Rethinking College Course Policies

Rebecca Campbell is Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at Northern Arizona University and Professor in the College of Health, Education, and Social Transformation at New Mexico State University, USA.

• 1. When Policy Meets Pedagogy 2. Crafting Attendance Policies for Encouraging Engagement 3. Designing Work Submission Policies for Fostering Learning 4. Writing Grading Policies for Clarifying Purpose 5. Navigating Learning Around Enrollment Policies 6. Guiding Students Around Course Placement Policies 7. Designing Policies Where Policy Meets Pedagogy

“Campbell shows us that we haven’t given sufficient thought to our course policies—whether about attendance, participation, grading, late work, or enrollment—and their hidden messages to students. They have the power to help students achieve their full potential, or hinder them. She brilliantly applies these policies to building types of self-regulation, correcting the anything-goes anarchy of the pandemic.”Linda B. Nelson, Founding Director Emerita, Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation, Clemson University“Too often, course policies are inherited, patched together, or treated as an afterthought. Rebecca Campbell’s Rethinking College Course Policies shows why this aspect of teaching deserves much more careful attention, and gives instructors the tools to rethink policies to better support learning, fairness, and belonging.Rethinking College Course Policies makes a compelling case that the rules we often treat as administrative details are, in fact, some of the most consequential teaching decisions we make. With clarity and a strong research base, this book shows how course policies can better support learning, course integrity, and inclusion. It fills an important gap and will help instructors design courses that truly reflect their values.At a moment when instructors are rethinking how to support students while maintaining meaningful standards, Rethinking College Course Policies could not be more relevant. Rebecca Campbell shows how to align course policies with pedagogical values in ways that are both principled and practical. The result is a book that is wise, timely, and immediately useful.”Michelle D. Miller, Professor of Psychological Sciences, Northern Arizona University“Ever wonder why you have a mountain of grading every weekend, or why you see so many students cheating right at the 11:59 p.m. deadline for assignments? These are problems of our own making, and we can un-make them. In Rethinking College Course Policies, Rebecca Campbell shows evidence-backed ways to lower access and performance barriers, address common instructor headaches, and maintain the academic rigor of the courses we teach—all by evolving our course policies. I'd give this book an A+, but you should read it to find out why letter and number grades themselves can act as barriers to learning.”Thomas J. Tobin, Thomas J. Tobin Consulting, LLC, Author of UDL at Scale: Whole-Campus Universal Design for Learning“Want to understand why some colleges lose more students from attrition due to rules that impede our students progress? Dr. Campbell knows of what she writes after years of clean- up work due to institutional policies that should have been but were not reexamined. The author is truly an advocate for doing even more than “rethinking” but actually in rectifying outmoded and misguided college course policies.”John N. Gardner, Founder and Executive Chair, John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education"In Rethinking College Course Policies, educator Rebecca Campbell asks an intriguing question: what if our most powerful pedagogical moments are not found in our lectures or lesson plans, but rather in how we structure policies like attendance and participation, deadlines, and grading? This book offers an inspiring map to anyone looking to craft classrooms that are more inclusive, welcoming, and designed for effective learning - and would be a natural fit for course design academies."Sarah Rose Cavanaugh, Senior Associate Director for Teaching and Learning, Center for Faculty Excellence, Simmons University; Associate Professor of Practice, Psychology Department, Simmons University“Rebecca Campbell reframes course policies not as logistical rules with harsh penalties, but as central pedagogical elements that shape student learning, motivation, and success. This book invites critical reflection on attendance and late-work policies, for example, and their varying impact on students who are living complicated lives, yet who are deserving of our support. Best of all, instructors will find practical frameworks to support small changes, policy modifications that are feasible, contextualized, and research-supported, to empower all faculty to demonstrate pedagogical caring through thoughtful, student-centered policies.”Flower Darby, Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center, University of Missouri“The book argues that often ‘policy’ of a course is not considered when we talk about pedagogy, but that it very much intersects and shapes how students learn, how inclusive a course is, and how it aligns to a curriculum and discipline. The author brings the learning sciences to bear on why some policies work more effectively than others, while offering a student-centered perspective that is thoughtful without being judgmental.”Kelly A. Hogan, Professor of the Practice of Biology and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Biology, Duke University“Teaching is more than just the sum of our day-to-day practices in a classroom; it is also the product of structures that implicitly and explicitly shape our course spaces. Rebecca Campbell challenges us to (re)think the structural--and thus pedagogical--choices we're making for our students and ourselves in framing course policies, and guides us through that process with thoughtful observations and recommendations for policies which facilitate meaningful student learning. This eminently practical book is a sure guide to not just intentional policymaking, but to caring and thoughtful teaching practices in general.”Kevin Gannon, Director, Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence, and Professor of History, Queens University of Charlotte“Shaping syllabus policies through values contributes to strengthening overall teaching practices.”Susannah McGowan, Director for Curriculum Transformation Initiatives, Designing the Future(s)/The Red House, Georgetown University“This evidence-based book takes an asset-based view of both students and faculty, advancing a learner-centered, context-dependent, and inclusive approach to course policy design. It encourages educators to align policies with their underlying values and to think more intentionally about how those policies shape the learning environment. This is the book I have wished for over many years of working with faculty. It articulates essential insights, such as the idea that “Late work policies are not simply about enforcing deadlines, they are about structuring how the work of learning unfolds across a course” in ways that are both practical and thought-provoking. It is also a valuable complement to educational development efforts focused on course and assignment design.”Lindsay B. Wheeler, Senior Associate Director and Associate Professor, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia“This text provides a compelling rationale for viewing course policies as opportunities to increase educational access and student success.”Anna M. Cunningham, Assistant Director of Teaching Innovation, Center for Teaching & Learning, Washington University in St. Louis“Instructional policies grounded in pedagogical values provide an effective, student-centered framework for constructing course syllabi. The book is well written, easy to understand, and grounded in relevant, current research.”Robert Maribe (Rob) Branch, Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology, University of Georgia, USA