The Fora: A Higher Education Community

I'm thinking ahead to the winter/spring semester, and a thought just occurred to me.

A few years ago, admincritters started requiring that asynchronous online courses are ready to go live one week before the semester begins to allow students to have access one week before. Begrudgingly, we complied. It was a loophole in the faculty handbook that admincritters cleverly exploited.

I routinely get accommodation notices for students. Around half of them state that the accommodation is an extra seven days (max) for extensions on assignment deadlines, if a student with flexible deadline accommodation invokes their automatic extension accommodation.

I was thinking. . . .

Since the online course is already ready (by mandate) one week before the semester begins, and students have access, can't we just tell these students with deadline extension accommodations in asynchronous courses that the course is open on week before the semester officially begins and that they are welcome to start one week early, and that if they work one week ahead by starting one week early and maintaining the schedule, then they won't need the accommodation, because they already have an extra seven days for everything in the entire course. IOW, by opening the course one week before the semester begins, I  have already added one free week to the schedule, so they already have their 7 day extension for every assignment, if they log in one week early and maintain the schedule.   

That would certainly not fly at my university-- students cannot be required to do anything before the first day of the semester, and limited extension accommodations are meant for situations where a student's disability causes a temporary need for one, not time to work ahead throughout the semester. You could always ask your accommodations folks and see how they interpret this accommodation though.

Agreed students can't be asked to start ahead of classes. That said, my uni's disability services is a bit more reasonable than yours sounds. The standard flexible deadline accommodation is three business days, not a week, and in a synchronous course, if all materials needed to complete an assignment are available for a full week prior to the due date, you can push back some on flexible deadline accommodations. But I don't know how they handle fully asynchronous courses.

As others have said, you can't require students to start a class before the first day.
I'd need to know more of the particulars for how to reasonably allow for extensions. Asynchronous doesn't mean self-paced.  And extensions aren't supposed to be for every single assignment. Otherwise, the student may basically just be one week behind for all materials.
If the assignments require interacting with classmates (e.g. read something, write a response, then comment on responses from other classmates), then a week extension will not be reasonable since they won't have that interaction.  Are there multiple sections?  Maybe have the student register for the Monday section, but be allowed to participate in the Friday section if needed?
What have other folks done in asynchronous classes?

That's all fine. We can't force anyone to start one week early by rule, but in the spirit of accommodations, it is there for those that recognize the opportunity to compensate for whatever it is that they have that keeps them from meeting deadlines. The extra week is there whether they want to use it or not. And this upcoming year I will send out an email to the entire class, reminding them that they are free to log in one week early and get a head start and maintain the head start. Again, not that I am forcing them to, but that the option is there, in case they want a more discreet way to be accommodated.

We already require all students with flexible deadline accommodations to finish with everyone else, without accomodations, at the end of the semester, so those that were habitually relying on the extra seven days are screwed at the end of the semester. (Fortunately, admincritters hate dealing with "Incompletes," so they back up faculty when faculty award a bad grade and do not award an Incomplete). Even though the admin critters were not intending it, adding an extra free week to the semester for asynchronous online courses is actually kind of brilliant. That extra week prepended to the beginning of the course is there, IMO, to help students who need more time. If students don't want to take advantage of that free week, and they prefer to get crushed at the end of the semester, then, well, I'll point to the email that I sent before the semester started, which told them about the opportunity to start early.

For the reasons given, I don't think this would fly at my university, either.

That said, I have never had an accommodation request like this. Usually, students ask for extra time for assignments or tests; usually time and a half (or twice, or thrice) for exams, and the ability to take the exam in a distraction-free environment. I used to have to prepare the exams and give them to the disability office.

Now, since Covid, I have been doing all my exams online, as a take-home exam that they post to Blackboard by a certain date. This has made the request for extra time or a certain place to take the exam irrelevant, since the students can take as much time as they want during the time the exam is posted and work wherever they want.

I had planned to return to in-class bluebooks this semester, but the students reacted with fear. I also get an extra class time for lecture, activities, etc., that I used to have to dedicate to exams. Since sitting a bluebook exam is a skill that is not necessary anywhere outside of university, I have for the moment decided to not return to such exams.

For probably obvious reasons students prefer "take home" exams. In my opinion, it is in the students' best interest not to have such exams, since students tend to work much longer on take home exams, and I tend to grade them harder. That said, I have taken to having the students vote on what type of exam they want, and they always vote, usually unanimously, on take-home exams.

I do want to re-iterate, because I did not make myself clear, I would never REQUIRE students to work ahead, because I can't. Duh. But I can ASK them to work ahead, as an option, after explaining the benefit to them. Students can always say no, and proceed to exercise their automatic deadline extensions (and get subsequently crushed at the end of the semester when their assignment deferments catch up to them and the admincritters won't want to entertain Incompletes--whole separate humorous story with that when faculty used to pass on to the admincritters, the headache of dealing with students who can't finish the course because they've been habitually using their extensions until they run out of semester --ha, ha--).

I can't take away any accommodation that the Disabilities office gives them.

BTW, my asynchronous online class is designed in such a way that it is possible to work ahead, and there are always a handful of eager & competitive students (some of whom work ahead because they see a really busy time in their future schedules with other future concurrent commitments) who work ahead, so there will be classmates for early interaction anyway.

It just boggles my mind that anyone who has the 7-day automatic deadline extension, due to disability, would not want to take advantage of our built in extra 7-days before the semester begins, and instead allow themselves to be crushed at the end of the semester instead. Oh, well. It's their choice. But, at least we gave them the choice of an extra avenue to succeed despite their disability and accommodation, and if they choose not to take advantage or my/our gracious opportunity and instead whine and become aggressive about their accommodation, I'll simply point to that extra week where they could have worked ahead.

And if you are wondering where this is all coming from, for the last couple of years, in every online asynchronous class, I've almost always had one student who is always one week behind everyone else, and often they are students with the 7-day accommodation and they use their 7-day extension. Some of them are very aggressive about it, and dare me to non-accommodate. And it almost always ends badly, with them requesting an Incomplete at the end of the semester, when their deferments catch up to them. And, me and the admincritters saying "no" to the incomplete request.

Since the extra week of course availability is already required to be there, I just want to hold out the extra week as an option for these students to recognize and exercise their self-efficacy, when this additional opportunity to help them succeed is held out to them.

Thanks for letting me know that a 7-day automatic extension is unusual at your universities. At my place, it's very commonplace among the very few students who are granted flexible deadlines. Fortunately, they are very few, but those few can be ornery and be difficult to administer, and take attention away from other students.

The thing is that ADHD interferes with executive functioning, and one aspect of that is that it interferes with planning ahead. I am not hypothesizing this; it is a standard symptom listed and discussed in all discussions of ADHD. The remedy for this — as I have amply discovered from my own child with ADHD — is not explaining carefully how planning ahead will be advantageous. The remedy is pressing deadlines. However, because their brains are in a scramble, they need more time to respond to the pressing deadlines than a regular student. ADHD also often goes along with "slow processing," which doesn't mean they're stupid, it means it takes longer for them to formulate the answer. So for instance if you ask them a question out loud, there may be a long delay before they answer it.

Add this all together and you get an inability to work ahead, and a need for pressing deadlines to get them to focus at all. That's why the students with such accommodations won't be starting the work ahead of the class. I know, it seems like "they should," right? It would be in their best interest, right? But their brains are not constructed that way. (They wish their brains were too.)

Quote from: Hegemony on October 23, 2022, 01:41:20 PM
The thing is that ADHD interferes with executive functioning, and one aspect of that is that it interferes with planning ahead. I am not hypothesizing this; it is a standard symptom listed and discussed in all discussions of ADHD. The remedy for this — as I have amply discovered from my own child with ADHD — is not explaining carefully how planning ahead will be advantageous. The remedy is pressing deadlines. However, because their brains are in a scramble, they need more time to respond to the pressing deadlines than a regular student. ADHD also often goes along with "slow processing," which doesn't mean they're stupid, it means it takes longer for them to formulate the answer. So for instance if you ask them a question out loud, there may be a long delay before they answer it.

Add this all together and you get an inability to work ahead, and a need for pressing deadlines to get them to focus at all. That's why the students with such accommodations won't be starting the work ahead of the class. I know, it seems like "they should," right? It would be in their best interest, right? But their brains are not constructed that way. (They wish their brains were too.)

Then, yes, the students can avail themselves of the option to get crushed at the end of the semester, with no judgement.

I'm bothered by what seems like a deliberate assumption that students with accommodations are being mulish and unreasonable in expecting to be able to make full, fair use of those accommodations they are allowed, as if they were somehow taking advantage of the system.

One can negotiate a limited incomplete in a course--say, two weeks after the deadline or so--to prevent the incomplete droning on forever: I've done that.

I have 2 ongoing private music students with varied forms of ADHD and management processing issues: they tell me what they need, I listen and we work out strategies to make those things possible,  and they work brilliantly and responsibly within those structures. No issues.

