Time is On Your Side: A Discussion of Universal Extended Time in Assessments (Part 2 with Dr. Breanna Lawrence)

Transcripts– Dr. Breanna Lawrence 

Jiexing 

Welcome to the ‘Let’s Talk About Teaching’ Podcast, a podcast dedicated to exploring innovative teaching practices in postsecondary education, examining the day-to-day challenges of implementing and uncovering strategies for success. If you have been following us since our earlier ‘Teach Anywhere’ podcast episodes, welcome back. We’re excited to broaden the conversation and to continue sharing stories and insights from educators that inspire reflection and growth. My name is Jiexing Hu, I’m a Learning Designer with Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation, also known as LTSI at the University of Victoria. My pronouns are she and her. 

Sarah 

I am your co-host, Sarah DeDecker, and my pronouns are she and her. I am a Curriculum Specialist in STEM at LTSI. Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. 

Jiexing 

In this 3-episode podcast series ‘Time is on Your Side’. We explore Universal Extended Time in assessments as a tool to enhance accessibility and inclusivity at UVic. This series will bring together multiple guests over 3 episodes to talk about their experiences and perspectives on Universal Extended Time. We will explore the pedagogical benefits, practical challenges, and how it’s being used at UVic in fostering equitable and inclusive assessment practices. 

Sarah 

To help guide our conversation, Universal Extended Time is defined as an access-centered assessment strategy that seeks to reduce access barriers created by time restricted assessments and increase overall accessibility for all students. This strategy is often used in the context of exams or quizzes. Applying Universal Extended Time appropriately requires an accurate measurement of the assessment’s timing and then applying a calculated extension to this time frame that reflects common time extension accommodations, commonly 1.5 times. This time is applied to all students taking the assessment.  

In the second episode, we’re joined by Dr. Breanna Lawrence, an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies. Breanna has experience with Universal Extended Time asynchronous assessments, offering a unique perspective on how it supports students’ self-regulation and engagement in her course. 

Transition music 

Sarah 

Hello Breanna! Welcome to the podcast. 

Breanna 

Hi, thank you for having me. 

Sarah 

Thank you for joining us today, Breanna. Before we start chatting about Universal Extended Time, could you tell us a bit more about yourself? Perhaps share how long you’ve been in your current role and what you do in your work. 

Breanna 

Sure. I have been at UVic, this is my 2nd year, and previously I taught at a different institution for about 6 years. So I’ve been a faculty member and teaching at post-secondary actually over the past decade. I’m also a Registered Psychologist. I work primarily with children and youth in a professional role, and I teach in the Department of Educational Psychology, primarily Special Education, as well as some Teacher Education courses too. 

Jiexing 

Thank you, Breanna. Could you tell us a bit about the course you’re teaching? 

Breanna 

One of the courses that I’m currently teaching that I use Universal Extended Test Time is a new course called Resilience and Coping to Overcome Adversity. This course is a 2nd year course and it’s open to people across the University. It’s part of our minor in Educational Psychology, and it is online and asynchronous. So right now I have almost 115 students in it, and each week, the students complete a weekly quiz that I apply Universal Extended Test Time to. 

Sarah 

Thanks. What is your understanding of Universal Extended Time? 

Breanna 

Well, specifically in my course, Universal Extended Test Time means that all the students have an extended test time. So the weekly quizzes that I’ve developed typically would only take about 20 to 30 minutes to complete. However, I’ve provided students with the week to complete them. So that means that every single student has about from Monday to Friday to complete the quiz on their own time. Once the students decide to open the quiz, they have extended time to complete it. The quiz, the way I’ve designed it might only take 20 to 30 minutes, but they have a significantly more time allowed for them to complete it. 

Jiexing 

So my next question is, could you tell us about your experience implementing Universal Extended Time in your course? What was your motivation to implement it? 

