Accommodated students abusing their status

[Aster]

I have made nearly all of of my assessments longer, so that they automatically integrate either a 1.5x or 2.0x extra time allowance compatible with standard accommodation letter boilerplate. So long as I document this practice in writing on my course syllabus, disability services can't tell me that I have to allow certain folks to have extra, extra time on top of my already extra time.

Everybody regardless of their status gets extra time now. This removes a lot of time-consuming assessment customizations that I would normally have to deal with for any students with disability accommodations. Online assessments doubled. Quizzes at 1.5x. Some exams at 1.5x. In almost every case, time extensions are part of their generic letters.

Just this year, our disabilities office has started adding in a new flavor of accommodation. Extra long homework time. Currently the language is very vague and open-ended, advocating "flexibility" with due dates. But I'm waiting for the day when I'll see 2x homework extensions. I expect I'll see it soon.

And as a footnote, I can personally confirm found that giving people more time doesn't help their academic performance one bit. If it does anything at all, extra time just makes most people lazy so they don't prepare adequately, resulting in lower performance.

But with the rising flood of folks coming in requesting accommodations (which always include time extensions), it's not realistic for me or most professors I know to reduce assessment times as a stick to force better student preparation habits. One, because those disabilities students might actually need to extra time to read things, process things, write down things, etc... But second, because the rational basis for reducing assessment to improve academic performance is too complicated a concept for the casual non-educator to intuitively grasp. Indeed, reducing assessment time to improve academic performance is *counter-intuitive* for non-educators to grasp. Students (most all of them) would flip out. Parents would write nastygrams. The general public would complain on social media. Administration would not support you. Legislators would cut funding.

[onthefringe]

I have made nearly all of of my assessments longer, so that they automatically integrate either a 1.5x or 2.0x extra time allowance compatible with standard accommodation letter boilerplate. So long as I document this practice in writing on my course syllabus, disability services can't tell me that I have to allow certain folks to have extra, extra time on top of my already extra time.

Everybody regardless of their status gets extra time now. This removes a lot of time-consuming assessment customizations that I would normally have to deal with for any students with disability accommodations. Online assessments doubled. Quizzes at 1.5x. Some exams at 1.5x. In almost every case, time extensions are part of their generic letters.

This would never fly where I am for exam/quiz type assessments regardless of what I wrote in my syllabus. If all students are potentially allowed to take 3 hours, then time and a half students get 4.5, even if I claim the assessment should only take 30 minutes.

The only thing I can get away with not giving 1.5 time for are low stakes, in class activities that are graded essentially on being present and making an effort.

We have gotten support pushing back on extended time for (for example) weekly problem sets, based on the fact that they are self scheduled by the students, and they can take all the time they want during the week to complete them.

Our up and coming accommodation conflict is going to be the increasing requests for "flexible due dates and attendance" for students with a condition that may "flare" unexpectedly. We have been told that using class policies like "everyone gets to drop two assignments" can NOT be used for accommodations, because that opportunity is open to everyone.

And as a footnote, I can personally confirm found that giving people more time doesn't help their academic performance one bit. If it does anything at all, extra time just makes most people lazy so they don't prepare adequately, resulting in lower performance.

As a dueling anecdote, I have seen numerous students have assessment scores that go up 10-20% when their paperwork goes through in the middle of the semester and they start taking exams with extra time at disability services. I think that for many fields, high pressure, timed assessments are an artificial construct that selects for a certain type of person with a specific kind of learning and thought process. Especially for analytical question, I see lots of students who can't necessarily see the pattern in the data until they poke at it for a while, but given that time, they do fine.

[dr_codex]

I would also not be able to get away with saying that extra time was already "baked into" an exam. I usually explain to students something along the lines that I've designed an exam to be completed in 2 hours, but that they have up to 3 if they like. This reduces stress, and helps to establish my expectations. But students who get extra time still get extra time. This is rough on students with double time: 3-hour exams become six, and writing two in a day means at least a 13-hour day.

The most inconvenient, for me, are short quizzes done in class. If I give them at the end, accommodated students need to stay later, which can cause all kinds of scheduling conflicts. If I give them at the start, I'm usually waiting for everybody to finish before reconvening, often to discuss the results of the quiz; in that case, accommodated students have to keep going/leave the room/miss the start of the class session. The only recourse would be using a testing center, but that often defeats the point of the quiz -- e.g., did you get this doing the homework? Did you understand this concept from the lecture? Did your group actually do what it was supposed to?

Yes, I can work around all this, but it's hard to do so in a way that's fair to everybody.

[hamburger]

Hamburger, have you considered saying no to the student requests and just holding firm until a dean tells you otherwise?

Yes, some students just continue to bother me. Some of them told me that they are international students and have paid a lot of money to take my course... Others just complained to higher up and at the end, I had to bend the rules for the convenience of the students.

[downer]

Hamburger, have you considered saying no to the student requests and just holding firm until a dean tells you otherwise?