I had a French student in a university level course who actually resisted getting the accommodations he truly needed, because he'd been made to feel ashamed about them, and wanted to believe he'd"outgrown" them (he hadn't).

I walked over with him to the ADA office, made a quick intro to his potential counselor, was given permission to join them for that meeting, and we sorted it out. All he needed was slower repetitions of aural quizzes because of his delayed hearing issues in class, and the chance to take the quiz with headphones on...easy to have them set up, and I just did a quick .wav file of the aural part of the quiz for him.

I see no need (or possibly, even, "right,") for you (OP) or your admin folks to gleefully punish a student who has accommodations by banging them up against a due date at the end of the term when I bet, if you actually talked to those dreadful bleeding hearts in the ADA office, you could probably figure out a more humane resolution.

The attitude I'm getting is just so faintly sadistic about this, and I wouldn't want to believe that to be true.

M.

Quote from: mamselle on October 23, 2022, 03:12:23 PM
I'm bothered by what seems like a deliberate assumption that students with accommodations are being mulish and unreasonable in expecting to be able to make full, fair use of those accommodations they are allowed, as if they were somehow taking advantage of the system.

One can negotiate a limited incomplete in a course--say, two weeks after the deadline or so--to prevent the incomplete droning on forever: I've done that.

I have 2 ongoing private music students with varied forms of ADHD and management processing issues: they tell me what they need, I listen and we work out strategies to make those things possible,  and they work brilliantly and responsibly within those structures. No issues.

I had a French student in a university level course who actually resisted getting the accommodations he truly needed, because he'd been made to feel ashamed about them, and wanted to believe he'd"outgrown" them (he hadn't).

I walked over with him to the ADA office, made a quick intro to his potential counselor, was given permission to join them for that meeting, and we sorted it out. All he needed was slower repetitions of aural quizzes because of his delayed hearing issues in class, and the chance to take the quiz with headphones on...easy to have them set up, and I just did a quick .wav file of the aural part of the quiz for him.

I see no need (or possibly, even, "right,") for you (OP) or your admin folks to gleefully punish a student who has accommodations by banging them up against a due date at the end of the term when I bet, if you actually talked to those dreadful bleeding hearts in the ADA office, you could probably figure out a more humane resolution.

The attitude I'm getting is just so faintly sadistic about this, and I wouldn't want to believe that to be true.

M.

Don't worry.

Flexible deadlines are now the second most common accommodations I see, affecting 10-15% of my students each semester. In my experience, about 50% use them as intended (they have one or maybe 2 flares over the course of the semester, contact me as soon as practical, catch up on the work, and do fine.) The other 50% spend the entire semester 3 or so days behind, frequently waiting multiple days to inform me they need a new version of the weekly assignment and want the three day extension to start after that, etc. With large classes it becomes a nightmare of keeping track of who turned what in when and writing additional versions of assignments because it's not fair to withhold keys from the rest of the class while their colleagues catch up.

I'm additionally frustrated because I have built a lot of universal design elements into my classes where students get to drop a fraction of assignments and have built in alternative ways to earn back points, but our disability folks insist that accommodations need to be over and above what is available to everyone in the class. Frequently students would be much better off taking advantage of a free drop and focusing on the work the class is actually doing instead of being continuously half a week behind.

I am at a very large university, and have been pushing for someone to do some data analysis to see how often these accommodations actually support student success vs pushing the inevitable off, but no takers thus far.

As I mentioned above, my son has ADHD, and his executive functioning is pretty minimal. He is in despair about it, but good intentions avail not at all.

He got F's most of the way through high school because the teachers were rigid about deadlines. Yes, he had accommodations — don't get me started on how many of the teachers disbelieved the accommodations and refused to honor them. At one point it was clear it was going to take a lawsuit to make things different. Anyway, that's another story. My point is that he actually did all of these assignments. He finished them and he did them pretty well. I saw them finished, and I sent him in with them with every kind of reminder to turn them in: colored rubber bands around his wrist, checklists, texts, etc. Most of the time he forgot or he had lost them before it was time to turn them in. When he found them, days or weeks later, he did turn them in. He did every assignment, he eventually turned in every assignment. But simply because of the inflexibility of the teachers, he got F's for many of these courses. Really he was not being graded on how well he knew the subject matter, or on having done the assignments. He was being graded solely on whether he turned them in by the deadline.

In the end, the pandemic happened and they just passed everyone willy-nilly, which is the only reason he has a high school diploma. Then he went to community college and they were flexible about deadlines and he has a 4.02 average (several A+s in addition to the A's.)

So I think about that when students ask to turn things in late. I always say yes.

Quote from: Hegemony on October 23, 2022, 01:41:20 PM
The thing is that ADHD interferes with executive functioning, and one aspect of that is that it interferes with planning ahead. I am not hypothesizing this; it is a standard symptom listed and discussed in all discussions of ADHD. The remedy for this — as I have amply discovered from my own child with ADHD — is not explaining carefully how planning ahead will be advantageous. The remedy is pressing deadlines. However, because their brains are in a scramble, they need more time to respond to the pressing deadlines than a regular student. ADHD also often goes along with "slow processing," which doesn't mean they're stupid, it means it takes longer for them to formulate the answer. So for instance if you ask them a question out loud, there may be a long delay before they answer it.

Add this all together and you get an inability to work ahead, and a need for pressing deadlines to get them to focus at all. That's why the students with such accommodations won't be starting the work ahead of the class. I know, it seems like "they should," right? It would be in their best interest, right? But their brains are not constructed that way. (They wish their brains were too.)

My very strong impression as someone who has ADHD is that, like most diagnoses, it describes a cluster of things that vary in severity and manifest in really different ways depending on the person. I didn't struggle as much as it sounds like your son did in high school, but I also became a much better student in college. It did help that I could often get extensions when I had procrastinated and gotten started on something too late. The thing that helped me the most, though, was just that I had a lot more time and space to manage my crummy executive functioning. Trying to do the math homework in high school in the ten minutes between classes was a bad plan. Doing the reading for an early afternoon class in the two free hours I had after my morning class in college was actually a reasonable and efficient use of my time.

The deadlines and pressure became a helpful way of organizing myself. That kind of strategy won't work with everything, and I eventually had to find artificial ways to get myself to do things like write papers ahead of time so I could have time to fix the draft, but the point is that I agree that blanket extensions are really misguided and unhelpful.

Quote from: onthefringe on October 23, 2022, 04:11:11 PM
Flexible deadlines are now the second most common accommodations I see, affecting 10-15% of my students each semester. In my experience, about 50% use them as intended (they have one or maybe 2 flares over the course of the semester, contact me as soon as practical, catch up on the work, and do fine.) The other 50% spend the entire semester 3 or so days behind, frequently waiting multiple days to inform me they need a new version of the weekly assignment and want the three day extension to start after that, etc. With large classes it becomes a nightmare of keeping track of who turned what in when and writing additional versions of assignments because it's not fair to withhold keys from the rest of the class while their colleagues catch up.

I'm additionally frustrated because I have built a lot of universal design elements into my classes where students get to drop a fraction of assignments and have built in alternative ways to earn back points, but our disability folks insist that accommodations need to be over and above what is available to everyone in the class. Frequently students would be much better off taking advantage of a free drop and focusing on the work the class is actually doing instead of being continuously half a week behind.

I am at a very large university, and have been pushing for someone to do some data analysis to see how often these accommodations actually support student success vs pushing the inevitable off, but no takers thus far.

This is just such terrible interoperation and implementation of accommodations. It doesn't provide for "flexible deadlines." It just mandates different inflexible deadlines and it won't help the students at all. I'm quite flexible about extensions, but there are times when they don't work with the pedagogical purpose of the assignment. There's no point allowing extensions on reading quizzes, and the like, because the whole point is to have students do the work that gets them ready for class. I do the same thing you do, just drop a few of them.

The whole thing just seems like a really bizarre attempt to have a set of codified rules for something that doesn't work that way. Flexible deadlines are something that needs to be worked out between the instructor and the student in the context of the course, it isn't like 50 percent extra time on exams.

Want to know why people do not take this seriously? Their own experience is likely based on someone with a "therapy dog," something specifically designed to screw over others who wish to live in a dog-free environment by invoking a fake diagnosis with no standard other than paying $20 online. As long as things like this are taken seriously, people will assume anyone with an accommodation is just a scammer.

Quote from: Caracal on October 24, 2022, 10:13:33 AM

Quote from: onthefringe on October 23, 2022, 04:11:11 PM
Flexible deadlines are now the second most common accommodations I see, affecting 10-15% of my students each semester. In my experience, about 50% use them as intended (they have one or maybe 2 flares over the course of the semester, contact me as soon as practical, catch up on the work, and do fine.) The other 50% spend the entire semester 3 or so days behind, frequently waiting multiple days to inform me they need a new version of the weekly assignment and want the three day extension to start after that, etc. With large classes it becomes a nightmare of keeping track of who turned what in when and writing additional versions of assignments because it's not fair to withhold keys from the rest of the class while their colleagues catch up.

