Description
Create assignments that allow you to offer flexibility to students about when they turn things in.
Learn
Techniques and Activities to help you explore this practice.
Student-Determined Deadlines
Look over the major assignments in your course and consider the timing of when they are introduced, how long students have to work on them, and when you typically have them due. Can you give students the option of choosing their own deadlines for some/all assignments?
- Worried about work all being turned in at once and overwhelming you with grading? Require students to choose their dates ahead of time and space them out reasonably.
- Worried about students not doing a good job working continuously towards a project, when they have freedom over when to turn it in? Create small milestones/checkin assignments that they have to turn in between the start and final chosen deadline. Make these low-stakes and easy to grade (P/NP).
Grace Periods and "Passes"
Build in grace periods that students can exercise during certain times of the term or “passes” that allow them to turn in chosen assignments lates, without receiving a penalty.
Class-Determined Deadlines
Rather than designing a complete course schedule at the onset, use some time during the first week or so of class to have a conversation about the schedule. Talk to students about the major work you have planned and how long you think/expect it will take them. Invite them to weigh in on deadlines and scheduling. Create a schedule that reflects student concerns and suggestions. Discuss collectively how you can help students hold themselves accountable to the schedule.
Connections to Equity
Providing flexibility with deadlines is a way that we can cultivate more equitable classrooms. Students who work full or part time, have children and families to take care of, and who have documented or undocumented disabilities; and first-generation students who don’t necessarily know that asking for extensions is even an option, are disproportionately punished by inflexible deadlines. Finding ways to provide flexibility benefits all students, but especially those who live more complicated lives.
Syllabus Rewrite
Take a stab at reworking your syllabus around the practice of flexible deadlines.
- Add a section called “Class Work” or “Projects” and include a brief description for each major assignment your students will be completing.
- Define a date range within which students submit each assignment.
- Add a section explaining how you plan to approach deadlines. How will students communicate their choices to you? Do they have to space deadlines out? What the the consequences if they miss their chosen deadline?
- If you include a course calendar in your syllabus, rework this to accommodate the more flexible deadline system.
OR
Keep it simple, and just add a section about deadlines in which you specifically address ways in which you are willing to be more flexible with your students (grace periods, deadline “passes”, deadline windows, etc.)
Explore
Online reading and resources to help dive deeper into this practice.
- Strong Instructional Practice: Flexibility with Deadlines, Metropolitan State University of Denver.
- Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again, Brenda Thomas, FacultyFocus.com
- It’s Time to Ditch Our Deadlines, Ellen Boucher, CHE.
Related Slipper-Camp Resources
Check out these PSU-specific resources generated by this spring's Slipper Camp.
Engage
A larger community of teachers and learners interested in this practice.
Discuss on Twitter
If you are active on Twitter, we encourage you to share your thought and ideas using the #ACEFramework hashtag and the #flexible hashtag to talk about this practice, in particular.
Join a Meeting
If you are interested in talking to people about the Adaptability value (for which Flexible Deadlines is an ACE-informed practice), we invite you to our hosted Zoom chats. Chats are scheduled this summer on the following dates:
- Thursday, June 18 from 1:00PM-2:00PM (EDT): Overview of the ACE Framework
- Thursday, June 25 from 1:00PM-2:00PM (EDT): Adaptability Practices
Submit Your Ideas
If you find yourself working this summer on a project or approach that uses Flexible Deadlines, we invite you to share what you’ve found or created, via the Submit Something button below. If you choose to publicly share your submission, it will immediately become available on this page in the Revisit section. (For particularly compelling submissions, we may also add this to the Explore section of this page.)
Hypothesize with Us
The online annotation tool, Hypothesis, is built into this Web site. Feel free to annotate this (or any page in the ACE Framework) with your own thoughts, critiques, questions, or ideas. You can easily get started with a Hypothesis account (which is free) and learn more about how to use the tool.
Join Our Team
Plymouth State University community members are invited to join our Teams site for the ACE Framework. Feel free to use our discussion channel to ask questions, give suggestions, and point to new resources.
Revisit
A space for user-submitted ideas, resources, and links related to this practice.
