Two key governance decisions that were made
were optional attendance and soft deadlines. These decisions make this course
unique from other courses since most classes are on the opposite end of the
scale in these respects, including most other 400 level economics courses. These
rules had a huge impact on my behaviour as well as the class as a whole, but I
think there was one modification I would recommend which I will look at and explain
at the end of this post.
I think not requiring attendance is what
caused students to not show up for class. I personally prefer optional
attendance for this class since I am not a morning person can find course
materials through the course website but I think if attendance was required, it
would encourage students to come to class and when more students come to such a
class, it makes the class better since we can learn more about different
perspectives. I think a good example of this is voting procedures: In most
countries, voting for elections is not mandatory which means that people do not
have any inclination to vote if they are not bothered about politics or don’t
feel like they have to vote. However, as an Australian citizen, I know that
voting is mandatory and if I do not vote for elections, I will be given a fine
for not doing so. I know that some of my friends have still tried to remain informed
about politics despite not being interested in it, so that they can vote for
future elections.
However, since this class did not require
attendance and had soft deadlines, I did not feel as much stress due this
course compared to most other courses, especially major courses. Although students
should not feel extremely stressed, I think a bit of stress is always useful
since it encourages students to not procrastinate due to the consequences. I think
for the class as a whole, not requiring attendance is not necessarily a bad thing
since students can always go to class if they are struggling.
The second rule was that assignments had
soft deadlines. When I first realized that this class had this rule I was taken
aback because I had never heard of this, which is something that makes this
class unique. I think this rule had an advantage of giving students extra time
to work on their blog posts if they want to improve their posts. The soft
deadlines definitely impacted my behaviour since some of my posts were posted
after the deadline, but this usually was to improve my posts instead of due to procrastination.
While I don’t know how this affects the class as a whole, I doubt it is positive,
since it could encourage some students to procrastinate on deadlines and in
general be lethargic about meeting deadlines.
I think one thing I would change about this
course if I was the professor is to do with the soft deadlines. I think instead
of allowing students to submit late and still be graded throughout the course,
I would allow them a few chances, to avoid consistent late submissions. This
would also mean that as the professor, you would not have to keep wasting time
to check posts at multiple different times. Another way to combat this problem
could be by only allowing late submissions till a certain point, for example 24-36
hours after the initial due date. I think doing both of these would better
(than doing only one) since if you only integrated the second one, it would still
encourage students to submit it late every week which does not help them or the
professor. Implementing both would encourage students to not leave their posts to
the last minute whilst still giving them a bit of leniency and allowing them to
learn to be more a mature and responsible person.
Reading your post, I was surprised to learn that you are an Australian citizen. As I'm writing this comment, Banner is down, so I can't check that there. But it is news to me. I wonder if it matters for other things than considering attendance.
ReplyDeleteBecause I was a college student in the 1970s, I sometimes use that as a counterpart to the experiences that students talk about. Deadlines were hard then, no doubt, because all the work was done on a paper and turned in manually. Early in the semester, we talk about the the Paul David paper on QWERTY, and that some of our patterns in behavior persist, even after significant technological and cultural change.
It's different for class attendance. I don't recall any class having a mandatory attendance policy when I was a student. But mainly, students did go to class. I've heard current students talk about not being a morning person, but once they graduate and get a full time job, the employer will set the time to arrive at work. Will such students be able to make the adjustment?
There is a different factor at work that caused me not to modify the policy about soft deadlines (though I did say once when I was feeling overwhelmed that Sunday evening was it). This is the large number of students around campus who seem to have mental health issues. This is comparatively new, in terms of the magnitude of the problem. The question then is: what accommodations can an instructor make to take the pressure off students?
It seems to me that one other possibility is to change the difficulty level of the course. Making it harder might encourage students to come to class, if they thought that would help understanding how to do the homework. Making it easier might be a different way to reduce the pressure. I haven't entertained that dimension in my prior thinking, but I'd be be interested in your take of how to determine difficulty level of the material.
I think even for students who don't attend early morning classes getting used to arrive a work at a set time in the morning is not a difficult task. Over the last two summer breaks, I have had two internships: The first year my hours were 8 am to 5 pm and the second year my hours 10 am to 6 pm. I was usually at the office before the set time and rarely ever reached late. Thus, I think for other students as well, not being a morning person should not cause a problem if they have a set time at which they need to arrive at work.
DeleteFrom my experience, the biggest factor on how students perform in a class is how interesting and enjoyable they find the class. This class was very interesting to me not only because of the course content but also because it was unique from other classes. This is because the structure of the course focused less on assignments and more on understanding the content by using real life experiences to relate to the content.
Changing the difficulty could encourage students to come to class, but I don't think this will always be the case, since increasing the difficulty might discourage students if they find assignments to difficult. However, if this class is expected to continue in the long-run with the same/similar structure, I think this would be a good idea since students entering the class will typically take it due to interest for the course and will therefore learn more from it. On the other hand, I don't think making assignments easier will help since even though it reduces the pressure, it will reduce stress to the point that students may not take the class as seriously and may focus less on this class (by not attending classes, starting assignments late etc).