I'm additionally frustrated because I have built a lot of universal design elements into my classes where students get to drop a fraction of assignments and have built in alternative ways to earn back points, but our disability folks insist that accommodations need to be over and above what is available to everyone in the class. Frequently students would be much better off taking advantage of a free drop and focusing on the work the class is actually doing instead of being continuously half a week behind.

I am at a very large university, and have been pushing for someone to do some data analysis to see how often these accommodations actually support student success vs pushing the inevitable off, but no takers thus far.

This is just such terrible interoperation and implementation of accommodations. It doesn't provide for "flexible deadlines." It just mandates different inflexible deadlines and it won't help the students at all. I'm quite flexible about extensions, but there are times when they don't work with the pedagogical purpose of the assignment. There's no point allowing extensions on reading quizzes, and the like, because the whole point is to have students do the work that gets them ready for class. I do the same thing you do, just drop a few of them.

The whole thing just seems like a really bizarre attempt to have a set of codified rules for something that doesn't work that way. Flexible deadlines are something that needs to be worked out between the instructor and the student in the context of the course, it isn't like 50 percent extra time on exams.

My issue with accommodations is they are rarely tailored to student needs. You think someone in the accommodations office really has the knowledge and/or time to tailor to student needs?

But they dont have an extra week relative to the other students....

I assume the accommodation is there to recognize they may need more time than others to complete the job.  As such, since the "extra time" is given to all students you are not providing any extra time to them at all. 

It also seems you are taking out your frustrations with administration on students who had nothing to do with it, which hardly seems kind. 

My big issue is when the accommodations are not reasonable due to the type of assignment.  The pre-lab assignments are to draw a flowchart of the protocol to get ready to go to lab and do the protocol.  Doing it afterwards is not beneficial.  Or online discussion boards where students need to write a reflection due by [day 1] and then comment on N other reflections by [day 4].  Then the class moves on! 
I'm a fan of the firm deadlines with minor penalties for late work.  And having most assignments due by the end of class.  I really, really hope our accommodations folks don't jump on the "flexible deadlines" trend.

QuoteMy issue with accommodations is they are rarely tailored to student needs. You think someone in the accommodations office really has the knowledge and/or time to tailor to student needs?

Yes, trained people do.

I've adjuncted in four different schools and assisted profs as an EA at three others.

The three I had direct interactions with were competent, had contracts tailored to specific student needs, with boilerplate insertions based on either MD recommendations, tested skills issues (the delayed-hearing French student's response times were to the half-minute and the recommendations for time spacing between dictation elements was based on that) and very well-explained strategies for clearly well-understood learning issues I was less familiar with.

Extensive learning assistance also exists in the elementary and middle-school sectors. When I was subbing for the local public system, I was impressed with how instructors understood, implemented (and held the line on) accommodations for students at those levels. A few assistants in that setting seemed less well-versed in some of the elements they were testing on or administering timed response trials with, but their lead teachers were very skilled and saw to it that the tangles got untangled and the students were well-served.

One of my private students is high school now, he's struggling to do all the work because of other (family) issues at the moment, but he is also getting support and keeps at it.

As Hegemony said, they all wish whole-heartedly that they were different, or maybe 'less different from others' but the latter student is particularly forthright about his limitations, what he needs to overcome them, and his will to do his work well once things are set up so he can.

It takes students like that a lot of courage to confront this thing that is never quite going to go away in their lives, day after day, and I am personally in awe at how some of them manage.

M.

Quote from: the_geneticist on October 24, 2022, 12:40:42 PM
My big issue is when the accommodations are not reasonable due to the type of assignment.  The pre-lab assignments are to draw a flowchart of the protocol to get ready to go to lab and do the protocol.  Doing it afterwards is not beneficial.  Or online discussion boards where students need to write a reflection due by [day 1] and then comment on N other reflections by [day 4].  Then the class moves on! 
I'm a fan of the firm deadlines with minor penalties for late work.  And having most assignments due by the end of class.  I really, really hope our accommodations folks don't jump on the "flexible deadlines" trend.

Our accommodations folks understand this, and the "limited extensions" accommodation always comes with wording that you don't need to give them extensions when the assignment needs to be completed at a certain time for pedagogical reasons. Likewise, the "provide materials ahead of time" accommodation always states that you don't need to do this if there are pedagogical reasons that they should only do things a at a certain time. Overall, I've found them to be very receptive to faculty feedback when something isn't a reasonable accommodation for a particular class. I know I'm lucky in that regard as not everyplace is like that.

Random points:

1) 'Flexible deadlines' does not mean, and cannot mean, that student loses his completed assignment, finds it weeks later, and it is acceptable.  The actual world does not work that way, and, of course, in hs, parents should take the responsibility to see that the student does the work, does not lose it, etc.  I worked at a special boarding school 20 years ago, and all students were made to have a school-provided plan book, take it to each class, and write down their assignments, materials needed, etc., and then dorm faculty or study hall faculty checked this daily during work time.   This hard line would be more important in college than in hs, of course, but too much 'accommodation' does not do most students any real service.

2) Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.

3) That said, reasonable accommodations must be honored by faculty, who of course also should get with the Disabilities office to argue against unreasonable ones, such as 'spelling does not count' in Latin class.

3)

But also instructors have to do their bit. One of the reasons my son's high school career was chaos was that his teachers took forever to grade his work. And that was the only way I could tell if something had been turned in. He'd go off to school with it, and ten weeks later a "Missing Assignment" note would appear in the online gradebook. How am I, or for that matter how was he, supposed to figure out that it had not been turned in, when there was no feedback for ten weeks? (If you say "He should remember whether he'd turned it in," then I can tell you have no experience with ADD. Not a chance in hell he could or would remember.) It requires all parts of the system to be working.

1) HS teachers have many more students than most college professors, do not get TAs, and teach many more hours.  And not all 'assignments' are graded-- my Latin homeworks are expected to be works in progress, and are just checked for being done/ attempted in good faith.  Contacting every parent every day is unrealistic, and no college professor would ever have to do anything like that... and

2) The kid may lose the assignment because of his ADD.  Mom cannot let him do that.   See above, my point about having a plan book and having the responsible adult check it every day, and see to it that the work is done, and is in kid's backpack on the way to school.

I have to say that I am bit taken aback by the reaction against accommodations. Various schools I have taught have had more or less robust disabilities offices. One place I taught (as an adjunct) for more than a decade never contacted me. My current job (where I have taught for about 15 years in one capacity or another) seems much more active, and I have usually one or two students per class per semester with accommodations. They never say what the issue is, but the most common accommodation requested is extended testing time and a distraction-free environment. I assume this is often about ADHD.

When I still gave blue-book exams, I always granted these requests. I suppose for two reasons: first, it was just easier to do so than to come up with an argument against them. Second, if somebody with more training than I had said they were appropriate, why would I argue? I could arguing see if it were impossible to meet the accommodation, but if I could meet the accommodation, why not? It also seems like the nice thing to do for the students. I realize that "in real life" students may not get accommodations, but "real life" is rarely like college, and I cannot remember the last time I had to take a blue book examine "in real life".

I say this being aware that diagnosis, while a science, is not always accurate. My ex-spouse was variously diagnosed with either bipolar disease or ADHD and various, less specific things. (I have no idea what, if anything, she "really" has been diagnosed with now.) My stepson, who was a middling but okay student in high school, was diagnosed with a learning disability after he failed his high school graduation exams, which allowed him to pass with a lower score. When I took him to a specialist, after he graduated, she said this was nonsense. So diagnosis is not perfect--although I, as a historian, am much less qualified than a trained specialist.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 24, 2022, 08:43:02 PM
Random points:

1) 'Flexible deadlines' does not mean, and cannot mean, that student loses his completed assignment, finds it weeks later, and it is acceptable.  The actual world does not work that way, and, of course, in hs, parents should take the responsibility to see that the student does the work, does not lose it, etc....  This hard line would be more important in college than in hs, of course, but too much 'accommodation' does not do most students any real service.

Education tends to be artificially difficult for many people, rather than the other way around. What's weird is needing to do everything the night before and leave your house with all of the assignments in your bag, little time between classes to make sure you have everything and no time to finish or print things out that might have been misplaced. I'm sure there are jobs that resemble this, but not many.

In the world I live in, which feels real enough, I forget and misplace stuff all the time. When I can't find the lecture notes I thought I stuffed in my bag, I go print them out again. I always bring my computer with me to class because I know that sometimes I'll  forget to send myself the powerpoint, or somehow lose the notes or forget to print them out entirely. As long as the computer is there, all this can be managed fine. Ditto for any number of other screw ups with assignments or due dates. I sometimes just fix or change an assignment in class on the projector when I pull it up and see a mistake or a problem.  When I first started teaching, I got lots of comments complaining about being disorganized, but nobody says that anymore. I think I've just become so unperturbed about all of my organizational chaos that nobody really notices or cares.