Yes, some students just continue to bother me. Some of them told me that they are international students and have paid a lot of money to take my course... Others just complained to higher up and at the end, I had to bend the rules for the convenience of the students.

Hamburger, you are just pulling our chain, right?

[Ruralguy]

A better idea is to build into the rules the exceptions that you tend to see. Just have some stated percentage off for late work, or whatever.

That is, don't create rules that have you dealing with complaints every day, and then have your bosses telling you that you have to do X. Have them help you craft a syllabus that takes this crud into account from the beginning.

[Caracal]

A better idea is to build into the rules the exceptions that you tend to see. Just have some stated percentage off for late work, or whatever.

That is, don't create rules that have you dealing with complaints every day, and then have your bosses telling you that you have to do X. Have them help you craft a syllabus that takes this crud into account from the beginning.

Indeed, if Hamburger isn't a weird performance art project, the whole thing is an example of how not to craft a course.

1. Have strict requirements that certain things be done or students will fail

2. Don't build in any give into the system by allowing students to drop a lab or two.

3. Have no clear policies about when exceptions will be given.

Basically every time a student misses some deadline they risk failing, unless they get an exception and every exception has to be decided on a case by case basis. Of course this is generating lots of complaints.

[hamburger]

When I am given a course to teach, the school provides a syllabus which has those rules and score distributions written and approved by the department head. I just follow those rules. Since the school likes to bend the rules to retain students and to avoid complaints, they should just eliminate those extra rules.

[Aster]

I have made nearly all of of my assessments longer, so that they automatically integrate either a 1.5x or 2.0x extra time allowance compatible with standard accommodation letter boilerplate. So long as I document this practice in writing on my course syllabus, disability services can't tell me that I have to allow certain folks to have extra, extra time on top of my already extra time.

Everybody regardless of their status gets extra time now. This removes a lot of time-consuming assessment customizations that I would normally have to deal with for any students with disability accommodations. Online assessments doubled. Quizzes at 1.5x. Some exams at 1.5x. In almost every case, time extensions are part of their generic letters.

This would never fly where I am for exam/quiz type assessments regardless of what I wrote in my syllabus. If all students are potentially allowed to take 3 hours, then time and a half students get 4.5, even if I claim the assessment should only take 30 minutes.

The only thing I can get away with not giving 1.5 time for are low stakes, in class activities that are graded essentially on being present and making an effort.

We have gotten support pushing back on extended time for (for example) weekly problem sets, based on the fact that they are self scheduled by the students, and they can take all the time they want during the week to complete them.

Our up and coming accommodation conflict is going to be the increasing requests for "flexible due dates and attendance" for students with a condition that may "flare" unexpectedly. We have been told that using class policies like "everyone gets to drop two assignments" can NOT be used for accommodations, because that opportunity is open to everyone.

That is one dicky accommodations office, the kind that give disability services in Higher Ed a bad name. They are clue-bat idiots if they think so stupidly about what an accommodation is. No, accommodations do not have to be special things that only students with disabilities can get. A professor can give accommodations out to anybody, hell they can give them out to the whole class if they want to. Accommodations are not intended (nor ever intended) to be "bonus" options giving out special perks to selected students. Accommodations exist to allow alternative curriculum and assessment choices for students who may have conditions that preclude their equal engagement in content. That's all that accommodation is. It's exactly the same as putting an ADA-compliant ramp into the entrance to a building. That ramp is not the exclusive right to people needing that ramp. Anyone can use that ramp. The ramp was put in as alternative way of getting into the building, that helps out a certain subset of folks needing that ramp. If other people want to use that option, that's fine.

But I'm not going to have an ADA compliance officer come over and say "build another ramp, this one doesn't count because non-handicapped people can use it". Because that would be a nonsensical statement.

Disabilities Staffer: "Give this student more time, everyone else has extra time so this student is entitled to more". That's the exact same type of stupid.

[Caracal]

When I am given a course to teach, the school provides a syllabus which has those rules and score distributions written and approved by the department head. I just follow those rules. Since the school likes to bend the rules to retain students and to avoid complaints, they should just eliminate those extra rules.

How common is this anyway? I teach mostly intro courses, and I have complete control of everything about the syllabus. I wouldn't be particularly interested in teaching a class that I didn't have any control over.

That's what you are doing though, so why complain about it? If someone wants to submit a lab late, just allow it. If they turn it in before the semester ends, grade it and be done with it. If its a bad idea, it isn't your bad idea, so why waste time grumbling about it?

[Aster]

When I am given a course to teach, the school provides a syllabus which has those rules and score distributions written and approved by the department head. I just follow those rules. Since the school likes to bend the rules to retain students and to avoid complaints, they should just eliminate those extra rules.

How common is this anyway? I teach mostly intro courses, and I have complete control of everything about the syllabus. I wouldn't be particularly interested in teaching a class that I didn't have any control over.

It is unfortunately far more common that it should be. The phenomenon appears heavily correlated with institutions possessing lots of non-tenured instructors and multi-section courses. It seems to be really pervasive at many of the for-profit/fake not-for-profit colleges.

