Adjusting Class Policies amid a Pandemic: How Lessons Learned During COVID-19 Can Help Faculty Prepare for Other Institution-Wide Crises
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.7Keywords:
classroom policies, COVID-19, pedagogical adjustmentsAbstract
Research consistently suggests that student learning is maximized when faculty balance stringency and leniency in their classroom policies. However, the COVID-19 crisis raised an important question: In the face of a wide-scale crisis, should faculty instead adopt forgiving policies? This study uses interview data with 43 university faculty across the United States to examine policy adjustments made in response to COVID-19, as well as the impact faculty felt those adjustments had on course learning objectives. Results suggest that even amid a wide-scale crisis, balancing leniency and stringency offers benefits to both students and instructors. Implications for future crisis-response and crisis-preparedness are also discussed.
Click here to read the corresponding ISSOTL blog post.
Metrics
References
Ahmed, Vian, and Alex Opoku. 2022. “Technology Supported Learning and Pedagogy in Times of Crisis: The Case of the COVID‑19 Pandemic.” Education and Information Technologies 27: 365–405. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10706-w.
Bosch, Brandon. 2020. “Adjusting the Late Policy: Using Smaller Intervals for Grading Deductions.” College Teaching 68: 103–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2020.1753644.
Campana, Kristie, and Jamie Peterson. 2013. “Do Bosses Give Extra Credit? Using the Classroom to Model Real-World Work Experiences.” College Teaching 61: 60–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2012.736885.
Charmaz, Kathy. 2014. Constructing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.
Cook, Susan, and Karen Krupar. 2010. “Life Ate My Homework.” Academe 96: 33–4.
Credé, Marcus, Sylvia G. Roch, and Urszula M. Kieszczynka. 2010. “Class Attendance in College: A Meta-analytic Review of the Relationship of Class Attendance with Grades and Student Characteristics.” Review of Educational Research 80: 272–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0034654310362998.
Creswell, John. 1998. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Denzin, Norman, and Yvonna Lincoln. 1998. Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Dickson, Martina, and Lilly Tennant. 2017. “‘The Accommodation I Make is Turning a Blind Eye’: Faculty Support for Student Mothers in Higher Education.” Studies in Continuing Education 40: 76–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2017.1392296.
Duplaga, Edward, and Marzie Astani. 2010. “An Exploratory Study of Student Perceptions of Which Classroom Policies Are Fairest.” Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education 8: 9–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4609.2009.00241.x.
Flaherty, Colleen. 2020. “Grading for a Pandemic.” Inside HigherEd. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/23/how-lenient-or-not-should-professors-be-students-right-now.
Forthun, Larry, and Jeffrey McCombie. 2011. “The Efficacy of Crisis Intervention Training for Educators: A Preliminary Study from the United States.” Professional Development in Education 37: 39–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2010.497005.
Foucault Welles, Brooke [@foucaultwelles]. 2021. Faculty Friends, We are 12 Months into a Pandemic [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/foucaultwelles/status/1369336812045557770.
Fouche, Ilse, and Grant Andrews. 2022. “‘Working from Home is One Major Disaster’: An Analysis of Student Feedback at a South African University during the Covid-19 Lockdown.” Education and Information Technologies 27: 133–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10652-7.
Gelles, Laura, Susan Lord, Gordon Hoople, Diane Chen, and Joel Mejia. 2020. “Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19.” Education Sciences 10: 304. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/educsci10110304.
Goings, Ramon. 2020. “Tips during COVID-19 for Professors to Support Students.” Interfolio Retrieved from https://www.interfolio.com/resources/blog/tips-during-covid-19-for-professors-to-support-students/.
Guzzardo, Mariana, Nidhi Khosla, Annis Adams, Jeffra Bussmann, Alina Engelman, Natalie Ingraham, Ryan Gamba, et al. 2021. “‘The Ones that Care Make all the Difference’: Perspectives on Student-Faculty Relationships.” Innovative Higher Education 46: 41–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-020-09522-w.
Jenkins, Rob. 2015. “Retention in the Trenches: What Can You Do in Your Own Classroom to Keep Students on Track?” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Retention-in-the-Trenches/230211/.
Krause, Steve. 2020. “No One Should Fail a Class Because of a Fucking Pandemic.” Retrieved from http://stevendkrause.com/2020/04/06/no-one-should-fail-a-class-because-of-a-fucking-pandemic/.
