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Portfolio Part: Heavy Hand or Open Heart

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Heavy Hand or Open Heart

In the space below, brainstorm the MOST restrictive, oppressive course policies you can imagine. You can choose to frame these around a course you teach, or you can just come up with a list that could apply to any courses. Be as heavy-handed and authoritarian as you like; it’s okay if the rules you write make you uncomfortable.

Oppressive Course Policies

-No late work, no excuses -No revisions, all work submitted is final -No opportunity for extra help-students should be able to figure work out at this point in their educational careers -No absences, no excuses -No group work or collaboration, the course will be lecture based  

Oppressive Course Policies Reflection

I can certainly understand why prohibitive policies can be put into place. For one, it can be hard for professors to be chasing down absent students, late work, requests for resubmission, and a stream of requests for extra help. In addition, in a field that demands research and published work, professors need to guard their time and resources to meet all of the needs of their institution.

Referring back to the rules you wrote, now write the OPPOSITE of each of them in the space below. Reframe each rule by imagining what it would be if you tried to completely counteract its purpose.

Rewritten Course Policies

-Late work accepted and conversation welcomed. I want to know what obstacles you face to learning -Revisions welcomed-let’s learn as we revise -Extra help is generously offered-the goal is for students to feel empowered to learn and advocate for themselves -A limited number of absences is appropriate. Life can create challenges. Let’s discuss. -We can learn so much through a variety of lenses and experiences-let’s collaborate!

Rewritten Course Policies Reflection

On the flipside, we have to view students as whole people with different opportunities and challenges to learning. Our goal should be to empower our students to do their best learning, which may include some supportive scaffolding. Additionally, our students come to the classroom with a wide range on experiences, lenses, biases, backgrounds, and viewpoints, all of which are valuable in the learning process and add to a rich learning collective.

Reflect upon the experience of writing both sets. How did writing these rules make you feel? How were the two experiences different? In your own courses, are your policies more like one set or the other? Put yourself in the shoes of a student again, and re-read the rules. How do they feel now?

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