Should faculty decide to offer in-person timed tests, SASS recommends the college move to a contactless testing protocol based on an honor system where students arrange to take tests in their rooms or in the alternate spaces available on a first come first serve basis.
For students who are not equipped to test in their room, SASS will have two alternate spaces that can be reserved through Accomodate. These spaces will be set up with an internet computer and scanner to return tests and will be available on a first come first serve basis between 8 AM and 5:00 PM. Please note that students who book one of these alternate spaces may need to test at a different time than the class.
SASS can work with faculty if their digital test will not accommodate the student’s accommodation for alternative formats, large formats, and other needs.
The following alternatives to in-person timed tests have been recommended in consultation with the CIP.
The Quiz module in Moodle has a number of options which can reduce the need for proctoring. The quiz module can enforce a time limit, and individual students can be given extended time overrides as necessary. Students can also be given different windows in which to take the exam, if accommodations need to be made regarding the exam period.
There are a number of options within Moodle which can be used to reduce the ease and utility of cheating. The most effective approach would be the use of randomly selected questions, drawn from a larger test bank. Moodle can also shuffle the order of questions in the exam, and the order of answers within a multiple choice question. Each of these reduces the chance that any student has received the exact same exam as any other student.
The CIP hosted a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) consultant for the University of Kentucky, Jennifer Pusateri, Spring 2020 to discuss course design. Many faculty at Kenyon incorporate a number of these types of assessments in their classes. Some of the different types of Assessment Jennifer Pusateri shared included:
One of the principles of UDL is that students can often demonstrate their learning more successfully when they have agency to choose the nature of their assessment. Allowing students to choose between a couple of options for final projects or exams can enhance learning while also reducing the need for proctoring.
The CIP is an excellent resource for faculty wanting to explore course assessment options. The University of Georgia discusses several of these options on their website.
SASS will provide automated note taking options to students who have an approved note taking accommodation. Faculty will receive an email from SASS regarding students in the class who have been approved to receive a transcription of the class notes following class. SASS highly recommends that faculty consider automated note transcription as a universal access accommodation that will enable them to share class transcripts with all class participants. Class transcripts enable students who have poor internet access or connectivity to have access to lecture content.
SASS promotes use of facial coverings to support the health and safety of all campus members. Under some circumstances, students may need to be exempted from facial covering requirements due to disability-related and medical reasons. For example, a student’s disability may include breathing difficulty that is exacerbated by use of a facial covering.
In these instances, students may request a Facial Covering Exception or alternate clear face shield accommodation. SASS will verify the medical necessity for this exception and this information will be shared with faculty. We encourage you to include the following statement in your course syllabi:
Sample Facial Covering Syllabus Statement
Facial coverings are required during all class meetings to promote the health and safety of all campus members. There may be college approved exceptions or alternatives to this requirement. Students who cannot wear a facial covering due to medical or disability-related reasons should contact Student Accessibility and Support Services at sass@kenyon.edu.
Physical distancing should be maintained whenever possible for all students, including those with a facial covering exception.
SASS will provide transparent face shields to faculty teaching face-to-face courses for deaf and hard of hearing students who have indicated they need full view of the instructor’s face during classroom instruction. Transparent face shields permit lipreading and view of facial expressions. Shields can also be provided for group interaction. We recommend maintaining physical distance at all times when using shields.
Real time captioning will be arranged for both in-person and online classes to accommodate students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Real-time captions, or Computer Assisted Real-time Translation (CART), are created as an event takes place. Remote real-time captions are produced at a remote location and then transmitted to the site where the program is taking place. For example, in a lecture hall an instructor can talk into a microphone that is connected via telephone lines to a captioner in a different city. From that location, the captioner, using similar equipment as described above, transmits the captioned text via the internet, using special software, to a laptop in the lecture hall- or to a laptop in a student's home, if they are unable to attend the lecture in person. A fully edited transcript will be available within 24-36 hours for professors from Access Resources to share with designated or all students.
In some cases, students may request an alternative to in-person instruction due to an underlying medical condition. Dean Hawks will contact you and your department chair to explore and coordinate these requests. Remote instruction should be provided when reasonable and appropriate provided it does not fundamentally alter essential course requirements. Consider the following questions when evaluating these requests:
“Accessible instructional design is good instructional design. Students in a class can vary by gender, race, ethnicity, culture, marital status, age, communication skills, learning abilities, interests, physical abilities, social skills, sensory abilities, values, learning preferences, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, and other factors. Many of these individuals might never request a disability-related accommodation but will nevertheless benefit from accessible design. For example, many English language learners benefit from captions on videos so that they can see the spelling of new vocabulary. Other students learning new vocabulary in a technical class can benefit from these captions as well. And everyone benefits from course content that is presented in a logical, consistent manner.” — Sheryl Burgstahler, ADA Compliance for Online Course Design
Related Resource: 20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course