Ok, so I'm talking too much on his post. My apologies.
The link Jim shares is interesting. I've taken the liberty of cutting and
pasting part of it, containing a quote from the University of Western
Ontario's policy on accommodations:
The policy put forward by the Senate Committee on Academic Policy and
Admissions emphasizes the obligation of the University to provide "reasonable
academic accommodation to students with disabilities where the accommodation
can be implemented without compromising the academic integrity of the
academic course or program."
The article itself quotes members of the faculty (a psych prof, actually)
who express concern over the subjectivity of this statement, although they
concede that mentioning the academic integrity issue is better than nothing.
I have heard students complain that other students receive accommodations
due to disabilities, etc. (of course, I hear that when I allow a makeup
exam to someone whose family is wiped out due to the plague, so go figure).
I guess the question becomes how fair is fair? When does trying to be fair
to one subgroup compromise the fairness to others?
Ah, I'm getting too sociophilosophical. It's time to give up and go have
lunch....
David W.
At 10:33 AM 1/11/01 -0600, jim clark wrote:
>Hi
>
>On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, David Wasieleski, Ph. D. wrote:
> > Finally, to anticipate the questions of some list members (and you know
> who
> > you are), I actually believe that as much as possible, students should not
> > be overly burdened by time contraints on exams, and noise issues, etc.
> That
> > is, exams and assignments should be given in an atmosphere that maximizes
> > the students' chances of giving their optimal performance.
>
>I believe that time constraints are valid when one wants to
>assess how well students have learned the material, as opposed to
>how students might be able to perform under ideal circumstances
>with unlimited time and all kinds of supplementary aids
>available. The speed with which students can answer questions in
>part will reflect how good a schema they have developed for the
>material. In a statistics test, for example, some students will
>use much time (a) trying to decide what test is appropriate for
>the question, (b) calculating quantities that are irrelevant or
>at least incidental to the question, and (c) trying to figure out
>how to use their calculators. The first two for sure are an
>indication of their understanding of the material.
>
>My compromise is to have large assignments that are done outside
>class with unlimited time and access to much materials, often
>with students working in groups, although with unique datasets.
>These are not worth very much, despite the considerable time they
>take (e.g., 6% each for 6 assignments over the year). Their
>primary purpose is to encourage (force?) students to engage in
>the kind of activity necessary for most of them to learn the
>material. The tests at the end of each term (25% each) are
>performed under tight time constraints, with only the help of a
>formula sheet. This allows me to determine how well students
>have learned the material.
>
>Although I have never done anything about it, I do worry about
>the extra time allowed some students, as noted by Stephen in the
>original posting. Irrespective of its legitimacy, the granting
>of extra time in essence circumvents one important (to me) aspect
>of the evaluation. The issue is further complicated by possible
>conceptual and practical difficulties in the whole area of
>learning disabilities. There has been some debate on this topic
>in Canadian universities, but I have not followed it closely.
>Here is a link to a short comment from U of Western Ontario, for
>example.
>
>http://comms.uwo.ca/wnews/issues/1999/may/27/disabilities.htm
>
>Best wishes
>Jim
>
>============================================================================
>James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
>Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
>University of Winnipeg 4L05D
>Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
>============================================================================
David T. Wasieleski, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology and Counseling
Valdosta State University
229-333-5620
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/dtwasieleski
"Why there is no perfect place
Yes I know that it's true
I'm just learning how to smile
That's not easy to do..."
--Everclear
"Learning How to Smile"
