{"id":4497,"date":"2023-06-20T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/?p=4497"},"modified":"2023-06-22T10:39:49","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T17:39:49","slug":"an-inclusive-time-saver-the-token-tracker-brings-structure-to-flexible-assignment-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/2023\/06\/20\/an-inclusive-time-saver-the-token-tracker-brings-structure-to-flexible-assignment-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inclusive Time-Saver: \u201cThe Token Tracker\u201d Brings Structure to Flexible Assignment Policies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This fall and winter I worked with two instructors from very different disciplines to achieve a common goal \u2013 making their courses inclusive through a flexible assignment policy. Both courses gave students opportunities to recover without penalty from what would otherwise be a setback \u2013 a late, missed, or low-scoring assignment. Flexible assignment policies aren\u2019t new, but instructors are now extending grace to students without the requirement to ask in advance, provide an excuse, or share official documentation, such as a doctor\u2019s note. Our collective pandemic experience has revealed the inequity of having the instructor adjudicate the validity of the excuse, as well as the impracticality of producing documentation on demand. (Can you readily access a doctor when you\u2019re too sick to work? If you could, wouldn\u2019t that take up time and energy you\u2019d rather use to complete the work itself?) Finally, as a third instructor commented to me, simply reading the traumatic narratives that students share voluntarily (let alone requiring <\/em>these excuses) implicates her in a form of voyeurism. Discomfort aside, students\u2019 entreaties take up time, requiring at least one exchange of emails, and that can fill up the inbox and prove hard to track over the course of the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an elegant fix, the courses I\u2019ve worked on explicitly state in their syllabi and assignments that no reason is required and that permission is granted automatically \u2013 eliminating the need for email back and forth and the inequitable requirement for justification. This policy fit the goals of both instructors \u2013 one who was interested in student retention in a difficult course, and the other who had implemented a labor-based grading approach to extend greater agency to 100-level, Gen Ed students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the instructors still needed a way to track the excused assignments. So what\u2019s clever and new (to me) about these courses is how the instructors and I executed the policy in our LMS \u2013 a graded Canvas quiz (in a 0% weighted assignment group<\/a> so as not to interfere with the final grade) that inquires only about the logistics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n