Over the years most of the changes I’ve made to my class policies have veered towards the “maximum flexibility” side of the flexibility spectrum. I’ve heard concerns about “coddling” students pop up multiple times in discussions about similar strategies, so I wanted to write about how I think about it.
In order to set the stage for the discussion below, here are some of the things I do that maximize flexibility:
No-questions asked if students ask for extensions for reasons they feel should be excused. Students do not need to tell me their reasons.
I record and post all lectures/live coding exercises.
All slides/notes are posted before class.
All information about deadlines, assignments, etc is on Canvas.
Two-stage testing (for here just think: two attempts on all tests).
Non-punitive in-class work: If we do an activity in class and you turn something in, you get all the points.
Maximum late penalty on any assignment is 30% off. You can turn things in SUPER late with no excuse and still get plenty of credit.
Okay, so… I hope I’m not misrepresenting here, but my understanding of the coddling argument is that if we make classes too easy or forgiving, students will not learn important life skills that will help them in the “real world”. I don’t want to write a bunch about all the ways several things might be coddling, but one I’ve seen a bunch is flexible deadlines: if you don’t have hard deadlines or if you allow extensions, you are not preparing students for the real world. They need to learn to budget their time, etc. A classic counter to this is: who amongst us has not missed a deadline in our professional lives due to circumstances out of our control? Have we not found grace in many of those circumstances?
I’m sure no one reading this has ever turned in a manuscript peer review or their annual review materials late.
Aaaaanyway. Here’s how I think about this. I think students from nice, well funded high schools, who don’t need to have a job while in school and live in town/on campus can navigate strict policies just fine most of the time. They’ve likely been told to advocate for themselves, to ask for extensions even if the syllabus says absolutely not, and especially if the policy is unclear. In many or most cases, I think the students that get sent into an academic death spiral because they got a zero on a big assignment they turned in late, or didn’t turn in because it would be late, are the ones who do not have those advantages and/or have a lot of other stuff going on. I want to err on the side of providing an environment where those students can stay on track. If a few students pull one over on me for reasons that might make me cringe (a ski vacation rather than say, being told to pick up an extra shift or get fired) that’s on them, it truly doesn’t bother me anymore. It takes so. much. effort. to try to catch that stuff and get fired up about it. I’d rather spend that effort elsewhere.
For students with a lot of external stuff going on, my class is likely not their top priority. I think that this is totally understandable and I always try to keep it in mind.
My goal as an instructor is to have as many students as possible walk away from my class having met the learning objectives I laid out on day one. My job is to help them get there as best I can with the time I have and without negatively impacting my own mental health.
Students in my classes have to do the work! I have policies that encourage them to come to class and participate and engage in active learning. Two stage testing makes their grades higher, but it also ensures they look at what they got wrong, figure out why, and then answer correctly. Flexible deadlines get the students to engage in assignments, even if they are way late and they are too shy/intimidated/embarrassed to ask for an extension. I arrived at all my course policies by doing what I thought would maximize student learning.
I think the marker of a course where students are truly coddled would be that they get an A but don’t achieve the learning outcomes. I kind of feel like if your students are meeting the learning outcomes of the course, and you are preserving your own work-life balance, then whatever you are doing isn’t coddling. If I were to make changes to my class that teach students life lessons but result in them learning less, then I feel like I’d be holding “teach life lessons” over “meet course learning outcomes”, and I don’t think that’s my role.
Last thing. Since starting something with a definition is cringy, I wanted to end with one (that’s better, right?). The second definition for “coddle” in several places is “to cook an egg in water below boiling point”. I don’t think I treat students in an “indulgent and overprotective way”. But cooking below the boiling point? Sure!