Two of the greatest challenges during the pandemic have been addressing academic integrity issues and student accommodations, particularly as these both greatly influence equity and inclusion in the classroom. It is worth faculty (and departments) reflecting on these experiences and using them to challenge a range of principles that are generally taken as fundamental, but in fact, do not necessarily connect to student learning or a student centered approach. These questions are designed to help faculty and departments reflect on the issues, with additional resources at the end of the document.
Academic integrity can be a major administrative time-sink in many units. Though it is clear that academic integrity is an important ideal for students to practice, it is unclear whether faculty should spend significant time enforcing academic integrity versus teaching about academic integrity while minimizing opportunities for academic dishonesty.
- Have I developed new assessment strategies during the pandemic that minimize the questions of academic integrity and can be utilized moving forward?
- Have I developed a grading scheme that decreases negative impacts of cheating on other students?
- Have I leveraged campus resources to ensure students are educated on academic integrity?
- Have I changed my philosophy on academic integrity in relation to student learning and equity?
Recognizing that many activities have a strong pedagogical value, we often require specific aspects of the course. However, there is also growing evidence of the pedagogical value of flexible pathways through a course and recognizing our students face varying challenges outside of the classroom while also being capable of learning in a number of ways.
- Why should this particular activity be required?
- Examples of potentially required activities include but are not limited to: (1) group work as it only makes sense if all members of the group participate and (2) heavily discussion based elements of a course require being present for the discussion.
- Is this activity primarily about learning, and if so, are there other opportunities for learning this material?
- Is this activity primarily about assessment, and if so, are there other opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning?
There can be significant administrative overhead as students have a range of requests and accommodations for everything from health issues, personal issues, athletic events, academic events, etc. These can often conflict with the required elements of the course.
- It is often viewed that having strict deadlines are inherently a good thing because they are “fair”, but if grades are not a limited resource within a class and are instead a means to illustrate learning across the full 10 weeks, what, if any, deadlines need to be strict?
- Deadlines are useful because of general human behavior, how can policies be designed to both recognize their value and provide a level of flexibility for unforeseen events?
- Student and faculty time and stress can be saved if more of the decision-making power is given to students. For example, if students can “miss a certain amount of work” and “be late a certain amount” without need to justify or provide evidence, it allows the student more self-efficacy, and the faculty does not need to judge which events are “worthy” of exceptions. How might this work within your existing course structure and the nature of activities in your class?
Resources
Students do not always know which activities lead to learning, this can guide what is required or not: Deslauriers, McCarty, Miller, Callaghan, Kestin. (2019). Measuring Actual Learning Versus Feeling of Learning in Response to Being Actively Engaged in the Classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(39): 19251-19257.