exams for students with disabilities

[Puget]

Same here. Timed assessments get extra time (midterms, in-class quizzes, etc).  Assignments students complete in class with no hard time limit (clicker questions, lab worksheets) or outside of class with no timer don't get extra time.  Basically, if you can reasonably say "this task should take X minutes, you have N days to complete it", then there is not limit on how long the student takes to do the task.  How they manage their time is up to the student.

Likewise, extended time here only applies to timed assessments, not assignments. Some students do have also have a "limited extensions" accommodation where they can get an extra day or two if they ask in advance -- we are supposed to alert the accommodations office if they seem to be using it excessively or inappropriately. I do have mixed feelings about that one -- for students with health conditions that can flare unexpectedly (e.g., migraines) it makes total sense that they would sometimes need a short extension. But for students who are already having trouble managing their time (e.g., ADHD) I thin it is pretty counter productive and can lead them to fall further and further behind. So like all accommodations, it really depends how it is used and for whom.

[marshwiggle]

We're required to give time and a half at a minimum for accommodations regardless of how much time students are given to complete even low-stakes assignments. I had a student in an online course complain to the Disability office that the weekly low stakes assignment that would be posted on Monday and due the following Friday wasn't in compliance with her accommodations so I had to post these assignments extra early for her or give her extra time (time and a half) because of her disability. I also had to excuse her from submitting revised drafts and peer reviews as there were only so many days in the semester, so giving her the extra time and a half for each assignment would have resulted in her needing half of the following semester to complete her assignments. As far as the Disability office was concerned, they made sure to let faculty know that they had the upper hand, regardless of the harm to the students who were always behind.

The obvious, and least disruptive, option for the "time and a half" accommodation, (and others like it), would be to have students simply spread their courses over more terms. If two semesters' worth of courses for "ordinary" students were spread over three semesters, students would automatically have 50% more time to devote to each course. A degree would nominally require 6 years instead of 4, but in most situations that wouldn't matter to employers or graduate programs, and then there wouldn't be course-level adjustments all over the place that potentially raise questions about how this student's performance compares with others.

ETA: I've heard it discussed already at my institution; i.e. the idea of limiting the number of courses a struggling student could take in a subsequent term. It makes a lot of sense. For that reason, it may not happen.

[fizzycist]

We're required to give time and a half at a minimum for accommodations regardless of how much time students are given to complete even low-stakes assignments. I had a student in an online course complain to the Disability office that the weekly low stakes assignment that would be posted on Monday and due the following Friday wasn't in compliance with her accommodations so I had to post these assignments extra early for her or give her extra time (time and a half) because of her disability. I also had to excuse her from submitting revised drafts and peer reviews as there were only so many days in the semester, so giving her the extra time and a half for each assignment would have resulted in her needing half of the following semester to complete her assignments. As far as the Disability office was concerned, they made sure to let faculty know that they had the upper hand, regardless of the harm to the students who were always behind.

The obvious, and least disruptive, option for the "time and a half" accommodation, (and others like it), would be to have students simply spread their courses over more terms. If two semesters' worth of courses for "ordinary" students were spread over three semesters, students would automatically have 50% more time to devote to each course. A degree would nominally require 6 years instead of 4, but in most situations that wouldn't matter to employers or graduate programs, and then there wouldn't be course-level adjustments all over the place that potentially raise questions about how this student's performance compares with others.

ETA: I've heard it discussed already at my institution; i.e. the idea of limiting the number of courses a struggling student could take in a subsequent term. It makes a lot of sense. For that reason, it may not happen.

That sort of thing is basically what happens here and it is very unpopular due to the financial and career cost to students. The trend, of course, is to therefore remove content and rigor from the major to minimize this. All that already happened, which is why an additional 20+% and growing students who are eligible for further accomodations gives one pause.

I suppose in the limit you are concerned with Marsh, we could then offer an accelerated path for the "gifted and abled". This is, of course, the path our K-12 system has taken (beginning in early elementary over here!). I dislike it philosophically and think it would practically be a disaster here--imagine the tuition and faculty salary costs it would take to double up on all our classes.