Considerations Related to Accommodating Students’ Requests for Flexibility
Faculty Perspective and Strategies
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McMurtrie, B. (2022, April 5). A ‘stunning’ level of student disconnection: Professors are reporting record numbers of students checked out, stressed out, and unsure of their future. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
If you are experiencing a higher than usual number of students who seem disconnected in your courses, this article might provide you with some useful insights into what’s happening with students across the country and how faculty, who may be feeling stressed themselves, are responding.
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Glazier, R. A., Wilson-Bates, T., Croyle, K., Isaacs, E., Hernandez, E. M., & Green, N. (2022, May 11). How to solve the student-disengagement crisis: Six experts diagnose the problem – and suggest ways to fix it.The Chronicle of Higher Education.
If you are experiencing a higher than usual number of students who seem disconnected in your courses, this article might provide you with some useful insights into what’s happening with students across the country and how faculty, who may be feeling stressed themselves, are responding.
- Gurung, R. A. R. (2022, February 16). Accommodating stress: Coping with student requests. Inside Higher Ed.
How can instructors be fair and responsive yet, at the same time, not be taken advantage of? - Else-Quest, N.; Sathy, V., & Hogan, K. A. (2022, January 18). How to give our students the grace we all need. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Six ways that faculty members can better support students without exhausting ourselves in the effort.
- El-Alayi, A., Hansen-Brown, A. A., & Ceynar, M. (2018). Dancing backwards in high heels: Female professors experience more work demands and special favor requests, particularly from academically entitled students. Sex Roles, 79(3), 136-150.
The results of this study indicated that academically entitled students (i.e., those who feel deserving of success in college regardless of effort/performance) had stronger expectations that a female (versus male) professor would grant their special favor requests.
- Jiang, L., Tripp, T. M., & Hong, P. Y. (2017). College instruction is not so stress free after all: A qualitative and quantitative study of academic entitlement, uncivil behaviors, and instructor strain and burnout.Stress and Health, 33(5), 578-589.
College instructors face a unique challenge: dealing with the requests from academically entitled students, who have unreasonable expectations of receiving academic success, regardless of performance. Strategies that target student uncivil behaviors may be more effective than targeting academically entitled beliefs. - Pittman, C. & Tobin, T. (2022, February 7). Academe has a lot to learn about how inclusive teaching affects instructors. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Many inclusive teaching strategies advocate for giving students a sense of ownership and assume that all instructors are perceived to have the same level of authority in classroom spaces. Two instructors share their different experiences and results from using inclusive teaching practices. They also offer practical recommendations for how to use inclusive teaching strategies in a way that acknowledges inequities faced by instructors.
- Warner, J. (2022, February 10). Stumbling toward inclusive teaching.Inside Higher Ed.
Every so often an article comes around that challenges your own assumptions in a way that cracks open the discussion, making space to reconsider what you thought you knew. That happened to me when reading Chavella Pittman and Thomas J. Tobin’s “Academe Has a Lot to Learn About How Inclusive Teaching Affects Instructors.”
Student Perspective
- Ezarik, M. (2022, February 17). Reading between the lines to support struggling students. Inside Higher Ed.
What higher ed educators and leaders need to know about how student identities and the traumas they’ve experienced in life relate to current challenges.
- Ezarik, M. (2022, February 2). Connecting with students by hearing their person stories. Inside Higher Ed.
Faculty, staff and administrative efforts to build trust can help make college students feel understood.
- Supiano, B. (2022, January 20). The attendance conundrum: Students find policies inconsistent and confusing. They have a point. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
For students, the past two years have shifted norms around what “going to class” could look like and what reasons for missing it make sense. But unless an overwhelming majority of professors adopt a more flexible approach, students are likely to remain confused and frustrated”
- Miller, A. C., & Mills, B. (2019). 'If They Don't Care, I Don't Care': Millennial and Generation Z Students and the Impact of Faculty Caring. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 19(4), 78-89.
Student motivation can be improved without a huge out-of-class time investment or “hand holding” on the part of faculty. Rather, utilizing adaptive teaching techniques and intentionally communicating that one cares if students learn can impact student motivation and engagement in their own learning process.