I am an adjunct faculty instructor at a community college. I teach in-person, online synchronous, and online asynchronous Art History and Art Appreciation courses. My current summer course load includes an online asynchronous Art Appreciation course. This is a course where all of the content is online and there are no specific live meeting times (such as a weekly Zoom seminar.) Students access all readings and videos for the course, and submit all discussions and assignments, via our Canvas site. Since it’s online asynchronous, I measure attendance by looking at the amount of time a student is logged into the Canvas site, and the assignments they have submitted.

This time, there was something funny in the assignments.

Case 1: A Failed Scavenger Hunt

The first assignments students do is meant to help them learn about specific formal qualities in art, such as…