course, I can’t give you participation credit if we don’t know who you are and I won’t grant access to names I don’t recognize.
Use the chat window—but only about matters directly relevant to what we’re currently discussing in class. I’ll have my eye on the chat window throughout.
Raise your hand! Participate! Use the Zoom hand-raising function to make sure I see you.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: Be sure not to log off until you have gotten confirmation that I (or your TA) have received your Real-Time Comprehension Question answers at the end of class. You’ll be emailing your answers to me (or the TA) rather than filling out a worksheet; I (or the TA) will confirm receipt either verbally or with a direct message. IMPORTANT: if I’ve granted you an accommodation that allows you extra time on CQs, know that I can only give that accommodation in person — it cannot be done remotely.
Expanding the Limit on Remote Attendance
Under certain circumstances, I can also expand my limit on remote attendance — if students alert me within the first three weeks of class that they have a truly good reason to attend remotely (do not tell me what your reason is—it might be a health consideration, a housing situation, etc.—just let me know that you have a truly good reason and I will accept that in good faith). Here’s how that works:
If a student without a relevant Accessibility Services letter requests an accommodation for remote learning within the first three weeks of class, then I will allow that student to replace up to four in-person class sessions with online real-time participation. These remote sessions still have to be attended in real time, during the scheduled meetings of our class.
If a student with a relevant Accessibility Services letter requests an accommodation for remote learning within the first three weeks of class, then I will allow that student to replace as many class sessions as they wish with online real-time participation. (In this case, I will insist that you show me your letter.) These remote sessions still have to be attended in real time, during the scheduled meetings of our class.
If a student, letter or no letter, requests an accommodation for remote learning after the first three weeks of class — if an unexpected emergency has arisen (in your request, please do not tell me what the emergency is, just that an emergency has arisen) — then I can still increase that student’s limit on remote attendance to four in-person class sessions as an emergency measure, as long as that student satisfies two requirements at the moment of the emergency request: 1) the student must currently be below the course attendance limit; 2) the student, based on their current participation levels so far, would earn a 75 or above for their participation grade (you can inquire with me or your TA about what your current grade would be). I cannot grant emergency expansions for remote attendance under any circumstances unless both of those requirements are met. Even with the emergency accommodation, remote sessions still have to be attended in real time, during the scheduled meetings of our class.
HOWEVER: As a scholar of drama and spoken language, I have learned and demonstrated again and again that real physical presence is crucial to the exchange of ideas in the humanities: computer-mediated presence is not the same (and can be insidious in its simulation/replacement/displacement of real presence) for myriad reasons. Attending in-person classes is the right of every registered student. The university should thus make sure its facilities are accessible to every student it registers; to do otherwise, and so to offer a lower-grade education to students with accessibility issues who are thus forced to attend by using virtual media, is, in my opinion, fraudulent. True accessibility requires actual spaces that are accessible to all students, or that can be modified to be so, not the use of secondary or virtual spaces. I encourage you to advocate for a university that is truly and thoroughly accessible to all of its students’ bodies and minds — and by all means enlist me, if you wish, in that advocacy. As much as I make remote learning options available, I strongly encourage every student to do everything they can to get into the classroom in person—and I will do whatever I can to make that classroom truly accessible to anyone who wants in. I can apply to switch rooms, I can modify lights or slides, I can allow more frequent breaks, I can ask students to mask up (even after the pandemic is over); I can do all this (and more!) without ever revealing who asked for them (or that I was asked)—but I can only do these things if I know they would help someone in our class. So ask. I’m also willing and eager to experiment with new ways to make it more possible for you to attend in person. If you open up a dialogue with me, I’m happy to throw some ideas around. We want you here with us. You, in mind and in body, are part of this university’s scholarly community. If you can’t come in through the usual entries, let’s open new ones.
Do not forget for a moment that bodily and physical presence are vital to the humanities, often in subtle but profound ways: our global experiences in 2020-22 made the importance of real physical presence very clear. If you are a student who felt relieved or liberated to not attend class in person, I suspect that the feeling may have come from a failure on prior instructors’ parts to create a classroom space where you can feel properly at home. So yes, you can use remote alternatives in my classes, but let’s also figure out a way to bring you back home — you, and your ideas, belong here.