Breanna 

So my motivation to implement Universal Extended Test Time was to provide students with flexibility as well as accessibility, as well as control over completing and being successful on the quizzes. So because I have the quizzes weekly, I see it as an opportunity to practice, to be able to complete the quizzes in a successful way. So I was motivated to include Universal Extended Test Time because I felt like it met the majority of my students’ needs, as well as give them practice at kind of like managing their time and regulating their own learning as well. So lots of students, particularly when they’re taking an online course, seem to have a lot of additional courses. Some of my students are in 6 classes, or they’re actually away from the university. Some of them are on co-ops or practicum, sometimes even in other countries. So I found that the Universal Extended Test Time not only helped to support students with accommodations, but made the course more accessible and available to students with other types of learning needs as well. I think one of the key pieces in terms of implementing it was to help students learn how to successfully complete the quizzes. So because I have 10. I would say that my experience is it takes a few weeks for students to learn how to engage with the quiz. So my quiz opens and has a flexible start time, opens on Monday and closes by Friday. So I provide reminders to complete the quiz and even give them estimates of how long it may take, but also try to prompt students to do it somewhat ahead of time before the 50 p.m. deadline on Friday, for example. And because they complete it weekly, they get into a rhythm of knowing how much time it will take and being able to complete it by the end date as well. 

Jiexing 

Sounds like you’re also fostering the Time Management skills at the same time, right? 

Breanna 

Yeah, I think another key piece though is students have more control over their environment. Because my course is online and asynchronous, they can make decisions about when is the right time for them to complete the quiz and in what space, and given how much time they have each week in the context of all their other commitments and courses as well. And I think because the time that I provided is significant, opens Monday, closes Friday, that’s 5 days and the quiz is brief, that it, it’s quite obvious that it would definitely not take you that full time. But students need to plan how long they want to take to complete the quiz. I would say one of the other things that I’ve considered in my course planning was I make the quiz the same every week, so it’s the same length and the same format. And so the students have practiced and would get a sense of themselves and how long it’s going to take to complete it, and how much time they’ll need. 

Jiexing 

The self-regulation piece as well. 

Breanna 

Yeah, so part of the Universal Extended Test Time is actually having students learn about themselves as learners and how long it will take them to complete the assignment. One key piece of implementing it, I think, is to provide it as a low-stakes frequent assessment where students can practice taking them. 

Sarah 

Can you go into a little bit more detail about the format of what these quizzes look like, types of questions? 

Breanna 

OK, so my quizzes are very flexible. They are also open book. They’re really reading checkpoint quizzes to see how the students are understanding and engaging with the required reading. I have almost like a disclaimer before the quiz that says, please draw on the reading materials. You do not need to look outside the reading materials. The quizzes are taken directly from the reading. So the format of my quiz is 4 multiple choice questions and 1 short answer question worth 4 points. So they’re quite brief and they’re checks directly related to the reading. 

Jiexing 

I like that you said it’s open book and also all the information can be found from the readings that um that students already have access to. In your case, it’s like if students know that they have as much time as they need and they know where to find answers for those tests, actually the learning also happened during the test as well, right? 

Breanna 

That’s right. I think a key piece is the purpose of the Extended Test Time and the purpose of the assessment. And for me, it’s frequent low-stakes assessment that helps the student complete the reading and be rewarded for doing that and showing that they understand the reading material. I have noticed in assessing, for example, the short answer question, I can tell when students draw material from outside of the reading because it usually doesn’t satisfy the answer. So I usually provide a prompt to draw directly from the reading and give feedback about where they could find the response then in the reading. So I’m hoping that the learning process becomes ongoing at that point as well. 

Jiexing 

That’s great. Thank you. 

Sarah 

Were there any initial challenges and successes that you encountered when trying to integrate Universal Extended Time into these quiz assessments? 

Breanna 

One of the challenges is still requests, I would say for like extension. So I’ve really had to reflect and kind of consider what criteria would allow for an extension, because I feel as though the extensions or even extended time has been built into the assessment already. So that has been a pedagogical challenge for me trying to figure out what is equitable as well in terms of is there extensions on extended time, for example, that’s already been granted. So that’s something I’m wrestling with, figuring out. I do you have an option to drop quizzes. So, there’s 10 quizzes in total, and I evaluate 8. So what I’ve tried to encourage students to do instead is to skip a quiz or to drop a quiz. And that has been helping with that challenge, I would say.  

