"Won't this just lead to students taking advantage?"

Role playing a common and challenging question in a faculty development setting

A few years ago, I remarked in an article (about using UDL to make faculty development more accessible) that teachers can benefit from having opportunities to practice navigating challenging conversations with students. For example, practicing what specifically to say if a hurtful comment is made during a class discussion or if there is a misunderstanding that causes discomfort in the classroom. The same is true for faculty developers - we all encounter resistance and disagreement among participants in our programming, and I believe it is helpful to practice responding during these situations.

Recently, I was chatting with a participant after a workshop that I facilitated on the subject of becoming more responsive to neurodiversity in teaching and course design. In this person’s job, they too facilitate faculty programming related to teaching. They asked me a question that I think is a great example of the kind of conversation that is is worth practicing: 

“What do you say when you talking with instructors about ideas to make their courses more accessible and they raise the concern that students will either cheat or ‘take advantage’ of the flexibility that is being offered? I get this question in a lot of my interactions with faculty.” 

I would guess a lot of folks who do work related to inclusive teaching or accessibility have had a version of this interaction. In fact, this person and I didn’t even need to go into specific anecdotes, as this type of question/questioner is practically a cliche among faculty developers: The “resistant participant,” as I sometimes call them.

I know many faculty developers who experience a lot of anger and frustration when confronted with this kind of question, and I include myself with them. Speaking personally, this comment makes me feel like the legitimacy of accessibility as a goal is itself being questioned. The frustration is compounded when I receive one of these questions and I feel like I am unprepared to answer. So I tend to script my response and practice it. I want to say up front that handling conversations that are emotionally charged, or relate to your own identity and experience in some way is very hard, and I am not claiming that preparation erases all of the difficulty, just that it helps somewhat. There are also different situations in which it is good to have a practiced response, and other situations in which it might be a good idea to open up more of a back and forth. In this post, I am imagining a situation in which there might be more questions or material to get to, and the longer conversation can’t be had until later on.

So, after all that preamble, wanted to share how I tend to respond. Last disclaimer: I am under no impression that this is the best or only way to respond. When dealing with a sensitive situation, I think people should  lean into an approach that matches their own personal style and goals, and my style and goals may not match those of others.

Let’s set a scene here. Imagine I have just facilitated a workshop about how to support students with disabilities in large science classes, during which I shared information about how rigid schedules and due dates can pose difficulties for some students with disabilities. Let’s say that I also shared “flexible due dates for assignments” as a possibility among several others for increasing the accessibility of these courses. Toward the end of the session, one participant comments, 

“I just can’t ever see myself offering flexible due dates. I’m sure there are some students who genuinely need them, but I feel like the majority of the time it would just be students procrastinating, and I’d end up with a pile of grading at the end of the semester. Students will just take advantage of my flexibility while prioritizing their other classes. I’d like to be more flexible, but my experience is that students are always trying to push off things as much as possible, which upsets me.”

1. I try to figure out a way to diffuse the situation. This is especially important if I myself feel angry or frustrated by the comment.

“Thanks for bringing this up, and for participating today more generally. If it is OK, I’ll offer the way I think about this.” (Hopefully they say OK to that)

2. Acknowledge any parts of their perspective that I agree with or sympathize with.

“I agree that it might not be feasible for an instructor to do [some particular form of flexibility]. We are under a lot of stress and pressure, and we have to teach in a way that is sustainable and respectful of our own time.” Then I might give an example from my own teaching practice of a form of flexibility that I would like to offer, but logistically just can’t.

3. Mention any points of disagreement, or ideas I would like to challenge.

“I’m not sure I agree that students have the intention to take-advantage in an unfair way when they ask for flexibility, or use some of the flexibility that we offer. I’ve heard from a lot of students with disabilities that it is quite difficult to find instructors who are open to accommodating them, and more generally that it is hard for students who are overwhelmed to get any kind of help staying afloat. Student may have things going on in their lives that are really difficult, even though their requests for extensions etc. may feel to us like simple procrastination.” I might try to give an example from my own experience of when I misunderstood a student’s intentions, or when a professor misunderstood my own intentions when I was a student.

4. State that I am not attempting to convince them to take on a specific teaching practice, or do things the way I personally would, but to think about how they can take steps towards inclusion. 

“There are a lot of opportunities here. If flexible due dates feel particularly thorny, maybe you can focus on a different element of your course, like the accessibility of documents and other materials, or how to build in flexibility to the way students demonstrate their knowledge on assessments. Whichever steps make sense to you and feel sustainable might be good options to start with.”

5. Zoom out and provide some food for thought.

“In general, if concerns about ‘cheating’ or ‘taking advantage’ are your number one priority as a teacher, that will lead you down a certain path, and I think there are a lot of negative trade-offs on that path. If you have other goals that are also important to you related to inclusion, you will probably want to take a different path that is going to involve balancing some of your worries about dishonesty or ‘taking advantage’ with these goals. We started our discussion today talking about how students with disabilities were excluded from higher education for a long time and how both legal changes and pedagogical changes are helping to reverse that - continuing to be part of addressing this past exclusion is a goal I like to keep in mind.

6. Share a genuine openness to discussing the subject further.

“I’m really happy to discuss this further after the session, and also to connect you with folks who think about this issue differently from me, and who could provide a helpful alternate perspective.”

Now, do I execute this perfectly every time? Definitely not. But writing out the steps and practicing the interaction has helped me with two things: First, I am more confident to actually engage with all participant questions since I have practiced responding to the one that is perhaps the most “charged” for me. Second, practicing how I would respond to challenging questions has helped me clarify some of my own views and values about faculty professional development. Namely, I do want to engage with people who are not already “sold” on some of the practices I recommend (rather than only engaging those who have bought in). I don’t want my programming to only be a space for agreement, and want to try my best to deal productively with critiques. I also want to make sure to respectfully challenge some of the patterns of thought and behavior that I think reinforce exclusion in education (e.g. the idea that flexibility leads to taking advantage).

I hope this model can be helpful to some readers, but even if it doesn’t feel like something you would repurpose yourself, maybe the idea of practicing or scripting some of the challenging interactions in your own work is helpful. Readers of my past posts will know that I am a big fan of scripts.

Since I know many readers will have encountered a version of the interaction I described in this post, I am interested to hear how you all navigate it. Please let me know, either by commenting if you are signed in to Substack, or contact me.

Photo by Hope House Press - Leather Diary Studio on Unsplash