Supporting academic adjustments

ASHLEY: Welcome. We're here today to talk about student equity and education. I'm here today with Grace Thompson, who's an Associate Professor in Music Therapy in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. She's also a former Senior Academic Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education.

Hi, Grace, thanks for coming today.

GRACE: Hello, thank you.

ASHLEY: So, Grace, you and I have been talking about changes you can make to your teaching to make it that little bit more equitable. What change was it you wanted to talk about today?

GRACE: Well, I wanted to talk about what our role as educators and subject coordinators is in making that academic adjustment process much more transparent and accessible for students.

ASHLEY: And why has that become important for you specifically?

GRACE: Yes, well, over the years, I've just noticed that students hold back in seeking support.

ASHLEY: So true.

GRACE: And even for me as a teacher then, I could feel like: Well, is it my role to raise this? You know, they're adults. They're the ones with a health condition or a circumstance. It's up to them to ask. And so, in a way, I tried to keep out of the way of students seeking that support, but really, I couldn't ignore the fact that I was observing students really struggling with asking for support. Not even getting the support – we're not talking about that – but just them initiating the ask for support.

ASHLEY: Yeah, so disclosing and saying, "I need an adjustment."

GRACE: Right, and really an understanding the problems with students asking and disclosing. And having some empathy around that. So, you know, what I started to listen for in my classes and in the students who did come up and talk to me was that they were worried about what other students would think, like other students would think they're getting an unfair advantage. They were worried about whether they were eligible and whether they'd look a bit silly for asking, you know, or am I disabled enough, or is my situation serious enough?

They also worried, this was the one that, for me as an educator, was most concerning. They worried about what I would think about them if they had an adjustment plan or asked for an extension or some other adjustment. They were worried about what I would think of them.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's so sad.

GRACE: Yeah, that perhaps they weren't as committed to their studies or weren't taking it seriously or weren't a good student.

ASHLEY: Where I would think it's the opposite. If you're saying, "I want to do well, and I know what I need to do well," I think it's a good thing.

GRACE: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Did you have any concerns about being more transparent about the process?

GRACE: Mm, I did. Again, I guess it was wondering about, is this my role? Is it my role to stand up here and say, "Hey, here's the information. Apply for an adjustment if that's what you need."

I was worried, I guess, that students would feel that I was encouraging them to get an assessment, and then as a subject coordinator thinking "I'm gonna be overrun with extension requests." You know, I have my marking team who's helping me. If everyone gets an extension, then the timeline blows out. It creates longer work for people on casual contracts, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, so it had big flow on effects, absolutely.

ASHLEY: And when you started doing it, how did it end up going for you?

GRACE: Mm mm. Well, I'll tell you a little about what I did first.

ASHLEY: [Laughs] That's probably good!

GRACE: So the way that I tried to address it, first of all, was right at the start of the semester, I just kind of made a statement about it. And as we were going through, you know, as we do in the first weeks of semester. Here's the subject, these are the learning objectives, these are your assignments.

I made sure I also put in at that point, and here's the way that some of you may wish to seek academic support.

ASHLEY: Which is not a challenging thing to do, or something that's different for 20 students or 200 students, is it?

GRACE: Exactly. It really didn't take very long. And then I backed that up by putting information on the LMS page. And of course the text there, I can have a say in that. I can write it in a way that's encouraging, nonjudgmental, quite neutral, and also making sure people have the links that they need so that it's right in my subject where the assessments are posted, here's the information.

ASHLEY: Nice! That's really cool. So how did that end up going? Were your concerns realised? Did you get flooded?

GRACE: Well, it was interesting. A couple of things happened from that change. So first of all, there were more requests for adjustments. Particularly extensions, which is the most common form of adjustment. So yes, we did get more requests for extensions, but I feel that that's probably the group that weren't applying who-

ASHLEY: Needed them anyway.

GRACE: Right.

ASHLEY: And who were afraid to tell you.

GRACE: Right, exactly. Or unsure if they were eligible, you know. So, okay, we got more adjustment requests, but we also got less stress from students. We had students come up to me and say, "Thank you. I was really struggling. I was worried about how this would be. And it's great to know that you're okay with it as a teacher."

ASHLEY: So it has a positive impact for the students who ask for adjustments, but just for students more generally as well, does it?

GRACE: Right, well, that's another part of it. It's really sending a powerful signal. Actually, the way students were worried about what their peers would think was really something that I had not considered. A lot of students were worried that their peers would think they were getting an unfair advantage.

So in me being that role model, I guess, to say, "Hey, if you have a reason for an adjustment, there's no problem. That's totally fine." It's really sending a very powerful message to the whole class to say, "Oh yeah, that's actually fine. If people have a legitimate reason for an adjustment, it's okay if they get that."

ASHLEY: So it's the person in power and they know that you are okay with it as the educator and that their peers have also heard you say it.

GRACE: Right, exactly. And then you get this other interesting effect where, as an educator, you're standing in front of the class talking about these things, and of course students realise that you are an approachable person. And approachability is a huge factor in students' sense of belonging and in their feeling of being welcome into an academic discipline.

ASHLEY: Which I have read a lot about over the years - that sense of belonging is so important in students completing their degrees.

GRACE: That's right, we all have imposter syndrome, and so students with disabilities or health conditions or other circumstances can sometimes feel, "Maybe I don't belong here. Maybe there's nobody else here like me. And I think that's a really, it's a great message to be sending that you are all welcome.

And it's not an unfair advantage. It's actually addressing an inequity.

ASHLEY: And when we were talking about this before, you also mentioned that you got more extensions at first, but it didn't stay high.

GRACE: Right. So, then I guess when you see the types of requests that are coming into you as a subject coordinator, you end up with a deeper understanding of what your students are going through. And you're like, okay, well, what else can I do now?

That first step was quite easy and simple to make. And then I started to look at my assignments and go, could I make a change there that would be more accessible to people? So, it's been a process for me. And most recently, I did make a change to an assignment, and then I got less adjustment requests because I'd removed some of those tension points from the assignment that were actually creating stress for students. So a better designed assignment or assessment actually led to less requests in the future.

ASHLEY: Well, Grace, thank you so much for your time today. That sounds like a really achievable step that has a lot of impact for students.

GRACE: You're very welcome.