As a note to hegemony-It isn't that I have no executive processing. If I have a job interview or a conference presentation, or some sort of immovable deadline, I can have everything double checked and ready to go. It's just that I have limited reserves of that kind of focus and attention. It's possible that your son is having an easier time now not just because of more flexible deadlines, but because he isn't spending all day trying to remember and keep track of small things and can actually focus on the important deadlines.

Basic strategy helps like plan books, lists, etc., help greatly.   No one should dispute this.   If a student, hs or college, is forgetting to take his assignments to class, pass them in, etc., and does not even notice/ check off in plan book, that assignment has been returned, well now that is a real problem, but one which can be easily addressed.   The kid will have to do these things himself if he is away at college, but a hs kid, well, that is parental unit's responsibility to oversee.   This should not be difficult to comprehend, but very difficult to argue with.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 25, 2022, 09:37:14 PM
Basic strategy helps like plan books, lists, etc., help greatly.   No one should dispute this.   If a student, hs or college, is forgetting to take his assignments to class, pass them in, etc., and does not even notice/ check off in plan book, that assignment has been returned, well now that is a real problem, but one which can be easily addressed.   The kid will have to do these things himself if he is away at college, but a hs kid, well, that is parental unit's responsibility to oversee.   This should not be difficult to comprehend, but very difficult to argue with.

Don't want to speak for anyone else, but that kind of stuff didn't work for me. I got a lot of organizational coaching from well meaning organized people as a middle schooler and it almost all didn't work. The way I've come to understand it is an an adult is that I have a poor working memory. Basically that's sort of the background processing that you don't really think about it. I really notice this when I'm setting up the CMS or need to enter in a bunch of different things somewhere. I'm quite slow at doing stuff like that. I enter in the title, and then I don't remember which day the assignment is for, or which is section it is supposed to be, or whatever. It's not that I can't do it, it just takes me 40 seconds where it might take most people 20 for each entry.

This is a problem for all kinds of organizational systems. You can give me a plan book, but I'll get distracted and forget to write stuff in it. Or I'll misplace it, or leave it at home. The only way I'm able to remember to do small stuff is by just mental checking. Again, that's part of why high school was tougher for me than college. In college, I could just say at 7 at night, "ok what do I need to do for tomorrow morning's class" and go do it. For bigger projects I just had to keep reminding myself, which worked ok for the most part because I was motivated to do well. There were times where I'd screw up and a couple days extension really helped sometimes.

What you are describing about yourself, as a k-12 student, can be greatly ameliorated by parental unit actually looking at the plan book, looking to see to it that materials are there, and then that work is done, and then put in backpack and taken to school.   PU can of course expect classroom teachers to see to it that planbooks are used, assignments written down in them, and required materials taken home.  But there are many more kids for teacher to worry about.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 26, 2022, 09:55:41 PM
What you are describing about yourself, as a k-12 student, can be greatly ameliorated by parental unit actually looking at the plan book, looking to see to it that materials are there, and then that work is done, and then put in backpack and taken to school.   PU can of course expect classroom teachers to see to it that planbooks are used, assignments written down in them, and required materials taken home.  But there are many more kids for teacher to worry about.

There are so many places to slip up on this. For instance, in my kid's high school, the teacher would tend to remark at the end of the class, as the kids were scrambling to leave, "Oh yeah, read pages 42-56 for tomorrow! And answer the questions at the end!" The chances my kid would get this written down at all in his planner, much less accurately, were pretty low. Eventually the teacher was forced (and she was plenty resentful about this) to write the assignment on the board every day. So if the assignment was pages 42-56, my son would copy down "Read pages 52-56" (ADHD, poor working memory) and carefully read the wrong pages numbers and fail to answer the questions. Or "read pages answer questions," but not have any record of the page numbers. The psychologist we took him to suggested that he take a picture of the assignment with his phone. Sometimes he remembered. But he would have forgotten to charge his phone. Or he'd lose his phone. Or he would have forgotten to take his phone to school.

The teachers were also supposed to post the assignments online. Rather than having a central website for the school, each teacher had a separate website, in various places. So I'd have to remember to frogmarch son through checking all the teachers' websites every night to see if any assignments had been posted. But sometimes they wouldn't post them till 11 pm, whereas we'd checked at 7 pm. Sometimes they just didn't post them at all. Sometimes they had some assignments posted but it wasn't clear which class they were for, so my son would be on a wild-goose chase to figure out if "Read textbook, pages 10-20" pertained to his class, and if so which book was meant as "the textbook," and so on. One teacher kept saying she was going to set up a website, but never got around to it.

So much for planners being the solution. I really thought I was going to lose my sanity, dealing with all this chaos.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 26, 2022, 09:55:41 PM
What you are describing about yourself, as a k-12 student, can be greatly ameliorated by parental unit actually looking at the plan book, looking to see to it that materials are there, and then that work is done, and then put in backpack and taken to school.   PU can of course expect classroom teachers to see to it that planbooks are used, assignments written down in them, and required materials taken home.  But there are many more kids for teacher to worry about.

Perhaps? But I really resented that kind of thing and it's a pretty short term solution. At least for me, the thing that really helps focus me is intrinsic motivation. I don't lose my students' exam books because I really don't want to deal with that, so I'm very careful to make sure to put them all in my bag in a stack and when I get home I put that stack on my desk and it doesn't go anywhere. If you looked in my bag, you wouldn't readily identify this as any kind of organization at all, but if you compare it to how I put other stuff in my bag, I'm actually being quite careful. Non exam materials are a bunch of crumpled papers that end up at the bottom along with bits of trash.

Any organizational system that works for me is going to be like this.
1. Absurdly simple
2. Motivated by my own belief that this is an important thing to keep track of.

My issues with were probably less severe than what Hegemony is describing with his son. I was in no danger of failing high school, but I was a much better student in college because with sufficient time, space and autonomy I could figure out how to manage things.

Ok, thanks to all.   This is a very good thread and has been motivating me to be doin' some cogitatin'.  I have some further points, again as always in no particular order of importance:

1) I get that it is probably very difficult to be the parent of a hs student who has such issues, but it is what it is.   The teacher cannot be held responsible to do many things that the parent needs to do himself.  It would be better if the teacher always had the assignment written on the board prior to class, but it is not always going to be possible, especially if the class progresses and the teacher realizes that the assignment he had planned to give is no longer appropriate.  But what certainly is both impossible and unfair, to expect teacher to do, is to do  something like walk around and verify that each kid has written down the assignment.   A class may well have 30+ kids in it, and if the teacher were expected to do this, it would blow away half the class period.  If a kid, by the time he gets to hs, is incapable of being trusted to write the assignment down off of the board, serious consideration needs to be made as to whether he really is capable of being in a normal class, but rather should be assigned to some sort of special-needs class.   And in most classes, 'read pp, 44-52 in the textbook' is a perfectly accceptable assignment.   The math class almost certainly, for instance, has but one text, helpfully labeled 'algebra', say, on the cover.   As to the teacher having to update his class www at home, remember that he is not actually being paid to work at home, and may have better things to do.  Heck, he may not have the skills to set up his own class www site, and the school may not give him the tech assistance he would need to do so. 

2) Another issue coming to mind would be the issues surrounding teachers contacting parents.   We would like to think that it is a no-brainer that he should do so, but this is not 1957 with Miss Landers sending home a note to Ward and June telling them that the Beav had failed to turn in his hw.  Put simply, nowadays, many American parents just do not treat teachers respectfully, or even decently, and teachers may well become gunshy about initiating such contacts, and dreadful about responding to contacts initiated by mom and dad.   And many (often essentially worthless) k12 school admins, well...  College professors have a very different job in this respect-- it is not just the fact that k12 teachers teach more kids, for more hours, and without TAs, but it dawned on me that another key difference is FERPA.  College professors must not deal with parental requests for info, and tell them that FERPA mandates such refusal, unless the kid provides prof with a signed waiver, which the school (or the parent) cannot compel kid to provide.   I actually had a woman email me at an adjunct job, very miffed, about her son, who was failing the class (it was early May by then)-- I had thought he was a freshman but he was actually a 20yo sophomore already on academic probation, and the F he was going to earn in my class (I think mine was not the only one, further), was going to cause  him to flunk out.  He was very smart, and interested in languages, regularly making knowledgeable but irrelevant remarks in class... but he also would not study, do homework, come to office hours, etc.  He was clearly on the spectrum (mom probably was too), and he probably had many accommodations in hs, accommodations which the school could force  him to use, and mom could insist that they do that.   The kid clearly would have qualified for such accommodations in college as well, but no one could force him to get, let alone use, any such, and he did not.   Mom also emailed chair, who clearly wanted me to respond, but even she knew, when I reminded her, that FERPA prevented my doing so (chair came from a Far Eastern country where I suspect no such FERPA-style requirements would exist, professors would be expected to respond to parent emails, etc.,.... but where, ahem, parent behavior would be very different from anything seen here).  OTOH, hs teachers are not only permitted to respond to parent requests, but are explicitly expected to do so... and those parents, ahem, do not act like East Asians, in their interactions with teachers.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 27, 2022, 11:08:10 PM