Helpful resource
- Submitted by: J. Sim
- Submitted on: July 25, 2020
- Submitted Link: Accessible Syllabus: Policy
- See “Expand Deadlines” and “Build Flexibility into Grading Distributions” for concrete ideas on how to implement flexible deadlines into your courses.
Flexibility in Context
- Submitted by: nathan theriault
- Submitted on: July 23, 2020
- My main concern with having flexible deadlines is that students may approach assignments with the idea that since they are due at (insert day/time), they can put them off until then, or they may assume that something due earlier is more important even when another assignment may be worth a larger portion of their overall grade. Flexibility, especially from what I’ve seen out of first year students, is a bit of a mixed bag. Some students excel only when they are given rigorous structures in place, others ache for the ability to have academic freedoms and to be spontaneous with how they complete their work. I guess I just have some reservations, and although I think I may just pick a specific day/time for everything to be due, I may just leave it up to the students themselves to decide on when each assignment should be do. This direction has issues of it’s own, but at least the students take some of the responsibility onto their own shoulders since they made the final decision.
Covid Finally Taught Me To Start With Compassion As An Instructor in My Courses
- Submitted by: MaryAnn McGarry
- Submitted on: July 19, 2020
- Submitted Link: Covid Finally Taught Me To Lead With Compassion As an Instructor
- Why was I suddenly convinced of the importance of having compassion as an instructor during Covid? Probably in large part because I needed compassion as an instructor as I learned to pivot suddenly and move my classes online. If my students would be compassionate with me, I would certainly be compassionate with them. The only unsettling factor is I had to lose my allegiance to our campuses’ “fair grading policy;” I couldn’t offer exceptions willy-nilly to any student who asked for an extension. Being consistent WAS a rule of my teaching, prior to Covid; now, fortunately, I have discovered higher priorities. During the summer of 2020, I am intentionally redesigning my courses to be prepared for the ongoing pandemic and whatever else this crazy world throws at us, (after all, I teach about Natural Hazards- volcanoes, earthquakes, forest fires and the many ways that mother nature can disrupt our lives). My takeaways can be found in my blog post on adaptability.
Flexible Deadlines in a Non-Flexible Field
- Submitted by: Pete Miller
- Submitted on: July 18, 2020
- I really like the idea of being flexible in order to give students some slack for all of the other things that they are dealing with in addition to schoolwork. However, in journalism, meeting deadlines is so critical to the entire enterprise. I want to emphasize meeting deadlines and if an individual student is not able to for a particular assignment, for s/he to connect with another student in their class cohort as a helping lifeline. This is what happens in my work all the time—a deadline has to be met and if I can’t do it, it’s still my responsibility to meet it even if it requires me to bring in co-workers as backup resources. I recognize that this is a reality for other fields as well (“the show must go on”). After reading other Submit Something posts I’m leaning toward adding limited grace periods or passes in addition to the requirement of passing the baton to fellow students. Trying to strike a balance that results in appreciation of the importance of meeting deadlines.
Deadlines…They need to be ready to adapt!
- Submitted by: Wendy Palmquist
- Submitted on: July 17, 2020
- I’ve never put a paragraph in the actual syllabus explaining what happens if you don’t submit something by the deadline, only told students who came with issues. Last semester there were many students with issues from the pandemic! This applies to all major assignments; I’ve had checking points before the final version of papers/projects are due, then a final due date. New paragraph for the syllabus: Deadlines: Due dates for all assignments are listed with the assignment. There is always a grace period, till the start of the next class after the due date; printers die, internet service fails, etc., so there is no penalty. If an assignment is still not done by that class, you need to meet with me, face to face, online, or by email, to explain the issues, and we will work out a timetable for completion. If I do not hear from you, I will email you. No explanation will lead to a lower grade on the assignment when it is turned in, again discussed in an email. We’ll see!
Flexible Deadlines
- Submitted by: Lynne Bates
- Submitted on: July 17, 2020
- Not sure if this is the right venue for this but…this is more of question for others rather than an exploration or resource. I have a couple of assignments within my course that I allow the students the entire semester to complete invariably a majority students wait until the end of the semester to complete them and then give feedback in the course survey that I shouldn’t have a number of assignments due at end of semester. What strategy would help with this?
