Scheduling the Semester

When scheduling the semester, including assigning activities, exams, and due dates for assignments, try to keep accessibility in mind. This may not always be feasible depending on the size of your course, external requirements from your department, or other conflicting timelines, but when possible try to model compassionate and accessible scheduling by considering the following:

What time of day assignments are due:
Many instructors opt for 11:59PM deadlines to give students the most amount of time on the day of the deadline to complete the assignment as well as the greatest flexibility around the time of day students may find themselves being productive; however, some argue that late deadlines encourage cramming and lack of work/life balance. When assigning the time that an assignment is due, consider:

• How large the assessment is
• What kinds of work are required to complete it (i.e., exams may be more prone to cramming than writing papers)
• Your own needs for grading timelines

How work is dispersed throughout the semester:
When assigning work over the semester, consider the workload for your students by using this Course Workload Estimator and then evaluate:

• How close assessments are to each other
• How the course workload might interact with other courses your students are in and whether you can avoid assessments during peak workload times (e.g., midterm week, final week of semester)
• Whether you can ‘scaffold’ assignments to help with time management for your students, as well as assist with your own grading.

Where deadlines are positioned in relation to long weekends or breaks:
Where possible, avoid putting deadlines or assessments immediately after long weekends or mid-term breaks to promote rest and relaxation during these periods of time and reduce burnout.

Whether to use hard deadlines or submission periods:
Depending on the nature of the assessments in your course, you may opt to use hard deadlines, submission periods, or a combination of the two. Submission periods, or instructor-set ranges are extended time frames where redundancy is built in. Students can choose what deadline works best for them, while also not falling behind or taking on late penalties. Some keys to success for submission periods include:

• Keeping the submission period short as beyond a week’s length the benefits and efficacy of this method tend to diminish. Users of submission periods suggest 6 day periods, with the final deadline the day before the week passes again.
• Encouraging earlier submissions by grading in the order that assignments are submitted.
• Encouraging earlier submissions by offering more feedback to those that submit in the first few days.

Submission periods not only build in flexibility to your students’ schedules, making your course more accessible, but can minimize stress of those doing grading by minimizing the amount of work received at once. This technique allows you to balance student needs against your own, modelling compassion for all in the classroom. Further, offering benefits for early submission, rather than penalties for late submission promotes student empowerment, and works to help minimize procrastination and day-of submissions which some studies have shown to be correlated with lower performance.

Whether to include a grace period:
Depending on when in the week or day you decide to set deadlines, as well as whether you opt for hard deadlines or submission periods, you may consider including a grace period. A grace period is a period of time between the final deadline for an assessment and when late penalties begin to be added.

• You may consider a grace period of several hours to account for technological difficulties, last minute schedule changes, or other immediate factors.
• If you use hard deadlines, you may also consider a grace period of a few days wherein late penalties aren’t applied, but other drawbacks such as less feedback, or later grading are applied. This technique still provides incentive for on-time submissions, but can reduce last minute emails and use of the academic consideration portal.

While every course will be scheduled differently and necessarily account for different types of content, assessments, and expectations, building in compassion and flexibility for both yourself and your students when and where possible will help promote a positive and inclusive classroom environment. Considering the context of deadlines and schedules allows you to give yourself and your students breathing space, helping to lower classroom anxiety and encouraging meaningful engagement over cramming.