1) I get that it is probably very difficult to be the parent of a hs student who has such issues, but it is what it is.   The teacher cannot be held responsible to do many things that the parent needs to do himself.  It would be better if the teacher always had the assignment written on the board prior to class, but it is not always going to be possible, especially if the class progresses and the teacher realizes that the assignment he had planned to give is no longer appropriate.  But what certainly is both impossible and unfair, to expect teacher to do, is to do  something like walk around and verify that each kid has written down the assignment.   A class may well have 30+ kids in it, and if the teacher were expected to do this, it would blow away half the class period.  If a kid, by the time he gets to hs, is incapable of being trusted to write the assignment down off of the board, serious consideration needs to be made as to whether he really is capable of being in a normal class, but rather should be assigned to some sort of special-needs class.   And in most classes, 'read pp, 44-52 in the textbook' is a perfectly accceptable assignment.   The math class almost certainly, for instance, has but one text, helpfully labeled 'algebra', say, on the cover.   As to the teacher having to update his class www at home, remember that he is not actually being paid to work at home, and may have better things to do.  Heck, he may not have the skills to set up his own class www site, and the school may not give him the tech assistance he would need to do so. 

I'm surprised that you say that high school teachers should not be expected to post the assignment details online. (And they don't have to do it from home. Better that they do it from school, or even before the day in question.) My son attended three different high schools over the years, in two states and one foreign country, and all of them required teachers to post assignments online. In the one he graduated from, they obviously did not do it in any kind of sensible way. By contrast, in his high school in Europe, they had all assignments posted from the beginning of the term, easily findable from the school website. He did indescribably better that year than in his "home" high school years. I think the idea that teachers "shouldn't have to" make assignments accessible to all in an organized fashion is bollocks — and will make some students' journey incalculably harder, as experience shows. In my university, too, all assignments are required to be posted online. (The document that spells these out is called a "syllabus," and I don't think that's such a novel idea either.) I am rather aghast at the idea that, in this day and age, such organization and accessibility should be regarded as a luxury and a frivolity.

I get that a syllabus can be posted online (I never actually worked at a k12 school with a school website, but my last k12 job was 10 years ago), but here's the issue-- recall that I said that sometimes the classroom teacher will need to decide that the preplanned hw assignment is no longer an option.   IOW, syllabi work much better in college than in hs ,esp with things like foreign lang classes.   My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.  Heck, even as an undergrad at Dear Alma Mater Elite Slac, classical language classes operated like this, really only giving half-page syllabi listing dates for tests and papers.  I get that students with difficulties such as your son's will need some extra structure to see to it that they will be on top of assignments, what is going to be done when, etc., and this can be provided, though it is much easier to do so with a private school-sized class, than a 30+ kid pub school one, but in any case, I ain't gonna change my teaching strategy.   It would actually be easier for me to write a strict syllabus pre-class and just plow on through it, but it would not be in the interest of most kids, especially those like your son.

I would also be most interested in your response to my paragraph on the treatment of teachers by American parents...

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2022, 09:20:36 PM
I get that a syllabus can be posted online (I never actually worked at a k12 school with a school website, but my last k12 job was 10 years ago), but here's the issue-- recall that I said that sometimes the classroom teacher will need to decide that the preplanned hw assignment is no longer an option.   IOW, syllabi work much better in college than in hs ,esp with things like foreign lang classes.   My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.  Heck, even as an undergrad at Dear Alma Mater Elite Slac, classical language classes operated like this, really only giving half-page syllabi listing dates for tests and papers.  I get that students with difficulties such as your son's will need some extra structure to see to it that they will be on top of assignments, what is going to be done when, etc., and this can be provided, though it is much easier to do so with a private school-sized class, than a 30+ kid pub school one, but in any case, I ain't gonna change my teaching strategy.   It would actually be easier for me to write a strict syllabus pre-class and just plow on through it, but it would not be in the interest of most kids, especially those like your son.

I would also be most interested in your response to my paragraph on the treatment of teachers by American parents...

This is one of those things where the technology can help. You could do exactly what you're describing very easily on the CMS. In the simplest form you can just type text under the appropriate due date header in class as you tell the students what the assignment is. Then the assignment is there, students who find it helpful to write it down somewhere can do so, but it isn't necessary and as an additional bonus, anyone who missed class also knows where to look for the assignment.

I can very easily adjust foreign language learning for a slower class while keeping up to page numbers for readings overall.

I might reduce the number of translations per page one day so they can catch up, or omit some of the enrichment elements if we need to focus on pronunciation and reflexive replies that day, but if you let the wheels get very far out of true, the whole one-hoss shay is going to grind to a halt.

And I'm picky--but not heavy-handed--about oral, written, aural, and literacy skills, because they reinforce each other, and contextualize each other, along the way.

I don't see the problem.

M.

It would be interesting to see how things would work in a school environment where I actually had access to such a CMS set-up-- even at the unis I adjuncted at in the later teens none such existed, or, if they did, no one bothered to let this adjunct know of em.

Now, mamselle, we will just have to agree to disagree.   What you said below acknowledges that you, if you see the need, edit down the work assignments in classes, in order to (apparently) accommodate the needs of slower-achieving students.  In other words, you are giving these students, who presumably would need more reinforcement, practice, etc., less of these, in order not to change up your preset syllabus agenda.   I am trying to be charitable, but fail to see exactly how this accomplishes the mastery agenda I am talking about.

I probably don't have the same over-glorified definition of "mastery" you appear to have, for starters.

In a French I class, I get students who are in French called "fausses debutantes," (false beginners) because they have pretty-good pronunciation and reading skills, but lag at aural interpretation and missed out on some grammar rules along the way. Others never saw a French phrase in their life. Some started to do, say, an elementary class in French long ago, but have forgotten it all.

So, we start with reinforcement of basics, we work towards improvements in all the required areas, and we try to have some fun along the way: folk songs that use polite forms of address ("Monsieur," "Madame, ""Mademoiselle," in "La Bastringue," for example), are also pronunciation and grammar exercises, since we use them that way in class as well.

My goals are that,

A. They all improve,
B. The false beginners work out the wrinkles in their understanding of things,
C. The complete beginners get an ear for pronunciation and comprehension, and
D. I interface with the French II class' starting place in the book so the students who continue have a smooth articulation with their new instructors (with whom I check in 2-3 times a term).

I teach French differently than I learned Latin, in the main--and I enjoyed that, too, and placed 6th in the state tests that year in Ohio--but while I'd say our HS Latin and French teachers were miles apart in pedagogical styles, they both had strong standards (the French teacher used Middlebury 's immersion approach, which I do incline more towards, myself)--but it was always still on the student to do the work.

This was, obviously, decades before CMS, but I had it and used it when teaching French, although most students preferred to copy it from the whiteboard--I did one of those "Date, Class Activities, Next Assignment" boxes on the top left of the board each class on entering, so they knew to look there as well as on the CMS--we didn't then have a memory board, but they'd bring their phones up and take a picture before or after class, so, same idea.

If they didn't come to class or turn in their work, they weren't ever going to master anything: if they showed up, took all quizzes and exams, did the correction work (that netted a couple extra points or their homework--they had to re-write it correctly, and cite the grammar/spelling/other rule they'd missed (a Jedi trick from the old forum), and showed improvement in their dialogues and series (solo recitations of a poem or series of phrases), they usually did pretty decently.

If not, they didn't--that was on them.

"Mastery" doesn't mean no-one fails and everyone's perfect...at least, not to me, for high-schoolers.

M.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 28, 2022, 09:20:36 PM
My approach is mastery, and I cannot hold to such an approach by prewriting a syllabus that would say we will be reading pp. 44-52 and doing the questions there in Oct. 23, with a test two days later, etc.   If I did this, many students would just not learn appropriately.   I need to be able to assess each class's progress and deal with reteaching, additional practice work opportunities, etc., reassessments as needed.

Some thoughts about the quoted section:
1. I am not sure what language classes you are teaching, but I have never gained "mastery" over a foreign-language from a classroom. I don't actually think it is possible to gain mastery without actually having to live a language. To be honest, I am not sure it is ever really possible, after a certain age, to gain mastery over a foreign language. I studied Spanish from middle school through university (with varying degrees of seriousness), and did not really become fluent until I lived in Latin America for several years. Even after living in Latin America, taking various upper-level Spanish classes, marrying a Spanish monolingual speaker, traveling widely through the Hispanic world, and living in a Spanish-speaking community, I still don't think I have "mastery" over Spanish, although I know enough to use it in my personal and professional life as needed. To be honest, there are days when I feel the English language has mastery over me, and not vice versa.