Liu, Brooke Fisher, JungKyu Rhys Lim, Duli Shi, America Edwards, Khairul Islam, Ronisha Sheppard, and Matthew Seeger. 2021. “Evolving Best Practices in Crisis Communication: Examining U.S. Higher Education’s Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research 4: 451–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.30658/jicrcr.4.3.1.
Lucas, Frances, and Brit Katz. 2011. “Gone with the Wind? Integrity and Hurricane Katrina.” New Directions for Student Services 135: 89–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ss.407.
Moen, David, Thomas Davies, and De Vee Dykstra. 2010. “Student Perceptions of Instructor Classroom Management Practices.” College Teaching Methods and Styles Journal 6: 21–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.19030/ctms.v6i1.5517.
Murphy, Stephen A., Jeff Brown, Arti Shankar, and Maureen Lichtveld. 2019. “A Quantitative Assessment of Institutions of Higher Education Disaster Preparedness and Resilience.” Journal of Emergency Management 17: 239–56.
Pollak, Micah, and David Parnell. 2018. “An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Course Meeting Frequency, Attendance and Performance.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 18(3): 132–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v18i3.23752.
Ragin, Charles. 1982. “Comparative Sociology and the Comparative Method.” In Comparative Sociological Research in the 1960s and 1970s. Eds. J. Armer and R. Marsh. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishing.
Ray, Beverly, and Martha Hocutt. 2016. “Learning from and Teaching About Disaster: The Case of the April 2011 Tornado Outbreak.” American Secondary Education 44: 66–84.
Retta, Mary. 2020. “How Colleges are Grading Students during Coronavirus.” NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/830622398/how-colleges-are-grading-students-during-coronavirus.
Saige [@saigedara]. 2020. @UofMaryland I Simply Asked my Prof for a Few Days Extension [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/saigedara/status/1255475854530011138.
Sawchuk, Stephen. 2020. “Grading Students during the Coronavirus Crisis: What’s the Right Call?” Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/grading-students-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-whats-the-right-call/2020/04.
Schmidt, Peter. 2016. “What It’s Like to Lead a College’s Response to Disaster.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 62: 1.
Sherwood, Dee, Karen VanDeusen, Bridget Weller, and Jessica Gladden. 2021. “Teaching Trauma Content Online During COVID-19: A Trauma-Informed and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.” Journal of Social Work Education 57: 99–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2021.1916665.
Shmis, Tigran, Alina Sava, Janssen Teixeira, and Harry Patrinos. 2020. Response to Covid-19 in Europe and Central Asia. Retrieved from https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/862141592835804882-0090022020/original/ECAEducationResponseNotev9final.pdf.
Snyder, Jason, and Lisa Frank. 2016. “Attendance Policies, Instructor Communication, Student Attendance, and Learning.” Journal of Education for Business 91: 108–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2015.1128383.
Soni, Yatti. 2020. “As Higher Education Goes Online, Professors Struggle in Adapting to the Digital.” Inc42. Retrieved from https://inc42.com/features/as-higher-education-goes-online-professors-struggle-in-adapting-to-the-digital/.
Sparkman-Key, Narketta, Tammi Dice, and Alexandra Gantt. 2021. “Institutional Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Faculty and Administrator Experiences.” Current Issues in Education 22: 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol22iss3.1993.
Strauss, Anselm, and Juliet Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Supiano, Beckie. 2020. “Pandemic Pedagogy and the Limits of Compassion.” Retrieved from https://www.csulb.edu/faculty-center/pandemic-pedagogy-and-the-limits-of-compassion.
Tyler, Jeramey, Matthew Peveler, and Barbara Cutler. 2017. “A Flexible Late Day Policy Reduces Stress and Improves Learning.” SIGCSE 17: 8–11.
Whitt, Ryan. 2020. “‘Life is Hard’: Students, Professors Adjust Learning to Pandemic Stressors.” Kentucky Kernel. Retrieved from https://kykernel.com/15845/news/life-is-hard-students-professors-adjust-learning-to-pandemic-stressors/.
Zhu, Liugen, Edgar Huang, Joseph Defazio, Sara Hook. 2019. “Impact of the Stringency of Attendance Policies on Class Attendance/Participation and Course Grades.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 19 (2): 130–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v19i1.23717.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Mellisa Holtzman, Ellen Whitehead, Ayrlia Welch
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