I would say the success that I’ve encountered is that students are doing well on the quizzes, and I feel that they’re getting rewarded for doing the work, doing the reading. And I noticed that, for example, students want to complete the quizzes, so I had said that I was assessing 8 quizzes and students were asking to complete additional quizzes. So I think that demonstrates that they’re using the quiz quizzes in an engaged way. And feeling as if it is rewarding the work that they’re doing. I think another success is the opportunity for comprehension checks and feedback checks. So they’ve been helpful to be able to correct misunderstandings in a formative way along the way, as well as because I’m doing them so frequently, they give me really good information about what I need to include in some following weeks in terms of my lecture, for example, or course resources. Another success is that it like reduces some of the logistics for me in terms of managing a large course. So rather than make numerous individual adjustments to the quiz, I don’t need to do that. And so, I’ve found for me, that’s been like a success as an as an instructor, to not have the level of logistics that could potentially be involved. 

Sarah 

I think it’s great hearing, yeah, success from like the student perspective, but then also for you as well as the instructor. 

Jiexing 

Yeah, that’s great. So you have touched a little bit on this next question, but I’m just going to ask it anyway. So how have students responded to this in your course? 

Breanna 

So students have responded by being engaged. The quizzes are completed at a high rate, so there’s not a lot of missed quizzes, which I think is indicating that this is working for their for their schedule, for their engagement, for their kind of approach to learning in the course. Students have responded by doing well on the quizzes and demonstrating good levels of understanding. And again, they’re engaged with completing the quizzes and wanting to complete the quizzes as well for further assessment and for their marks. 

Sarah 

If you could go back, is there anything you would do differently when introducing Universal Extended Time into your teaching? 

Breanna 

I think I could actually provide students with general information about Universal Extended Time. It might be interesting, particularly because I’m teaching Education for students to understand uh the motives or the, you know, the impetus for using extended test time in this way. So I think what I might do differently next term when I teach it is give more of a preamble about the rationale for why the quizzes are designed in the way they are. Just kind of educating students on what Universal Test Time means would be something I might really consider for next term. I think some other kind of key points so that to consider in the context of my course is that it is online, it is asynchronous, it’s on resilience. So the students are practicing ways to, you know, be successful and to kind of cope with stress and to organize themselves. So there is this inherent flexibility already built into it, which really lends itself to being able to do the Universal Extended Test Time. 

Jiexing 

Great. Breanna, thanks so much for having this conversation and sharing your insights with us. 

Breanna: 

Thank you. 

Sarah 

Thanks for tuning in. Let’s pause for now, and when we come back, we hope you can join us for the 3rd and final episode of our ‘Time is on Your Side’ podcast series, where we will speak with UVic staff members, Rowan Shaw from the Center for Accessible Learning, and Lesley Ellis from Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation. Rowan and Lesley will share their knowledge on how Universal Extended Time expands accessibility and inclusion for students and the relevant considerations when implementing Universal Extended Time.  

Make sure to visit our Teach Anywhere website at uvic.ca/teachanywhere, where you can learn more about teaching and learning at UVic. We will talk to you again soon. 

• Hosts: Sarah DeDecker & Jiexing Hu 
• Guest: Dr. Breanna Lawrence 
• Technical Production: Jiexing Hu, Sarah DeDecker & Lesley Ellis 
• Transcript Preparation: Jiexing Hu, Sarah DeDecker & Lesley Ellis 
• Theme music: “freesound1.wav” by freezound5 (https://freesound.org/people/freezound5/sounds/588258/) and “sonically_sound.wav” by freezound5 (https://freesound.org/people/sonically_sound/sounds/624643/). Available for use under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication at freesound.org.