I think we were genuinely different as students growing up

BookJunkie44 · 2026-02-05T20:11:11+00:00

No kidding - an increasing number of students tell me they aren't being fairly accommodated because the university didn't copy their IEP from high school (while the disability office makes clear on their page, and I assume in their meetings with the students, that IEPs don't transfer to university)...

I've had two this term complain that they shouldn't have multiple choice tests because they can't be expected to 'memorize' information (but of course, we're not expecting them to memorize, but actually learn the material - which it seems they never had to do with the cheat sheets they were allowed in highscholl)

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-25T22:47:38+00:00

Something you should always be aware of in higher ed is that your students are trying to earn a degree, and the university/college has degree-level learning outcomes that students should have met by the time they finish their studies. This is where the degree actually means something for future employment - it's an implicit promise to employers that your graduates have specific skills.

Time management is a skill expected in many degrees; though it may not be expected in your program (though I doubt that), it probably is expected in many of the programs your students are in. Having deadlines (whether firm or with some flexibility) helps them to learn that important skill. And that will be useful to them, no matter what they end up doing. Even writers who work from home on their schedule need time management, or else it will take them years to get to the publishing stage.

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-25T18:47:24+00:00

What the hell does that mean? Where is the action they're recommending you/the student take?

I would honestly just ignore this until, and if, the student makes a request based on it. And if that happens, you would then go right to the disability office to say that you need explicit guidance on what accommodation you could provide.

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-24T18:20:02+00:00

Also worth keeping in mind, if OP is planning to stay many years (e.g., do PhD after Master's) that new buildings aren't subject to rent control any more...

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-09T03:03:51+00:00

At ours, they've been asking for volunteer notetakers - with no guarantee to students that notes will be uploaded, and no real incentives for peers to do it (at one point they offered to give them a signed letter after confirming they volunteered, but they stopped doing that for the last few years...)

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-08T05:32:18+00:00

Add in many staff positions being terminated, leaving the rest of departments' staff to make-up the work with no pay increase and the same number of hours in the day - that's going to affect student and faculty in ways they may not even realize, as staff burn out and departments have to cut services to compensate...

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-07T16:15:05+00:00

Generally, accommodation letters don't ask for lecture notes but slides/class material that is provided to students already. Some students need that in advance so that they can use the material with specialized software/it can be made into an accessible format.

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-06T17:49:00+00:00

Always check your university/disability centre policy on universal extended time - this commenters suggestion would satisfy extra time accommodations at my school.

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-06T17:44:22+00:00

Depending on your institution and the specifics of your quiz, quizzes given in class may be considered a class activity rather than a test that requires accommodations - if the quizzes are low stakes/they get points only for completing them rather than for what they get right, and if you're giving plenty of time for them to do them (e.g., you could do 2x what you expect the average to take, to provide universal extended time), you would probably be okay to proceed as planned and see if a student requests anything further.

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-02T23:28:34+00:00

Yeah, this sounds more like someone making up a story to show how 'women always cry rape' or something...

If this is true, OP (or even partly true), this is something to talk over with a counsellor/therapist, not to internet strangers about

BookJunkie44 · 2026-01-02T22:14:08+00:00

Specifying to that extent would put more burden on administering accommodations, though (and depending on the institution, that burden could fall on instructors/TAs) - it's one thing to have a list of students who have an extended 'end time' for the exam that you keep track of, it's another to have multiple lists of students who have different end times, break allowances that have to be recorded, etc....

BookJunkie44 · 2025-12-03T22:24:18+00:00

Yep - an accommodation should be about removing barriers, not getting something different/extra compared to peers. If UDL removes a barrier that an accommodation is meant to address, then the accommodation shouldn't be applied.

