From Faculty Focus: Approaches for Sharing Assignment Due Dates + Achieve!

[jamiepopeauthor]

The challenge of making sure students are well aware of assignment due dates and how to clearly communicate those dates - and even adjust if necessary - is something instructors often cite as an issue.  Faculty Focus' informative and helpful feature article this week is entitled "Six Approaches for Sharing Due Dates".  I found over the course of 40+ semesters that while you'd like to think the syllabus would suffice, students needed reminders and somewhere on the course page a calendar where they could see what was due and when.   

Nicely, in addition to the six methods suggested in the article there is a seventh option for Achieve users with the calendar feature!   For students in Achieve, due dates for assignments are also shown in the Course Content and Resource Type views under the calendar icon. If the item is not assigned, there will not be a due date.  For instructors, the calendar in Achieve allows you to view and compare your due dates for the month at a glance, and easily make adjustments as needed using drag and drop. You can even create extensions by selecting a particular student or group's calendar and editing due dates from there.

The article is summed up with this paragraph that applies regardless of which method(s) you use!   

"Whichever approach or approaches are used to share due dates with students, there are some considerations to keep in mind. First, ensure that the published due dates for all methods of sharing those due dates are aligned to avoid the confusion of one due date in the Table and another for the same assignment shared in a weekly announcement. Building the course schedule so assignments are due the same day of the week each week provides consistency and repetition for students (Shipp, 2020). Second, one method approach might work better with a particular course than another, or instructors might prefer one approach over another. It can often be beneficial to ask a class of students about their preferred method at the start of the semester. We can help students developmentally progress by initially meeting them where they are at. Whichever approach works for the instructor to share information and for the students to receive clear and accurate due dates might be the “best” approach. "