Norms and Expectations

This page is primarily for students in my classes, though it may be of interest to colleagues thinking about how to frame expectations with adult learners.

Introduction — Learning Happens in Your Head

Let me start by saying what this text is not: this is not a list of rules.

Ours is a classroom where we each, as individuals, learn various things together. Most of the learning will not happen in this classroom, but rather on your own time — at home, your favourite coffee shop, library, or wherever you think best. Studying can certainly happen in groups, and group assignments will almost certainly arise over the course of our time together, but the learning can only happen in your head. You can only demonstrate that learning through effort spent working on assignments, assessments, projects, reflections, and other products.

With that out of the way, let's jump into some practical matters.

The Short Version: Mutual Respect + Communication + Self-Honesty

The way I conduct my classes is less about rules and more about norms and equitable treatment. Ours is a group of adults, meaning that everyone is in my class because they seek to achieve a certain goal.

I genuinely want you, and every student in our class, to succeed. That success needs to take into account where each learner starts and how far they have progressed. With this in mind, my assessments tend to be either resource-supported or project-based — both requiring you to demonstrate mastery of certain competencies, but neither involving terminal grades after one attempt. There are multiple opportunities for improvement.

As this is a classroom of adults, I assume you are able to either articulate or simply act upon your needs: you do not need to ask permission to use the washroom, drink water, eat food, take a call (outside of the classroom), or take a five-minute break. Since we will often be surrounded by computers, this involves some common sense — open beverages near keyboards don't respect that device's next user.

This is a space where we are all here to learn. That means accommodating each other's learning styles, educational backgrounds, propensities, difficulties, successes, and struggles.

Attendance and Punctuality

It is assumed that you attend every class, from start to finish. Attendance will be taken. This is especially important for those receiving welfare payments or participating in certain government programmes.

For the first portion of nearly every class we will engage in intention-setting and planning; for the last portion we will engage in reflection. If you are late or must leave early, please let me know via email or message, and submit your planning or reflection within 48 hours. If you know in advance that you will be late or must leave early, please send a brief message as soon as you are aware of the situation.

Should lateness or leaving early become a pattern, please expect me to reach out — not to punish or chastise you, but to figure out how your learning can best be supported.

Illness and Other Absences

If there are any unforeseen absences — illness, personal emergency — just let me know via email. If a pattern emerges or you will be out for a significant amount of time, the advice is the same: let me know, and we will work something out.

Make-Up Classes

If I am absent for more than one class, we will work together on what make-up work might look like. I will work with you to find a format and schedule that works for the most people. If a substitute is needed, you will be informed as soon as I know.

Communication and Professionalism

We will use Moodle and email for communication about our work together. Handouts will appear on Moodle and can also be found on this website.

How we communicate in any given context depends on lots of factors: age, mother tongue, dialect, upbringing, culture, and prior educational and professional experience. The general idea is to treat all communications as taking place within a professional context.

Some specific norms:

In written and spoken communication, use full sentences whenever possible and avoid vague references — words like "that," "it," and "the assignment" are only useful if both parties know what is being referenced.
In written communication: capitalise properly (especially "I" and proper nouns) and be as grammatical as possible. If you need help with writing, Grammarly and similar tools are genuinely useful.
We want to explain answers to problems and questions in all subjects. This means more than showing your work — it means "teaching to the page," explaining your thinking as if to someone who hasn't seen the problem. We will discuss this more in class.

Submissions

Submissions will use Moodle or another platform agreed upon based on constraints. Short answer and project submissions will be set up to match the format of the work.

Notes and Note-Taking

In many classes, students worry that if they don't take notes they will miss a key piece of information. In my class, you can expect me to be fully transparent about policies, assignments, assessments, and projects, as well as why and how I made the decisions that shaped them.

One of my main goals is that you, as a student, become more aware of both how you learn and how to find and evaluate the information you need. While note-taking is certainly allowed, you should know that it is not required. The information in my courses exists "out there" — none of it is new, none of it is particularly difficult to find. I will provide recommendations, resources, and materials I have created to supplement your learning, but "missing something" is not a real risk: if you learn the material of the module, how you learned it matters less than that you did.

Notes are welcome. While it can be difficult, try to remember that we are in class to learn things and have fun doing so.

For how these norms connect to assessment design, see Assessments or the consulting page.