{"id":2755,"date":"2023-01-23T16:04:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T21:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:03:44","slug":"deadlines-flexibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/deadlines-flexibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadlines &#038; Flexibility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A recent tweet by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hannah_R_Snyder\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hannah_R_Snyder\">Hannah Snyder<\/a> has me thinking about academic deadlines. I love them as an instructor, and I did as a student. So do most of the 220+ in her comments; mostly by teachers. However, some noted a move away from deadlines at their schools. Others noted allowing more flexibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;ve been seeing some posts from well-intentioned faculty about eliminating all deadlines in their classes. I study <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/ExecutiveFunction?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ExecutiveFunction<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/stress?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#stress<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/mentalhealth?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#mentalhealth<\/a> in college <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/students?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#students<\/a>, and I&#39;m here to tell you this will hurt the students you are trying to help. . . 1\/buckle up<\/p>&mdash; Hannah R. Snyder (@Hannah_R_Snyder) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Hannah_R_Snyder\/status\/1616535270421327872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 20, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IMHO, my assignments (with set deadlines laid out in the syllabus) have a lot of flexibility in terms of what students choose to do under the umbrella of an assignment. Pick your chosen topic, context, etc. I work only with graduate students, so my learner audience isn&#8217;t representative of all college students. I&#8217;m sure the Sunday scramble to wrap up a deliverable is irksome to some, but I don&#8217;t think they would like the alternative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Certainly, I work with students in times of unforeseen circumstances, but I don&#8217;t buy into deadlines giving students a taste of &#8221;how it is in the real-world&#8221; as work deadlines are notoriously squishy. Instead, assignment deadlines help our collective workflows as I attempt to scaffold their progress through the semester. Most of the assignments I design are project based with lots of interim deliverables as checkpoints for my feedback and opportunities for iteration and improvement toward their aims. With set deliverable deadlines, we also have a fighting chance of having a meaningful conversation in asynchronous discussions versus voices passing in the night. It&#8217;s always sad to see a reply appear in a discussion forum that wrapped up a few days prior. No one will see it or reply to it; like giving a presentation in an empty room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Deadlines allow us to have peer reviews at similar stages of the development process when the feedback received can be incorporated into the next iteration of their work. I can suggest students pair up or network with others chewing on a similar issue. I can better manage my availability to offer detailed feedback that informs their edits and the next stages of work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe I am making everyone conform to my preferences, but it is <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/09637214211070814\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/09637214211070814\">interesting to skim the paper Hannah links offering support for deadlines<\/a> as an approach to reducing academic procrastination. As a teacher, I don&#8217;t view my deadlines as an aid in procrastination, but I suppose I did as a student. Ultimately, I feel assignment deadlines allow me to give everyone a well-scaffolding learning experience that provides flexibility in other important ways beyond only a due date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Featured Image Photo by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@towfiqu999999?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Towfiqu barbhuiya<\/a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/bwOAixLG0uc?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/PYG_BKFwhMk\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/jOeh3Lv88xA\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@towfiqu999999\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent tweet by Hannah Snyder has me thinking about academic deadlines. I love them as an instructor, and I did as a student. So do most of the 220+ in her comments; mostly by teachers. However, some noted a move away from deadlines at their schools. Others noted allowing more flexibility. IMHO, my assignments&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2760,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}