Make-It Monday -- Instructor Policies
Maintaining Academic Rigor and Standards
A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.
No matter what courses you teach or through what modality
you teach them, one document guides your practice – Instructor Policies. In
this document, you get to lay down the laws for the classrooms over which you
preside. For some faculty and institutions, Instructor Policies are included
within the Course Syllabus document. For others, the Instructor Policies stand
alone as a separate file. Either way, this written expression of your rules of
educational engagement is individually yours and is vitally important to the
function and effectiveness of your courses. So, today we will discuss the
creation and updating of these important boundaries.
The guidelines and boundaries you impose are usually
strictly up to you and the way you prefer to run your classrooms. If you have
adopted the policies of your mentors, now is the time to review and revise them
to your own liking. At least seven items need to be addressed within your
policies document:
- Class Participation/Attendance
- Withdrawals/Incompletes
- Late Submissions/Make-up Work
- Plagiarism
- Teamwork/Group Projects
- Student Conduct
- Instructor Availability
Especially important in online courses, instructor
communication information should be easily accessible, with times of
availability detailed and contact preferences outlined.
For example, in addition to creating a Teacher Chat area in
the Discussion Forum of the classrooms for questions and concerns, I provide my
institutional email address, as well as a personal email address in the event
of server issues or online learning system maintenance. While I make students aware
that I do not hold regular office hours on campus, I do publish my hours of
availability and my mobile number for their convenience and allow them to text
or call with any issues they may have. This has worked wonderfully in alieving
student stress, especially at the beginning of the term. Providing a time-frame
within which you will respond (such as 24 hours) will also ease student
anxiety.
Some online educators I know use Skype or FaceTime for
synchronous face-to-face conversations with students and specify times they
will be available via IM for online conversations. Both of these ideas are
super additions to any online course!
Three best
practice strategies suggested by the Faculty Focus Special Report: 11 Strategies for Managing Online Courses:
- “Err on the side of overexplaining versus underexplaining your expectations” (p. 4).
- “Where possible, provide hyperlinks to the institution’s Web pages that give further support to the policies you have stated” (p. 4).
- “We recommend that students take an online quiz addressing syllabus content” (p. 6).
Over the
years I have developed an Orientation Jeopardy game for use in face-to-face
classes, as well as a virtual scavenger hunt, rather than a quiz, for my online
courses in order to ensure student understanding of course policies.
Inevitably, students will push against your policies and
negotiate for changes. However, if these are the rules of student engagement
you believe in, be sure to stand by them. The administrators above you can
support your actions as long as you follow your published policies. Once you
stray from them for even one student, you open yourself up to having the whole
document questioned. So, be clear, be strict, and be fair. After all, students
will respect your rules and boundaries when you do.
Please lend your voice to our survey for online and blended-ed adjuncts,
and join me tomorrow for Tech and Tips Tuesday when we explore the value and
creation of rubrics.
See you then,
Melynda
#TCBHigherEd
Reference:
Faculty Focus. (n.d.) Special
report: 11 Strategies for managing online courses. Magna Publications:
Madison. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/wp-content/uploads/images/report-11-strategies-for-managing-online-courses1.pdf
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