Academic Consideration Policy

What is flexibility in assessment?

Assessment frameworks can be designed with intentional flexibility of deadlines and completion requirements to ensure that students are able to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes while not being unnecessarily impacted by personal extenuating circumstances. Each type of flexibility has its pros and cons; the best policy for your course depends on numerous contextual factors such as the needs of your students, number and types of assessments, course enrollment, and your workload. Finding the best policy for your course will take time (Hills & Peacock, 2022); however, many approaches to flexibility in assessment can be easily supported through OWL Brightspace.

Benefits

What is the benefit for students?

Allowing flexibility in scheduling supports learner agency while recognizing that students have unique academic, personal, and professional circumstances. Furthermore, these circumstances can change quickly; students may not always be able to plan in advance. Providing flexibility allows for the unexpected and can reduce learner anxiety. It supports their engagement and motivation, as well as fostering equitable and inclusive learning environments (Hills & Peacock, 2022). When designing flexible assessments, it can be helpful to follow the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principle of “teaching to the margins” by considering the support your students with the most access needs may require and designing the assessment to meet those needs.

What is the benefit for instructors?

Embedding flexible deadlines and completion requirements in your courses will help limit the number of individual interventions/adaptations you will have to make in response to academic consideration requests and allow students without formal accommodations to benefit from the greater flexibility (CAST, n.d.). By deliberately designing flexibility, you can also ensure that key learning outcomes are still met by all students.

How do I implement flexibility in assessment?

Some examples of flexibility that would provide adequate support in lieu of academic consideration include:

1. Flexible Deadlines: Flexible deadline policies allow you to take a proactive, student-centred approach to managing late assignments. Involving your students in conversations about deadlines and giving them some agency over their own schedules is one way you can enact the UDL strategy of providing options for self-regulation (CAST, n.d.).

Strategy: Establish an automatic extension for all assignments

For example, "In this course, your written assignments have a no-questions-asked 3-day grace period. This means that you can submit any of these assignments up to 3 days past the posted deadline without penalty. As such, requests for academic consideration [for this assessment/written assignment] will be denied."

A screenshot of OWL Brightspace showing an assignment with a "Due Date" of June 3rd, 2024 and an "End Date" of June 6th, 2024.

In Brightspace, it's possible to set a due date and an end date. Students will be able to submit until the end date.

TIP: Don't require students to provide notifications unless it is necessary for your planning. This reduces barriers for students and reduces your workload in tracking requests. If notification is required, consider using a tool like Qualtrics to systematically collect the information as opposed to asking students to email you with the information.

2. Flexible Assignment Completion: Allowing students a choice or automating the calculation of which repeated assessments (e.g., multiple quizzes) to complete or which scores are calculated in their final grade allows them to organize their time and provides opportunities for recovery from poor performance or missed assignments.

Strategy: Drop lowest grades in a series of assignments

For example, “This course has weekly quizzes in weeks 2-11 for a total of 10 quizzes. The lowest 3 quiz grades, including missed quizzes, will be dropped from consideration when calculating your final overall grade for quizzes. As such, requests for academic consideration for these assignments/quizzes will be denied.”

A screenshot of OWL Brightspace showing that the 3 lowest non-bonus items will be dropped for each user.

Brightspace allows you to automatically drop a set number of assignments in an assignment category.

TIP: Set this up to be automated in Brightspace quizzes.

Strategy: Provide students choice in when to complete required tasks or assignments

For example, “Every week, there will be ongoing discussion forums. You are expected to contribute to the discussions at least 5 times throughout the term. You may select the weeks that are of the most interest or that work best for your schedule. You are responsible for planning wisely. Please be aware that requests for academic consideration for these posts will be denied.”

A screenshot of a Weekly Discussions forum in Brightspace with the description "Each week, you will have the opportunity to participate in a discussion with your peers on the weekly readings. You are required to contribute to the discussions for at least 5 of 8 weeks.

You can provide instructions for students to only contribute a certain number of times to a discussion forum. Marking can also be automated using the option to drop mentioned above.

TIP: Talk to your students about the implications of skipping a contribution and how it could impact future unanticipated missed assessments. Encourage students to complete all assessments and coursework even if it might not be their best work at the time.

References

CAST (n.d.). UDL and assessment. UDL on campus: Universal Design for Learning in higher education. http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/assessment_udl

Cook, A. (2001). Assessing the use of flexible assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 26(6), 539- 549. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930120093878

Coyne, P., & Woodruff, S. J. (2022). Giving students choice: Does the use of a flexible assessment weighting scheme result in better student grades? International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 33(3), 398-406. https://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE4117.pdf

Hills, M., & Peacock, K. (2022). Replacing power with flexible structure: Implementing flexible deadlines to improve student learning experiences. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 10. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.10.26

Irwin, B., & Hepplestone, S. (2012). Examining increased flexibility in assessment formats. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 37(7), 773-785. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2011.573842

Jopp, R., & Cohen, J. (2022). Choose your own assessment–assessment choice for students in online higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 27(6), 738-755. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1742680

Pacharn, P., Bay, D., & Felton, S. (2013). The impact of a flexible assessment system on students' motivation, performance and attitude. Accounting Education, 22(2), 147-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2013.765292

Schroeder, M., Makarenko, E., & Warren, K. (2019). Introducing a late bank in online graduate courses: The response of students. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2019.2.8200

Schwartz, M., Roach, N., Anwar, S., Tanner, J., & Thistle, R. (n.d.) Flexible learning resource. Toronto Metropolitan University. https://www.torontomu.ca/content/dam/learning-teaching/teaching-resources/teach-a-course/flexible-learning.pdf

Tobin, T. J., & Behling, K. T., (2018). Reach everyone, teach everyone: Universal design for learning in higher education. West Virginia University Press.