I have seen VAP's, adjuncts, lecturers, and new professors micromanaged by other professors. It has been done to some of my friends. While a VAP myself, other professors have *tried* to micromanage my courses. Some of my adjuncts have reported not having control of their grading systems or curriculum plans at other places that they work at. What really ticks me off is when I hear that the people doing the micromanaging don't even teach the course themselves anymore.

One of my colleagues at Big Urban College also practices this unfortunately. He directs a course type that only he and several adjuncts teach in. While a very effective educator in his own right, he has gotten it into his head that "his way" is the "right way" to how the course should be run. Consequently, he makes all of the adjuncts follow his grading system, use all of his teaching resources, model their assessment closely after his, etc...
The upside of this is that there aren't any sloppy professors for that course.
The downside of this is the other professors are basically no more than TA's with little control to innovate on their own. Weirdly, most all of these adjuncts prefer this situation because it greatly simplifies their workloads. Everything is in a can for them and all they have to do is show up and be a good little factory worker. Barf.

Situations like these are powerful arguments against having contingent and adjunct faculty. Without equal rights in Shared Governance and Academic Freedom, they are far more susceptible to being abused by administrators, students, and even other faculty. Even if the other faculty are "good intentioned", it shouldn't be those faculty's decision to micromanage others.

[Caracal]

Situations like these are powerful arguments against having contingent and adjunct faculty. Without equal rights in Shared Governance and Academic Freedom, they are far more susceptible to being abused by administrators, students, and even other faculty. Even if the other faculty are "good intentioned", it shouldn't be those faculty's decision to micromanage others.

It is also generally a bad idea for instructors to have to enforce policies not of their own making. A lot of my rules on late work, absences and the like are designed around the way I like to interact with students and the sort of penalties I'm comfortable with enforcing. I'd get frustrated with my students pretty quickly if I was supposed to be evaluating their doctors notes to see if they could turn in a paper late. I'm sure plenty of people would be driven crazy by how much I don't really care about giving extensions if they had to adapt those policies.

[mythbuster]

It sounds to me like hamburger is teaching labs. For labs, which may be taught by an assortment of regular faculty, grad students, and adjuncts all in the same semster we do have a common syllabus. But, these are usually written in such a way that the instructor should not need to give exceptions other than in extreme cases. This either is a case of a poorly written set of policies, or hamburger is  interpreting them overly harshly or incorrectly. Based on other posts, I do get the sense that the latter may be part of the issue.

[Caracal]

That is one dicky accommodations office, the kind that give disability services in Higher Ed a bad name. They are clue-bat idiots if they think so stupidly about what an accommodation is. No, accommodations do not have to be special things that only students with disabilities can get. A professor can give accommodations out to anybody, hell they can give them out to the whole class if they want to. Accommodations are not intended (nor ever intended) to be "bonus" options giving out special perks to selected students. Accommodations exist to allow alternative curriculum and assessment choices for students who may have conditions that preclude their equal engagement in content. That's all that accommodation is. It's exactly the same as putting an ADA-compliant ramp into the entrance to a building. That ramp is not the exclusive right to people needing that ramp. Anyone can use that ramp. The ramp was put in as alternative way of getting into the building, that helps out a certain subset of folks needing that ramp. If other people want to use that option, that's fine.

To extend that example, the great thing about the ramp is that nobody needs to justify their use of it, or deal with any kind of bureaucracy to get the right to use it. That means that far more people can get the benefits from the ramp. Those benefits are tied to the non exclusive nature of it. The reason someone who sprained their ankle earlier that day can use the ramp is because people who enjoy walking up ramps for no reason at all can also make use of it. Exclusivity of availability actually makes the benefit worse. It would be a lot better if a person who had hurt their back 20 minutes before could use the handicapped parking space, it just doesn't work logistically.

The nice thing about flexible deadlines or policies that allow a certain number of assignments to be dropped is that a student doesn't have to be registered with disability services to take advantage of them. I give out extensions whenever it is feasible and I tell students that. If someone has a sudden spike in anxiety and they have trouble getting something done by the deadline, they can have an extension and they don't have to add dealing with disability services to their list of things to do. I'd add that it also might make things more fair since students with fewer resources are less likely to have disabilities diagnosed.

[hamburger]

I am talking about students in general, not those accommodated ones. Why busy professors, especially part-timers who have been abused by the school, have to waste time to do extra things for the convenience of the students? If students cannot manage time and get the work done, then they should get the marks they deserve. In the real world, people are not going to give them extension over and over again.

I had a student coming to talk to me this week. I did not even recognize him. He told me that he missed a quiz and asked me to let him to take a quiz. I told him that all the answers have already been out. I asked him if he wanted me to use my time to create a new set of questions just for him. He said yes. A few other students came to me asking me why they got a zero in the first quiz or in the first lab which happened in September. They said that they were there but there is no evident at all that they showed up. Some students like to play memory game.