2. All that aside, the situation you describe is the same as every other professor: some people know a whole lot about the subject, and some people know nothing. Some people think they know a whole lot and really know nothing. This does not prevent me (or any other professor) from having a schedule of assignments, readings, etc, i.e., a syllabus. It is absolutely true that sometimes it is necessary to deviate from the syllabus--spend more time on a subject, change the date of an exam, etc. But a good professor who is experienced with a particular student body should have a pretty good sense of how a class she has taught before will probably go. If a professor consistently has to change her syllabus each semester, this might be a sign that she needs to reevaluate the way she does a syllabus. When I first started teaching at my current school, I discovered that I was assigning too much reading for my students and not giving them enough time. So in subsequent semesters I revised my syllabus accordingly.

In most classes--secondary and tertiary levels--there is a certain amount of material that one has to cover. In US History, I might have to cover 1492 through 1865. If I only get to the Mexican American War (1846-1848), that's not good. I would assume the same is true of maths class, Spanish class, etc. This is especially true for courses that are part of a sequence and students in level 2 are expected to know everything from level 1.  So the pacing of the course is often a reflection of how much material and the amount of time there is to cover it. Sometimes it is necessary to move on to another subject even though it might be better if we spent another three weeks going over it.

3. If there is a deviation from the syllabus, it is not that hard--and actually, really important--to make an announcement on Blackboard or whatever, as well as announcing it in class. This seems basic. (It also helps me remember what date I changed the midterm to, for example, if it is in an email and announcement.)

4. Part of being a professional educator is learning how to do no. 2 and no. 3. If a new professor had trouble with these I could chalk it up to inexperience. But if somebody who has some time under their belt continues to mess up, I would start thinking it was due to indifference or incompetence. If an experienced educator told me it is impossible to make a plan of the semester, including readings and assignments in advance, I would think they had no sense of how to teach. If my child's grade-school teacher told me that he did not know how much--roughly--the class was going to get through in the year (barring unforeseen circumstances like Covid) I would not be happy.

'Mastery' approach does not mean that I expect anyone to get mastery, and no one obviously does get it, but if one does not shoot for it, one gets what one is shooting for, namely mediocrity.   I have taught history as well-- my classics PhD specializes in ancient history-- and  history is just not properly taught like Latin.   The trite explanation goes something like this: in a history class, one can flunk the Civil War test and still get an A on the WWI test, but if in a Latin class, one does not learn the grammar correctly as one goes along, one will just not learn Latin, and be incompetent at reading it.  If you try to read it without learning all the grammar adequately, it would be like building a brick wall without properly mortaring each layer.   And Latin is even more different from something like history than a modern language is, because 1) we do not speak it, and thus lose the learning abilities coming from speaking and hearing a language, and this is especially important because, unlike what some of the 'spoken Latin' folks think, 2) classical Latin is essentially a literary diglossic register of the language, very different from what the Romans would actually have spoken on a daily basis, even educated ones, and with a much more complex and artificialized grammar.

Now, further, nothing I said should suggest I fail no one, nor think no one ought to be able to fail.   Really, that would be a lame strawman.  But in a full-sized class, if only one or two students are falling behind, I will emphasize to them their need to get extra help, etc., whereas if the bulk of the class is, I have no alternative but to arrest my own progress and go back and fix things.   It is just too important not to let the class go on and thereby build up those unmortared brick layers.   I have inherited Latin classes where semi-competent teachers have used a strict syllabus approach, blasting on through in order to complete x number of chapters per semester, etc., and it just ain't pretty.   No serious classicists teach basic classical language classes this way.

Honestly, I have to teach physics the same way you teach Latin. If I  just skip topic to topic, half the class will be lost and they won't understand anything.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 30, 2022, 07:11:24 PM
I have taught history as well-- my classics PhD specializes in ancient history-- and  history is just not properly taught like Latin.   The trite explanation goes something like this: in a history class, one can flunk the Civil War test and still get an A on the WWI test, but if in a Latin class, one does not learn the grammar correctly as one goes along, one will just not learn Latin, and be incompetent at reading it. 

While it is perhaps true that some history professors have not taught history well--as no doubt some Latin professors have not done well either--I know from experience that it is very unlikely that a student will fail the WWI test and pass the WWII test. A student who fails the Civil War test is unlikely to do well on the Reconstruction test.

Sure, but if the kid fails the Civil War test, he can go on in the class, especially as the time and issues get further and further removed from the CW.  WWI has essentially nothing to do with the US CW, for instance, and one really need know nothing about the latter in order to understand the former.  Nothing about Latin grammar works that way.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 30, 2022, 08:19:23 PM
WWI has essentially nothing to do with the US CW, for instance, and one really need know nothing about the latter in order to understand the former.

This is a rather strange view of history. If a student were to assert this in a course, I would probably fail him.

I suppose there might be some correlations, etc.   But really, knowledge of the US CW is unnecessary to learning about WWI.  Really, it just ain't.   I suspect you know this.

Good grief!

While I'll be the first to agree that you can't get far in Cicero without understanding the ablative absolute, a good smattering of the vocabulary, conjugations, and declensions of the period, saying you need 'mastery, not mediocrity' makes no sense--in my case, mastery includes translating 13thc. liturgical texts (with all their gnarly abbreviations) and 18th c. gravestones (there are 3 Latin stones in my current paper) plus a legal Latin document granting a midwife her license in London before she emigrates to the colonies ('neo-Latin,' as it's now called).

Conversely, I could no more agree with you about the disjoint sets of (soit 'American,' soit 'any other kind of') history you've carved out for yourself than fly: you can't teach the Civil War without carrying forward the integration  of the US Armed forces from the 54th Regiment at Sumpter to the code-talking Native Americans in WWII, nor by ignoring the "heal ourselves first" isolationism, and the Golden Era's high self-regard (purchased on the backs of both black and white sharecroppers, and Asian railroad builders, among others) that delayed the US entry into both the League of Nations and finally, WWI itself.

My high school history teacher (a retired Marine colonel who'd taught military history at West Point, first) would've flunked you. He specifically developed a globally-aware series of handouts we had to fill in at the beginning of each new chapter, showing exactly how the previous chapter articulated with the new one.

With your approach, you'd have been dead in the water the first day.

M.

If the argument is you don't have to know anything about the (American) Civil War in order to know about the (European) Great War, well, sure. You do not need to know about the question of expansion of slavery in the Southwest in order to understand about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. But this is apple and oranges. You do not need to know how to decline (Latin) nouns in order to conjugate (Spanish) verbs. This would especially be true if your view of history is to memorize a bunch of names and dates.

All that said, I do not think you can understand Woodrow Wilson without understand that he was a historian of the American South, that he was both a progressive and a stone-cold racist, and that both of these informed his global vision. Nor could you understand partisan divisions in the US at the time of the First World War without understand the Civil War, nor the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, nor the debate over isolationism, etc.  All of these informed the role of the US in the war, and its role afterward. So you cannot absolutely understand the US actions during the war without understanding the period that came before (i.e., the Civil War and Reconstruction period). And you certainly cannot understand the role of black troops in the war, the Great Migration, and the postwar race riots, without understanding the Civil War. You cannot understand Russia's role in the war without understand the rise of narodism, the emancipation of the serfs, the rise of liberalism and socialism, etc.

I would assume that a knowledge of Latin grammar would also be useful to really "master" Spanish grammar. It is possible to have a functional knowledge of one without knowledge of the other.

To be honest, to claim otherwise in service of the argument that it is impossible to make a plan for teaching an introductory Latin class, and posting it online, seems strange.

+1^

Latin is an agora, not a temple.

M.

Quote from: mamselle on October 31, 2022, 01:07:08 AM
Good grief!

While I'll be the first to agree that you can't get far in Cicero without understanding the ablative absolute, a good smattering of the vocabulary, conjugations, and declensions of the period, saying you need 'mastery, not mediocrity' makes no sense--in my case, mastery includes translating 13thc. liturgical texts (with all their gnarly abbreviations) and 18th c. gravestones (there are 3 Latin stones in my current paper) plus a legal Latin document granting a midwife her license in London before she emigrates to the colonies ('neo-Latin,' as it's now called).

Conversely, I could no more agree with you about the disjoint sets of (soit 'American,' soit 'any other kind of') history you've carved out for yourself than fly: you can't teach the Civil War without carrying forward the integration  of the US Armed forces from the 54th Regiment at Sumpter to the code-talking Native Americans in WWII, nor by ignoring the "heal ourselves first" isolationism, and the Golden Era's high self-regard (purchased on the backs of both black and white sharecroppers, and Asian railroad builders, among others) that delayed the US entry into both the League of Nations and finally, WWI itself.