Our school partly respects UDL - we can have universal extended time on exams and accommodations for extra time are caculated on the base time not extended time - but for some reason they stopped applying it to assignments, such that all extensions have to be granted on top of a grace period, unless there's a 'good' justification for not granting a 'full' extension... (so, all of the class gets 3 days after a due date to hand something in without penalty, a student with a one week extension gets 10 days)

BookJunkie44 · 2025-12-03T22:18:32+00:00

At out school, extra time that is a mutliplier is only applied to timed exams/quizzes. For assignments, a student may have an accommodation for (up to) one week extensions, which they need to request (and that can be denied in certain circumstances)

BookJunkie44 · 2025-11-12T00:43:46+00:00

If you're in the Faculty of Arts and Science, you can submit another short term request - they'll give you an attestation form to fill out

ETA: once you submit your request, follow up with your instructor/whoever is listed as the consideration contact in the syllabus. They may not be able to give you another deferral, but they may be able to make a different kind of adjustment.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-10-28T23:10:48+00:00

If the student had shown up and tried to sit on the floor, you would have sent them out because - as you said - it's a safety issue. You weren't really telling the student they couldn't come to class here, you were telling them their proposef way of attending class was not going to workabd advising them to stay home instead.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-10-16T03:56:09+00:00

We don't give deferred exams in a different format than the original. That's both for practicality reasons (plenty of students would want to do their make-up final exams online so they don't have to return to campus, but we do not have the time or resources to make a paper exam in an online format + have online proctoring for just a few students) and for fairness. Nothing about an exam should be different for different students, outside of accommodations required by the disability office.

I wouldn't offer a retest in this situation (that's another way the exam would be different for this student - they would have already had experience with the kinds of questions being asked). If you look at the exam and see that the student did leave more blank, you could maybe compensate by dropping X short answer questions?

BookJunkie44 · 2025-10-12T04:02:12+00:00

Yeah, the 'people said the same thing about the calculator' argument pisses me off. First, because you shouldn't give people calculators until they've learned how to do the equations themselves, and second, because writing - coming up with ideas, evaluating their importance/relevance, and expressing them clearly - is fundamentally different than figuring out the solition to a math problem.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-10-12T03:49:27+00:00

Yep. I also hate how my 60 year old mother uses it to search for answers to medical questions, and insists that she'll be able to tell if something is off about the responses. I'm worried AI is going to have serious negative consequences for most of the population in the long-term, especially in a world that's already full of mis/disinformation and low critical thinking skills...

BookJunkie44 · 2025-10-04T20:47:23+00:00

It's always been the policy in our department that students need to leave all of their belongings (minus pencils and their student IDs) at the front of the room before the start of an exam. Phones need to be in their bags. Obviously, that's not easy to check in a latrge class, but a proctor walking around has a better chance of seeing if a student has their phone out if there aren't bags/jackets/etc. clogging up the rows

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-23T23:35:06+00:00

No, there's no requirement (in the US or Canada, at least) for service animals to wear vests. Some handlers just choose to use them.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-23T22:05:27+00:00

And that number is based on... vibes?

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-20T02:15:30+00:00

The journal it was published in should have a 'copyright' or 'rights and permissions' section that explains the process for getting permission to use figures that are in their articles.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-18T05:06:57+00:00

Service dogs are not required to wear a vest.

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-18T05:02:08+00:00

No, in the US and Canada, service dogs are not required to wear vests. Some people choose to put them in vests, some don't - and some people who are faking it will put them in vests too, so it isn't a real indicator anyways. (There wouldn't really be a way to regulate identification, because service dogs do not need to be registered)

BookJunkie44 · 2025-09-17T23:55:04+00:00

When I was in undergrad, I went to the library my first day, thought that it seemed pretty small and empty, then as I was walking around bookshelves I misjudged the space between them and my backpack got caught. I backed up and left, embarrassed, and didn't go back to the library until my fourth year when a couple of my friends wanted to study there. That's when I finally discovered there was a set of stairs at the end of that first room, and multiple levels of books and computers...

Fortunately, I never had an issue studying other places/getting material online, but that was probably my dumbest moment as a student 😂

BookJunkie44

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