This accommodation is not intended to reduce academic requirements or alter the standards by which academic performance is assessed. If a faculty member is concerned this accommodation is unreasonable because it will lower standards or compromise an essential learning outcome, these concerns should be addressed with DSS upon receiving the student’s Accommodation Letter email. The determination that an accommodation is unreasonable is an institutional decision that should be made within legal parameters and in consultation with DSS. The contents of a cue sheet are at the instructor’s discretion and should not run contrary to the essential requirements of the course. It is essential to consider whether the course’s learning outcome is for students to memorize or apply the material. It is possible that the use of a memory aid will be appropriate for some exams and not others, even within the same course.
Cue sheets must be reviewed and approved by the instructor. Instructors may remove memory triggers that are deemed to compromise essential learning objectives for the course. For example:
- If one of the learning objectives is to recall a formula from memory, the formula should not be allowed on the cue sheet; however, if the learning objective is to demonstrate the ability to apply the formula, then it could be allowed on the cue sheet.
- If the purpose of a test is to determine whether the student can define certain terms, having the definitions of those terms on a cue sheet would make it an “answer sheet” and therefore not acceptable (but including the terms alone may be allowable).