6 Best Practice Tips for Encouraging Masks in your Classroom

Masking Scripts: 6 Best Practices

What are best practices for encouraging students to mask up in in-person course meetings?

1. Syllabus: Encourage students to mask up in a prominent spot on your syllabus.* I added the University mask poster to my syllabus. Even if you taught online for the first few weeks of the semester, and already handed out your syllabus, you can update the syllabus. In addition, see the University’s recommended language for syllabi.
   

   

2. Canvas: Encourage students to mask up in a prominent spot in Canvas.  Consider creating an announcement: I added the CoFA Mask Campaign image to my Canvas announcement, which I sent as a Welcome message. 

   

3. Free Masks: Provide masks in class – Before class starts, have a slide up that says, “Feel free to take a free mask!”
   1. Note: All faculty may request free masks from their Building Manager. You can requests as many masks as you need for your students. Find your Building Manager by navigating to your building here. 
4. Participate in CoFA’s “I wear a mask because” campaign. Share your image in Canvas and/or in announcements to students. Take a selfie of yourself wearing a mask and send it to Cami Yates (cami.yates@austin.utexas.edu) to be shared on COFA’s Instagram accounts. Ask her for a copy, and she will send it to you. 
5. Model mask-wearing in class: Don’t take your mask off unless pedagogically necessary or for a sip of water (stand 10ft back when doing so). If you need to remove your mask for comfort, call for a break and step outside. 
6. Stay up to date on mask recommendations from the CDC and endorsed mask language from the University.   https://protect.utexas.edu/faqs/

In addition to these six best practices, you can also survey your students about their masking preferences and sort students into sections/small groups with others whose preferences are similar. Find an example survey here. You can also incentivize mask-wearing following the provost’s guidelines (under Incentives) here: https://provost.utexas.edu/aps-faculty/instructor-faqs-for-the-fall-semester/.