Well, it’s that time of the semester when students hit the drop deadline and I worry about the ones who look like they’re not going to pass.
We’re so focused on “student success”, but I’m worried about these students as individuals. In particular, I worry about the students who didn’t do their work during the rest of the semester, and now either drop, or try to make up everything.
I consider possible responses. For those remaining, I could allow them to make up everything, individually and on the sly. “On the sly” is needed because surely letting everyone do that means the deadlines didn’t mean anything?
What do those deadlines mean? For me they’re a matter of workload, but for students they’re character issues: planning ahead, persistence, consistency of effort.
My tendency is to let those with the capability make up things. I prefer that to allowing it based on perceived “need”. I do not want to adjudicate among this student’s dying family member, this student’s car trouble, and another’s hospitalization. I frankly don’t want to hear about who was sick and who was on vacation in Italy and who was thrown out of the house.
I want to judge their work, not them. But I can’t do that if all the work isn’t there. So once again I’m helping some students pass by allowing late work.
Surely by doing this I am encouraging poor work habits, undermining “real world” work responsibilities, and tacitly suggesting that deadlines are always negotiable?
But if I don’t do it, if I say no, they fail. I guess that’s not OK with me.
Hi Lisa,
I appreciate your post on this topic; it’s one I constantly consider–and reconsider–in my classes, too. Currently, I allow students to turn in one assignment late (any assignment completed outside of class) up to one week at no penalty. Students fill out a “Late Assignment Pass” that is on the bottom of the Course Syllabus. So far, it has worked well, but often students use the pass in the beginning of the semester and come to regret it.
I also have students write all of their in-class work in a journal and I occasionally collect their journals and grade a select few entries. If students are absent, they can most likely complete the in-class assignments they missed on their own time and hopefully have a complete journal when I end up collecting them. This takes some of the pressure off of missing assignments.
My approach is not fool proof; I’m always thinking about revising it, so I like hearing how other instructors deal with this issue. Do you have a stated “late work policy” in the syllabus? Have other students complained that “you allowed so-and-so to turn in late work and that’s not ‘fair’?” And how do you determine who has the “capability to make up things”?
Thanks for the post!