Teaching exchange: Managing student requests for extensions and assessing participation

How do you manage multiple late assignment submission requests from students? Do you struggle to assess students’ participation in ways that seem fair? These were the questions put to teaching staff in a recent online Teaching Exchange facilitated by Anna Barrafato from the Access Centre for Students with Disabilities (ACSD) and me. 

A Teaching Exchange is a one-time conversational strategy exchange for instructors at Concordia to share their experiences and ask questions of other faculty members on timely teaching topics. Facilitators ask guiding questions and offer some tips, but the bulk of the time is spent on the strategy exchange. Hearing about strategies colleagues in other departments are using allows you to consider new ideas that you may adopt or adapt for your teaching context.

Constant email messages from students and multiple requests for extensions can be hard to manage and consume time that you might be using to prepare teaching activities or providing students with feedback. Fairly allocating participation grades in large classes is another challenge instructors often face. During the Teaching Exchange “Managing student requests for extensions and assessing participation,” Anna and I recommended integrating inclusive assessment practices to deal with these challenges. We shared proactive tips for accessible, flexible, and manageable assessments, many of which are recommended as methods of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Read on to learn about the tips shared!

Anna’s tips:

1. Embed soft and hard deadlines in your course outlines to eliminate the need to request extensions in the first place. Students can submit any time between the two deadlines, but not after. 
2. Consider extending assignment deadlines for the whole class.
3. Allow all students an opportunity or two to submit assignments late without penalty or rationale.

Did you know? 

• The ACSD has recommendations for faculty on providing extensions. Find them here.
• Regardless of the extension strategy you choose, be sure to communicate it clearly in writing with students on the course outline and in Moodle. Learn why this is an inclusive assessment strategy.

Margo’s tips:

You can keep track of who asks questions or speaks up in class to gauge participation, but these often are the same students. Some thoughtful students need more time for reflection, and some students don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of others. Here are some other possibilities for having all students participate in class:

1. Have students write their questions before, during or after the lecture or teaching activity. Written questions (done in class or on a discussion board/Moodle forum) can be referenced at the beginning of the next class to review or clear up misunderstandings, allowing you to gauge students’ learning. Three techniques for collecting this written participation from students are Entrance and exit tickets, the Minute paper and the Lecture wrapper.
2. Ask students to discuss an idea part way through the class. Walk around to get a sense that all are engaging and, that day at least, all attendees get a participation mark. One way to run this is as a Think-pair-share activity.
3. Have students work in pairs on their lecture notes during a portion of class time. To track participation, students submit their shared notes on Moodle and receive full marks for their submission. You don’t need to review or grade the submitted notes, simply give a participation grade to those who completed the activity. This strategy can help motivate students to come to class and engage with the course content. Learn how to run Note-taking pairs.  

Did you know?

While it’s true that students can’t participate without attending class, attendance in of itself is not an assessment task, so you might consider thinking about what students need to do to earn participation grades in your course. Ideally, all grades should be tied to the assessment of student learning. 

Participating faculty’s tips:

1. All submissions of coursework have a two day “flex” period, meaning students can submit up to 48 hrs after the deadline, no questions asked. 
2. Participation is not graded, but students receive bonus points for working on group projects in class to promote engagement. 
3. Class sessions end ten minutes before the hour so that students who don’t feel comfortable speaking up in class can approach the instructor to share their thoughts. This works best when a few students engage in a mini discussion during this time. 
4. Students who didn’t participate in class (either due to absence or choice) can submit a short write-up in lieu of oral participation.
5. Journalling done out of class and based on in-class course content counts towards the participation grade.

A teaching exchange is a great way to informally connect with colleagues from other parts of the university, share your experiences and learn from peers with similar interests. In this most recent edition, facilitators and participants alike benefited by learning about at least one inclusive, flexible and manageable assessment strategy that was new to us.