Teaching asynchronously often feels like walking a thin line. I want students to feel safe and supported through the platform, the instructions, and the course design. But beyond trusting the structure, I also want them to trust me as a person, even though our relationship is entirely remote. And I have come to realize that trust is not built through perfectly designed modules or a checklist of best practices. For me, it is built through presence. That is probably the most consistent thing I bring into my classroom: weekly announcements, personal emails, and jumping into reading response threads. I don’t do that as an evaluator, but as another person entering their conversations.
Cicchino and Hicks speak directly to why checklists fall short. They point out that many supposed best practices in education are drawn from policy frameworks that fail to account for the lived contexts of teaching and learning. As they put it, “the phrase ‘best practices’ can be a disguise for the reforms that will ultimately undermine practices that contribute to high-quality teaching and learning” (p. 5). I feel that tension often. There are days when the protocols say one thing, but a student’s late-night email says something else entirely. That is where my own idea of doing better kicks in.
I have reopened submission portals for students who missed deadlines, not because I do not believe in following the rules, but because I believe in a pedagogy of kindness. My students carry things I may never fully see: illness, caretaking responsibilities, housing insecurity, and anxiety. So while the rules matter, I try to hold my students up just long enough to let them get back on track. I also allow revisions, not because it is easy. It is exhausting to go back and regrade. But sometimes a revision is just a student finally arriving at their best work because they needed a little more time, support, or space to breathe.
At the same time, doing better does not mean abandoning expectations or becoming endlessly flexible. Just this week, a student emailed saying she was confused about the Unit II project. When I checked the video insights, she had not watched the weekly expectations video. I told her clearly that I could not answer her questions until she watched it first, and that if she still had questions afterward, I would be happy to help. That boundary was not meant to punish her. It was a reminder of the mutual responsibility we both carry in this learning relationship. I try to hold that line so the two-sided nature of learning does not collapse entirely on one side.
What I appreciate most about this reading is that Cicchino and Hicks are honest about the limits of any single framework. They acknowledge that “there is no single, set version of a ‘best practice’ that works in any writing classroom at any given moment” (p. 6). That feels true to me. The decisions I make each week about when to hold firm and when to make space are not drawn from a preset guide. They come from noticing patterns, listening closely, and responding to who is actually in front of me.
Reference
Cicchino, A., & Hicks, T. (Eds.). Better practices: Exploring the teaching of writing in online and hybrid spaces. University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2024.2241