The Severity of Late Work Punishments...
I just thought I’d pose a question and my personal response to the topic of the severity of late work punishments and see what others thought on the matter.
Is it more important to teach students the age old “deadline†concept by having harsh late grade punishments or is it better to have more lenient punishments that encourage students to still finish their assignments regardless of it being late?
During my time as an instructor I have played with a few different approaches to the punishment of late work. At first I gave very harsh punishments. As an example I took half off for being late and zero’s for anything more than week late. I noticed that when the punishment was that harsh the student will simply give up and not even attempt to complete a late assignment as it will feel seemingly meaningless to them at that point. This changed, however, when I took from them only 10% per assignment regardless of how late it was with one restriction. Anything handed out before midterm was due by midterm or it was a zero and anything handed out after midterm was a zero if not turned in by the final. Usually this still encourages the students to finish the work and I have seen some really impressive work from students who were trying to make up for the 10% off they knew they were already getting.
Being that the courses I teach are art related, all my grading deals with projects as opposed to papers and tests. Most of the projects are a prerequisite of skill sets that will be needed for the next assignment and so on. When the student misses one assignment it usually throws off the quality of their assignments the rest of the semester. If the late work punishment is mild, usually the student is more encouraged to finish their assignment and thus learn the material. With a harsh late grade policy you can pretty much guarantee the student will just accept the zero and move on, greatly decreasing their ability to learn the material.
What do you guys think? I’ll make myself clear and say in no way am I suggesting the removal of late grade punishments, I’m just suggesting that I believe the ease of the punishments are directly related to the completion of late work. I personally find it more important overall to the student’s learning process that they finish all their work rather than reiterating the same harsh life lesson that they should have learned a thousand times before.
As far as my personal beliefs on the severity of late work punishment is as follows;
I believe if there is no punishment or the punishment is not severe enough, the instructor then choses not to truly prepare their students for the real workforce.
Understanding home-life and personal situations are okay to take into consideration at times. I think if the student has a concern take he/she believes is going to interfere with completing their work on time. The student should inform their instructor prior to the completion date of the assignment. Therefore this allows the instructor to advise the student on any suggestions they may have to help student manage time or alleviate some of their concerns about completing the assignment on time.
If the concern was never brought to the instructors attention prior to the completion date, and only on the day the assignment is actually due. This to me indicates some type of procrastination on the student’s behalf.
The belief of if the punishment is too severe, the student will not attempt to complete the assignment, only shows the level of importance of their education to me the instructor. I personally believe if something is really important you will definitely find a way to complete the task at hand. By not doing so, shows the student has a different outlook on timelines, time-management or assessing priority issues. Then, as an end result punishment should be awarded punishment as previously stated when project was assigned.
In conclusion of my opinions, deadlines are an important factor in preparing students for the workforce. Allowing students not to observe these deadlines set forth false expectations of the workforce. Also this allows the students to go out into the workforce not prepared for the everyday demands of the workforce.
Late work punishments are integral parts of any work environment. All projects have timely deadlines and procrastination is not an acceptable behavior in any situation as it not only affects the overall results of a project but also impacts the other members involved in a project. I feel the severity of late work punishments should be commensurate to the number of times the act has been committed e.g. less severe the first time it happens, but for beginners' class only. In more advanced classes, all punishments should be more compelling.
I totally get what you're saying Matthew about the need for students to finish the assignments in order to help them actually learn the material. Career college students, at least mine, generally have jobs and families outside of school, and it can be a very real struggle for them to complete homework in addition to coming to class.
However, I feel very strongly that our job is to prepare them for the workforce, and their boss will want work done on time. In my field, if the boss wants a memo completed at a certain time, there is a reason, and he would rather have a document that is less than perfect but is on time than a perfect document handed in an hour late.
For our students to be successful in the workforce, they have to understand the importance of completing their assignments on time.
I think late work should have a penalty because the people that get it in on time have done their work and it just is not fare to them.
I do think that students need some penalty for late work.This penalty reinforces the real world idea of negative consequences for being late. I like the concept of taking 10% off no matter how late the assignment.
I do not like the idea of a student giving up altogether as you stated might happen with harsh punishment. This does not foster learning and does not help an instructor be successful with their teaching endeavors.
Earnest J. Kendall Instructor/Associate
Hi Matthew,
Obviously, there are always going to be those students who abuse the good nature of instructors concerning a late policy. However, I would not want to be responsible for denying a learner the opportunity to further their education due to enforcing a late policy too strictly. The purpose is learning the content, not the cause and effect model. I enjoyed reading your post.
Kind Regards,
Lee