My high school history teacher (a retired Marine colonel who'd taught military history at West Point, first) would've flunked you. He specifically developed a globally-aware series of handouts we had to fill in at the beginning of each new chapter, showing exactly how the previous chapter articulated with the new one.

With your approach, you'd have been dead in the water the first day.

M.

Well, I teach both halves of the American survey. 1865 is the dividing line. The social studies teaching majors need to take both surveys, but the other majors only have to do one, and there's no requirement that you do them in order...so I could hardly require lots of knowledge of the Civil War when I teach WW1.

I can assure that you can teach about the Civil War and not teach about Navajo Code Talkers, because well...I don't teach about Navajo Code Talkers at all. I don't think I've ever mentioned them in a class. That's not some judgement about their importance, the problem is lots of things are important and if I try to put them all into my lectures, there won't be any recognizable through line. I certainly wouldn't have a problem with someone who taught a through line about the US army that you describe, but I just don't teach any through lines about the US military. You have to pick and choose your themes.

One of the problems with textbooks is they try to do everything and the result is usually pretty boring and doesn't help students understand historical thinking. You're right in a sense. Everything relates back to everything else and forward to everything else. A student who has taken a Civil War class might have interesting and important insights they otherwise wouldn't have about material on WW1, but so would a student who had taken a modern Europe course.

I'm still sort of confused about the idea that there's less flexibility if you post readings online. I change my readings all the time during the semester. Sometimes, it's because I have to cancel a class, but other times students have a lot to say about some reading or topic and we end up a little behind and I rejigger the readings so they'll fit with where we are. Students don't generally mind as long as you're pushing back things.

Of course, surveys get subdivided: when I was coming up through art history as a BA student, one useful piece of advice to those considering the MA, which required a declared major and minor, was to "Major on one side, and minor on the other side of the 1400 CE dividing line, so you can teach both halves of the survey."

That's how I ended up with a French medieval major and an American colonial minor.

And I've taught the first and second halves of art and architecture history as a result...but we do a recap/crossover discussion the first week of the second term, anytime something comes up for which they need to know background development on a topic: the Renaissance didn't spring full-blown from the brush of Giotto or the chisel of Michelangelo and not showing developmental stages reinforces the falsely periodized view of art history, left over from the 19th c., that there were "good" and "bad" periods,  practitioners,  etc.

It also keeps them aware that I don't buy the, "Oh,  we learned that last semester,  I don't remember that stuff," line of excuses.

M.

I did not use the term first, but 'good grief' sounds about right.

I said nothing about Latin being needed to learn anything about Spanish (which I do not even know).  And I said nothing about a generalized knowledge of the CW being perhaps helpful in understanding the various issues associated with WWI.  Obviously.   But 101-style survey courses, let alone hs 'US History' classes are very basic, generalized things, and, yes, it should be obvious that one need know virtually nothing about the CW in order to do very well, *at this level of course*, on the WWI unit.   This contrasts mightily with how one needs to approach the learning of Latin, even if one personally does know enough Latin to read medieval texts.  Try teaching beginning students of Latin, and if you do as mamselle suggests, and unless you are teaching at an uberelite prep school or college, many of your students will end up demonstrably subcompetent.   I have seen this, and you haven't.   And I am trained to know what I am talking about, and you aren't.  And further, since my responsibility as their teacher is to. ahem, actually teach them, I will do that to the best of my ability-- the half-mortarted push through x number of chapters per year approach just ain't that.

I teach Latin, and I am able to keep to a predictable schedule laid out in advance, while giving extra help to those who are struggling. If I had to change the schedule for some odd reason, it would be easy enough to revise the assignment due dates on the LMS.

Quote from: kaysixteen on October 31, 2022, 07:45:30 PM
I said nothing about Latin being needed to learn anything about Spanish (which I do not even know).  And I said nothing about a generalized knowledge of the CW being perhaps helpful in understanding the various issues associated with WWI.  Obviously.   But 101-style survey courses, let alone hs 'US History' classes are very basic, generalized things, and, yes, it should be obvious that one need know virtually nothing about the CW in order to do very well, *at this level of course*, on the WWI unit.

This is apples and oranges. My point is that if that the U.S. Civil War and the First World War in Europe are two different courses, just as Spanish and Latin. They do not belong in the same "history" course any more than Latin nouns and Spanish verbs belong in the same "grammar" class. Thus the original comparison is disingenuous.

If a course has both wars in the same semester, it is likely that they will be linked together. It is, theoretically, possible to get an A on the midterm of a course and fail the final (or vice versa), but this is rare, and in a well-taught course the units are connected. It is hard to do well on the twentieth century without knowing the eighteenth century.

Again, this seems like a lot of effort to argue that it is impossible to plan out, at least roughly, the course of an intro Latin class. In fact, given the necessity of sequence in such a course, it would seem easier to map out than in a history course where there is some more flexibility.

Quote from: Mobius on October 24, 2022, 10:45:08 AM

My issue with accommodations is they are rarely tailored to student needs. You think someone in the accommodations office really has the knowledge and/or time to tailor to student needs?

Yes, they do, at least at many universities. At both my undergraduate and master's universities (I'm currently a PhD candidate) the accommodations people had suggestions for things that even my physiotherapist didn't know about, but that helped me immensely after two severe concussions, one in fourth year undergrad, and one in first year masters. The accommodations staff all had advanced degrees at the masters level at a minimum. I would not have been able to finish my undergrad and complete a master's without accommodations and the help of the accommodations staff.

Quote from: MarathonRunner on November 01, 2022, 01:29:18 PM

Quote from: Mobius on October 24, 2022, 10:45:08 AM

My issue with accommodations is they are rarely tailored to student needs. You think someone in the accommodations office really has the knowledge and/or time to tailor to student needs?

Yes, they do, at least at many universities. At both my undergraduate and master's universities (I'm currently a PhD candidate) the accommodations people had suggestions for things that even my physiotherapist didn't know about, but that helped me immensely after two severe concussions, one in fourth year undergrad, and one in first year masters. The accommodations staff all had advanced degrees at the masters level at a minimum. I would not have been able to finish my undergrad and complete a master's without accommodations and the help of the accommodations staff.

I'm sure it's not the same everywhere, but our accommodations folks are also great! Faculty should not see them as the enemy, they can be a tremendous resource and ally for faculty supporting students in their classes.

They don't just hand out accommodations like candy-- they help students get evaluated, figure out what reasonable accommodations are for them, and work with them on skill building. They will also work with students who don't qualify for accommodations but still could use some skill building. They have also been very reasonable and respectful when I've talked to them about how some accommodations need to be modified for particular class contexts.

They are quite evidence-based. For example, they won't give accommodations like remote access or alternatives to presentations accommodations to students with social anxiety, because they know that enabling avoidance is exactly the opposite of how to help someone with social anxiety.  I just helped them with resources for a time management training (since they know I teach these skills in one of our non-credit life skills courses) and they not only wanted the tips and teaching materials but also the research behind it to read-- just really fantastic services for students and engagement with their own professional development.

I did not just make up this philosophy of fl pedagogy out of thin air-- it was standard operating procedure at all three schools I studied classics in, up through the doctoral level, and it is more or less what the pedagogical linguist colleagues I had as an adjunct also thought wise.  It would be *much easier* for me to write out a syllabus with fixed dates and assignments ahead of time, and just stick to it.   But easier does not mean better.

It is also not the same thing as 'not having a date for test x, etc'.  You can certainly (and in college classes it is expected) say that the midterm will be on date x.   What may change in your own mind, and thus in what you have taught the students, would of course be exactly how much stuff will be on the test by that date.

I have a question for KaySixteen, which is not meant snidely or rhetorically.

If, as you state, Latin is taught in a rigid order so that unit A is necessary for unit B which is necessary for unit C, etc.;

And, you can not say in advance what material ("exactly how much stuff") you will cover in a course (say, Latin 1) ahead of time;

Do you not run the danger that students in Latin 2 will not have learnt all the material that they will need to master the material?

I can see this approach working in one of two circumstances:
(1) There is a cohort of Latin students who progress together through all stages of Latin with the same professor so he or she can adjust all the courses adequately.

(2) You are having a 1:1 tutorial.

(1) Is possible, perhaps, in some high schools, in which Latin is an elective that only a small number of people take and there is one Latin teacher. It does not seem to work in a university where there are several different sections going on with different professors with students starting and stopping their studies at different levels. Perhaps in many universities the Latin students are few and far between, but this approach certainly would not work with Spanish, or French, or a language with many students, sections, and professors.

(2) Is how my own attempts to learn languages with private tutors have often worked, but the key here is private tutors whom I pay. 

What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Accommodations are determined individually, after evaluation by appropriate healthcare professionals (generally a neuropsychologist). If a student has 2x rather than 1.5x extra time (which is rare in my experience) it is because their disability was determined to require it--why is private health information that we as faculty have no legal or ethical right to see. That is why the letters just list the accommodations and do not tell you what the disability is.

