How might the following shape your approach to teaching during the election season? 

1. Your course goals - What are your teaching and learning goals for the semester? Does your content connect with the election in some way? Are there skills you aim to teach that make addressing the election useful?
2. Your course context - What is the format of your course (e.g., lecture, seminar, lab)? What kind of course is it (e.g., a large intro course for nonmajors; an advanced elective; a grad class)? How might these characteristics affect your approach to teaching during the election? What department are you in? How might your physical location in Princeton or in New Jersey affect how you are thinking about the election?  
3. Yourself - How does your identity affect your experience of the election? Your own political opinions and beliefs? How are you currently feeling? (Are you burnt out, anxious, overwhelmed, motivated, energized?) What are your “hot button issues” that discussions of the election might raise? 
4. Your students - Who are your students (e.g., first years; seniors; majors) and what are their needs? How might their identity characteristics have come into play during the election season? What concerns might they be grappling with right now? 
5. Your AIs - Who are your AIs? How experienced are they with teaching? What needs might they have right now? What is reasonable to ask of them in the next few weeks and beyond? 
6. Risks - What is at stake in the election? What is at risk in engaging in conversation about it with your students? What is our responsibility as professors to support students’ free expression? 

Here is some guidance for faculty, before, during, and after the election:

• Intentionally build rapport and community in classroom spaces early on so that difficult conversations feel more comfortable. 
  • Ask students to consider what it means to hold each other accountable and still be respectful.
• Consider addressing the election in a neutral way.
  • Prepare what you are going to say in advance.
  • Recognize that the election is happening and that students might have a range of reactions before, during, and after.
  • Try to stay calm and present in the moment; students take their cues from you and staying calm will help you navigate the conversation.
  • Connect students to campus resources.
• Guide students to think about the election using the skills or content you’re teaching. Course materials might help them analyze or understand what is going on in politics (even if you are teaching something far removed from the topic).
• Have a writing prompt at the ready.
  • Ask students to do a private journaling exercise - to personally reflect and refocus, or to connect their experiences to class material.
  •  Invite students to respond anonymously to the prompt: “One thing I’ve been wanting to say but haven’t is…”  Collect and then discuss the ideas.
• Use a highly structured style of discussion (fishbowl, “pass the mic,” small group discussions with focused questions, etc.)
  •  Use the “Five Minute Rule” to consider a position that hasn't been represented. Only allow comments in support of that position and then debrief what was useful about the idea, what was hard about the conversation and why.
• Consider addressing the election in a neutral way.
  • Prepare what you are going to say in advance.
  • Recognize that the election is happening and that students might have a range of reactions before, during, and after.
  • Try to stay calm and present in the moment; students take their cues from you and staying calm will help you navigate the conversation.
  • Connect students to campus resources.
• Extend space for learning.
  • Record lectures around the election so that students can access materials they may be too distracted to catch
  • Connect with community partners, for example through ProCES, to help foster discussion and understanding. 
  • Hold additional office hours or another session for more discussion if needed.
• Take care of yourself.
  • Find space for dialogue with colleagues.
  • Determine your own level of energy and ability to engage; tailor your approach to that feeling.
  • Decide how much to share with your students and how to balance your perspective with others’.
• Support your AIs. 
  • Talk to them about their experience and thoughts.
  •  Collaborate on the lesson plan for the session(s) following the election.
  •  Possibly co-facilitate those sessions.

Resources:

• Boston College’s CTE: “Teaching During a Tumultuous Election Year.” 
• Here is a good bibliography of scholarship from Vanderbilt University.
• “Anxious about the election? Here’s how I’m coping” is a timely op-ed that is chock full of ways to take care of oneself in this season.