Excuses
How do you handle continual excuses for late assignments?
Lori,
Good approach. Have a policy where the 'freebie' is built in.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I was concerned with that topic as a new instructor starting online teaching. I like the "one freebie" .....after that look into it more for why the assignments are not done.
Yehia,
Yes, you have the right idea. Can you relay some specific tactics that are especially successful toward building the student, in your experience?
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Students who continuously ask for extensions pose a challenge to the online instructor. I would usually approach the student with probing questions to identify the problem. If it is something out of the student's control, I would try to come up with possible solutions to help the student. More than often, the student lacks a back-up plan to act when situations come up. This can be solved through building up the student's survival tactics.
Justine,
Helping students to succeed in the professional world by establishing and maintaining a "rewards and consequences" educational experience, is absolutely the correct way to go. In some instances I have seen educational environments "enable" noncompliance behavior to a point where subsequent employers would all too frequently be required to terminate employment of graduates because of lack of responsibility and/or commitment. Thank you Julie and Justine.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
We have a similar grading syllabus that we adhere to as well. If the student is going to be late and contacts the instructor ahead of time, we will allow one extension. If the student continually turns assignments in late we also deduct points. Also if there is an unusual circumstance (eg. death in family) we may extend the deadline but we are never able to extend the deadline during the last week of the mod due to grades needing to be turned in. As our students are adults, we tend to try and keep the excuses to a minimum- making the student know that their actions in school will reflect how they are going to be as an employee. They need to treat their schooling as if it were their job- a boss would not continually allow someone to be late with all assignments that they are responsible for at work.
Daniel,
The one freebie idea sounds like a good one to me. I think most teachers are correctly trying to avoid enabling students in a procrastination habit because they know how harmful it will be to the students in their professional lives. Good approach, thanks for sharing.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
That's a great question Julie and I usually give one freebie and after that, you have to really hone in on verifying. If there are definite extenuating circumstances, then I'm willing to help. If it truly just is an excuse, then you need to try and identify why there are excuses instead of assignments.
Leslie,
I find the same experience as you. My feedback to students who have submitted late often includes a link or quote from the policy. Rarely is there any pushback and almost always the late submissions stop or diminish from that student. Nicely done.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Posting a detailed and firm Late Policy helps. I post one at the beginning of the class. When a student submits late work, I take off points as detailed in the late policy. It is a great help and takes the guess work out of late grades.
Charles,
Many in instructors have a wide range of responses on this topic. Some even indicate the level of student may indicate subtle differences in the response. My experience is that (almost) everyone agrees that the procrastinator gets the zero in all situations. However, even for adult learners at different levels (diploma, undergraduate, graduate) some have indicated very different approaches should be implemented. I greatly appreciate your input here and agree that we need to prepare our students for the professional world by teaching them experiecially while they are in our classrooms.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I agree that EXTREME situations occur in life, but I still won't accept late work. I tell students they are adults and therefore will accept the consequences of their actions. If they continually show up late to work they will no longer have a job.If a student wants to procrastinate or forgets about an assignment they earned a 0%, if their grandmother died then a late submission is warranted.
There is a 5 point deduction for every day it is late. I do let them submit because I want the student to understand the responsibility of a project deadline and also to learn.
If it is a Midterm, they get only one chance to make it up and it has to be done in the week of the test. For a Final exam, they have 3 days to make it up due to grade deadlines. It is an automatic 5 point deduction for being late.
I am not cold hearted and will listen to excuses but the excuse better be a good one.
Reyna,
I agree, our calling as teachers is to help all students succeed. Life happens to us all. Adult learners are often dealing with these things along with school.
To 'actually know' whether they are excuses, or not, may not be the most important question when deciding how to properly enforce academic policy. Sometimes it is best (educationally) to let someone fail a class and retake it when they have the time and focus to really learn the material. Points acquired to pass the class are secondary indicators that the class objectives were successfully completed. If we as teachers 'help' the student pass the class without fully meeting the objectives, we probably didn't truely help the student. Relaxing academic standards to help someone feel better during a difficult time in life, may actually be harming them. These are some tough professional judgements that teachers must make as a normal part of the job. The key is to balance human compassion with the reality of the situation. Kind words of support, empathy and encouragement can go along way to helping students overcome their circumstances. Rewards and consquences, applied appropriately, are an important part of a quality education.
I feel that the instructor has a duty to help any and all students succeed in their course. I accept late work and try not to deduct points off any assignments. I do not let the students know that late work is okay. However, I do still take it. Each person has a life and things happen in life everyday. Have you ever lost a loved one? Been in the hospital? Been in a car accident? Or have a small child ill? I have, and I know that people can go through some horrendous incidents in their life. Some may be excuses, how do you actually know?
Aprilan,
This clear, fair and concise approach is the heart of helping students attain the knowledge and discipline for the professions they have chosen. It gives the learner the opportunity to take full responsibility and authority over his/her learning. Excellent!
Before a class begins I send out guidelines of deadlines and penalties. If a student submits work late and does not contact me ahead of time I deduct a penalty. After a certain time frame I do not accept any late work. I do give extra time to students who contact me before the deadline and who follow up on a regular basis. To me this effort shows professionalism, respect, and that they do want to learn the material we are covering but have barriers to the time frame we allot them.
Hi Julie, we take off late points and also set deadlines. We make it clear to learners that if they are not able to submit the assignment by the deadline that their grade will automatically become a 0 and there will be no further opportunity to submit their assignment. If the learner contacts the instructor before the deadline, the instructor can extend the deadline, but only one extension is allowed unless it is an unusual situation. Tina
