Victoria Cross

Flexibility is the name of the game. But with a great privilege, like extensive flexibility in a course, comes great responsibility. The more flexibility that we build into our courses, the more responsibility we are placing on the students. By definition, flexibility requires students to make choices. And some decisions will be poor. Even with the best intentions, humans procrastinate and blow past deadlines. We must not only create flexibility but also keep some of the burden of responsibility on our shoulders to reduce the possible impact of poor choices. We will discuss some of the principles of decision making, discuss how to maximize the possibility of high-quality decisions, and identify specific examples of course policies that help students convert their intentions into meaningful learning. Let’s help our students reach the end of the quarter sincerely saying “thanks, past me” rather than “thanks a lot, past me.”