The most common question in my inbox is not about programming code or subnetting. It is some version of “what are we supposed to do?” My personal favorites: “What did I miss? Why is my grade zero? Why am I failing your class?” For years I read that as students not reading. I now read it as an opportunity for connection through using my words.
Academic structures and course assignments that are clear to me, war-torn veteran of decades of higher-ed, are sometimes unclear to a student, especially for those who are taking their first college course online. For many students with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, et al, a vague task is not only irritating. It can be the wall of inertia that ends semesters before they start. Executive function (the mental machinery for getting started, sequencing, and finishing) is exactly what a fuzzy prompt taxes the most, which can trigger negative affective ripples across the whole person.
So now every Activity I require explicitly states five things, in the same “P-F-O-D-E” order, every time:
1 The Purpose (Why): why this exists and what skill it builds. If I can’t say it in one sentence, it’s a sign I have not performed enough executive function myself as the instructor and that I need to have some alone prep time.
2 The First Step (How): the very first thing to do, physically. “Open Packet Tracer and load the .pka file you downloaded from Module 6.” Starting is the hardest step for many people, and naming it removes the blank page.
3 The Outcome (What): or expected deliverable, what submission gets turned in, in what format, with what file name. A screenshot? A .java file? A paragraph in the text box?
4 The Due Date (When): date, time, and whether late work is accepted.
5 The Evaluation (Who): what successful students do who earn the highest grades, a plain-language description or a short exemplar. Not a rubric with twelve rows, though a rubric can sit underneath. Two or three sentences a student can check their own work against.
Note that my instructions live in one predictable place in the LMS, and only there. For me that is the assignment page itself, linked from the week’s module, laid out identically every week. Not the announcement, not the slide deck, not a reply buried in a discussion thread. When a student knows where to look, the looking stops costing them anything.
None of this is an accommodation for some students. It is universal design for all my students: a change to the default that removes a barrier for some students and costs nothing for the rest. The strong student skims it in ten seconds. The student who would have emailed me at 11 p.m. does not need to. Both of them get to spend their effort on the actual work.
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