Rationale for Subject Policies

By clearly articulating course policies and the reasons underlying them, students recognize when policies are designed to support their learning and gain insight into the instructor’s perspective. Students are best poised for success if they know what to do if they need to be absent, turn in work late, or request accommodations for disabilities lowers barriers to success.

Key Features:

  • Clear policies, with detailed information on exceptions to course policies (e.g., missing class, turning in work late, etc.)
  • Explanations of the rationale for policies, which may include describing how they are designed to support student learning
  • Description of steps to take if students need to secure exceptions (e.g., missing class, turning in work late, etc.)

MIT Examples:

What happens if I need to submit work late?
Because material in 21M.051 moves quickly and builds upon previous assignments, it is essential that you submit your work on time whenever possible. This is so that I can return it to you in enough time that you can use feedback to complete your next assignment. Please reach out to me if you find you are falling behind. It is often better to skip an assignment to catch up than to make it up and fall further behind.

To this end:

  • I will drop your lowest graded assignment grade of the semester
  • I will also allow you one graded assignment redo per semester (at your discretion—you must submit the revision within one week of receiving my feedback and you must have submitted the initial assignment on time) for a replaced grade.

Please note: deadlines on exams and compositions are necessarily more rigid. In all cases, however, if you reach out, I will do my best to work with you.

 

Let’s Talk

If you have any questions or want to talk through your syllabus, please contact Teaching + Learning Lab, GradSupport (for graduate courses), or S3 (for undergraduate courses). If you want to go deeper, please visit the TLL’s Syllabus Checklist to Support Student Belonging & Achievement, a comprehensive, evidence-based syllabus checklist which informed this resource.

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