I did look at the abstract of the paper you linked to, and it seems to have the strong assumption that if accommodations are "working" students should use them less over time. To me that is very much the wrong criteria. It's like saying that if wheelchair ramps are "working" they will be used less over time. The point of accommodations is to more equal access for students to succeed, not to make their disability go away.

Quote from: Puget on November 02, 2022, 06:31:44 AM

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Accommodations are determined individually, after evaluation by appropriate healthcare professionals (generally a neuropsychologist). If a student has 2x rather than 1.5x extra time (which is rare in my experience) it is because their disability was determined to require it--why is private health information that we as faculty have no legal or ethical right to see. That is why the letters just list the accommodations and do not tell you what the disability is.

I did look at the abstract of the paper you linked to, and it seems to have the strong assumption that if accommodations are "working" students should use them less over time. To me that is very much the wrong criteria. It's like saying that if wheelchair ramps are "working" they will be used less over time. The point of accommodations is to more equal access for students to succeed, not to make their disability go away.

It's important to remember that school is an artificial environment and assessment is the most artificial part of the whole enterprise. To the extent that students might need fewer accommodations as they go through their academic career, it will usually be because assessments become less artificial and they will have the ability to create their own conditions where they can succeed without needing to involve disability services. A student who needs extra time on exams can figure out their own work schedule for a senior thesis, for example.

Quote from: Puget on November 02, 2022, 06:31:44 AM

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Accommodations are determined individually, after evaluation by appropriate healthcare professionals (generally a neuropsychologist). If a student has 2x rather than 1.5x extra time (which is rare in my experience) it is because their disability was determined to require it--why is private health information that we as faculty have no legal or ethical right to see. That is why the letters just list the accommodations and do not tell you what the disability is.

I agree this is the goal. I don't think it always describes what happens behind the scenes. Our disability folks clearly care about students and want them to succeed. But they are also overburdened and will try to make the issues they see into nails that match the most straightforward hammers at their disposal. They are also highly motivated by not being sued. I have a colleague with a student who has 4x time on assessments as an accommodation. So he gets 8(!) hours to complete a 2 hour final. It would take a lot to convince me that this is the best accommodation for anyonee

You are right to note that I have mostly only been the only Latin guy where I have taught, whether k12 or higher, though I was a VAP back in '06 for a semester, where there was another classicist.   Then, I did have to follow the syllabus given me by the guy I was covering for (emergency leave), and, in any case, courses like the advanced seminar I also taught then are usually more syllabus-ized.   But even advanced classics courses are dependent on the skills of the class in question.  If you gotta slow up, you gotta slow up.   Missing out on large quantities of adequately comprehended grammar will just not allow those students to advance to the readings they will encounter if they do go forward.

Something else that has dawned on me and probably should be mentioned-- it is much much easier to teach something like Latin via the set syllabus method when, ahem, the students really actually want to be taking Latin.

Quote from: onthefringe on November 02, 2022, 12:06:43 PM

Quote from: Puget on November 02, 2022, 06:31:44 AM

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Accommodations are determined individually, after evaluation by appropriate healthcare professionals (generally a neuropsychologist). If a student has 2x rather than 1.5x extra time (which is rare in my experience) it is because their disability was determined to require it--why is private health information that we as faculty have no legal or ethical right to see. That is why the letters just list the accommodations and do not tell you what the disability is.

I agree this is the goal. I don't think it always describes what happens behind the scenes. Our disability folks clearly care about students and want them to succeed. But they are also overburdened and will try to make the issues they see into nails that match the most straightforward hammers at their disposal. They are also highly motivated by not being sued. I have a colleague with a student who has 4x time on assessments as an accommodation. So he gets 8(!) hours to complete a 2 hour final. It would take a lot to convince me that this is the best accommodation for anyonee

I doubt the student is really spending 8 hours on the final, though. It's just an untimed exam. Usually when I give exams only a couple of students actually use all of the time allotted. If everyone was still furiously working away a minute before the end of the exam that would probably mean I was asking students to do  too much. I'm not trying to put anyone under time pressure, so if a student is put under time pressure by the standard time constraints, it doesn't bother me if they have as much time as they might need.

Of course, at my school this all gets done at the testing center. Certainly, it isn't reasonable to ask an instructor to sit there for up to 8 hours!

Quote from: Caracal on November 03, 2022, 05:40:46 AM

Quote from: onthefringe on November 02, 2022, 12:06:43 PM

Quote from: Puget on November 02, 2022, 06:31:44 AM

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

Accommodations are determined individually, after evaluation by appropriate healthcare professionals (generally a neuropsychologist). If a student has 2x rather than 1.5x extra time (which is rare in my experience) it is because their disability was determined to require it--why is private health information that we as faculty have no legal or ethical right to see. That is why the letters just list the accommodations and do not tell you what the disability is.

I agree this is the goal. I don't think it always describes what happens behind the scenes. Our disability folks clearly care about students and want them to succeed. But they are also overburdened and will try to make the issues they see into nails that match the most straightforward hammers at their disposal. They are also highly motivated by not being sued. I have a colleague with a student who has 4x time on assessments as an accommodation. So he gets 8(!) hours to complete a 2 hour final. It would take a lot to convince me that this is the best accommodation for anyonee

I doubt the student is really spending 8 hours on the final, though. It's just an untimed exam. Usually when I give exams only a couple of students actually use all of the time allotted. If everyone was still furiously working away a minute before the end of the exam that would probably mean I was asking students to do  too much. I'm not trying to put anyone under time pressure, so if a student is put under time pressure by the standard time constraints, it doesn't bother me if they have as much time as they might need.

Of course, at my school this all gets done at the testing center. Certainly, it isn't reasonable to ask an instructor to sit there for up to 8 hours!

I also design exams that should be (and are based on observation) easy to complete in the time frame by at least the strongest 1/2 of the students. In my experience the ones that use the whole time are rarely using it efficiently. They are either scrambling to write down everything they think they have ever heard me say in hopes that some fraction of it might be applicable to the question at hand, or they are staring at the ceiling hoping for some kind of inspiration. I have direct experience of a student "taking" four hours to complete a 55 minute exam (it did not go well).

There is always that one student who will have finished the exam, triple checked their answers, and still refuses to turn it in until the bitter end.  Why?!? 
Wouldn't they rather go for a walk, get a snack, not have to sit in the dreadfully uncomfortable lecture hall seats?
I want to say "the gods of knowledge are not going to bless you with divine inspiration in the next X minutes.  Just call it good enough.  Please."
The students who know they are going to fail typically just turn it in and leave.  It's the "My life will be RUINED if I don't get an A+" students that agonize.

Quote from: the_geneticist on November 03, 2022, 10:37:06 AM
There is always that one student who will have finished the exam, triple checked their answers, and still refuses to turn it in until the bitter end.  Why?!? 
Wouldn't they rather go for a walk, get a snack, not have to sit in the dreadfully uncomfortable lecture hall seats?
I want to say "the gods of knowledge are not going to bless you with divine inspiration in the next X minutes.  Just call it good enough.  Please."
The students who know they are going to fail typically just turn it in and leave.  It's the "My life will be RUINED if I don't get an A+" students that agonize.

Oh yes, here this is at least 10% of the class. I give a regular length exam during finals and still some students insist on staying for the full 3 hour exam block (we are required to give them 3 hours regardless).

Quote from: Mobius on November 01, 2022, 09:43:44 PM
What is the criteria for 1.5x normal time for tests compared to 2x? When folks say "evidence-based," I do not see evidence on a disability services website. You would think it would be helpful to post some literature on how accommodations help students, but I just don't see it at many institutions.

Came across this article, "Double Time? Examining Extended Testing Time Accommodations (ETTA) in Postsecondary Settings" that discussed how accommodations are not meeting student needs.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1153576

It's not always 1.5 or 2 times though. When I had a severe concussion in fourth year undergrad, and only two required classes to graduate, I had extra time, final  exams split into two parts, written in a private room (quiet location), and the exam on pale blue paper, as that's what my medical team and the accommodations staff deemed was most appropriate, and didn't burden the profs, they just had to decide where to split the exam (I had no access to my notes during the downtime between sections, and just rested with my eyes shut). I also got a private room with dim lighting.

Reducing cognitive load/managing cognitive time was important for concussion recovery and future health. Even daily activities were split into manageable chunks to avoid future problems. It's not one size fits all. Other people with other issues had different accommodations. Some just got private rooms. Some extra time. Some coloured paper. Some computer assist (either to write or to both read and write). One of my blind friends had very different accommodations from anyone else.

It may be difficult in other countries, but the three universities I've been at in Canada have very well educated, trained, accessibility staff, who know their stuff, work with the medical diagnosis, the student, the course requirements, and the course prof/instructor, to come up with accommodations that are fair, not burdensome on the prof/instructor, and meet the students' needs, as outlined by their medical team.

Sorry that happened to you, but very glad you got such good, appropriate care.

M.