Is It Fair To Give A Makeup To Improve The Grades

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Most of my nine-week grading periods ended the same way: Me and one or two students, sitting in my quiet, empty classroom together, with me sitting at the computer, the students nearby in desks, methodically working through piles of make-up assignments. They would be focused, more focused than I'd seen them in months, and the speed with which they got through the piles was stunning.

As they finished each consignment I took it, checked it for accurateness, and so entered their scores—taking l percent off for being late—into my grading program. With every entry, I'd watch as their class grade went up and upward: from a 37 percentage to a 41, then to 45, then to 51, and eventually to something in the 60s or even depression 70s, a number that constituted passing, at which betoken the procedure would end and we'd part means, full of resolve that next marking period would exist unlike.

And the whole time I thought to myself, This is pointless. They aren't learning anything at all. But I wasn't sure what else to exercise.

For every bit long as teachers have assigned tasks in exchange for grades, belatedly work has been a problem. What practice we do when a student turns in work late? Do nosotros give some kind of result or accept assignments at any time with no penalty? Do we gear up upwards some kind of system that keeps students motivated while still holding them accountable? Is there a fashion to manage all of this without driving ourselves crazy?

To notice answers, I went to Twitter and asked teachers to share what works for them. What follows is a summary of their responses. I wish I could requite individual credit to each person who offered ideas, but that would take mode besides long, and I really want you to go these suggestions now! If y'all've been unsatisfied with your own approach to late work, you should discover some fresh ideas here.

First, a Few Questions About Your Grades

Earlier we get into the ways teachers manage late work, allow's back up a fleck and consider whether your overall plan of assignments and grading is in a healthy place. Here are some questions to retrieve about:

1. What do your grades represent? How much of your grades are truly based on academic growth, and how much are based mostly on compliance? If they lean more toward compliance, so what you're doing when yous effort to manage tardily work is basically a lot of administrative paper pushing, rather than didactics your content. Although it'south important for kids to larn how to manage deadlines, exercise you really want an A in your course to primarily reflect the ability to follow instructions? If your grades are too compliance-based, consider how you might shift things then they more accurately represent learning. (For a deeper discussion of this effect, read How Accurate Are Your Grades?)
2. Are you grading also many things? If you lot spend a lot of time chasing downwards missing assignments in club to become more than scores in your gradebook, information technology could be that you're grading besides much. Some teachers only enter grades for major, summative tasks, similar projects, major writing assignments, or exams. Everything else is considered determinative and is either ungraded or given a very low indicate value for completion, not graded for accuracy; it's practice. For teachers who are used to collecting lots of grades over a marking period, this will be a big shift, and if you piece of work in a schoolhouse where you lot're expected to enter grades into your system frequently, that shift will be even more difficult. Disarming your students that ungraded exercise is worthwhile because it will assist their performance on the big things will be some other hurdle. With all of that said, reducing the number of scored items volition brand your grades more meaningful and cut way down on the fourth dimension you spend grading and managing belatedly work.
3. What assumptions practice you make when students don't turn in work? I'm embarrassed to admit that when I get-go started teaching, I assumed most students with missing work were just unmotivated. Although this might be true for a small portion of students, I no longer see this every bit the almost likely reason. Students may take issues with executive function and could utilise some help developing systems for managing their time and responsibilities. They may struggle with anxiety. Or they may not take the resources—like time, space, and engineering—to consistently complete work at home. More attention has been paid lately to the fact that homework is an equity consequence, and our policies effectually homework should reverberate an understanding that all students don't have access to the same resources in one case they exit schoolhouse for the day. Punitive policies that are meant to "motivate" students don't take whatever of these other issues into consideration, so if your tardily piece of work penalties don't seem to exist working, it'south probable that the root cause is something other than a lack of motivation.
4. What kind of grading system is realistic for you ? Any organization y'all put in place requires YOU to stay on top of grading. It would be much harder to assign penalties, send home reminders, or track lateness if you are behind on marking papers past a week, two weeks, fifty-fifty a month. So whatever you practice, create a program that yous can actually keep up with.

Possible Solutions

1. Penalties

Many teachers give some sort of penalty to students for late work. The thinking behind this is that without some sort of negative consequence, as well many students would wait until the end of the marker period to turn piece of work in, or in some cases, non plow it in at all. When piece of work is turned in weeks or even months tardily, it tin lose its value as a learning opportunity because it is no longer aligned with what's happening in class. On meridian of that, teachers tin end up with massive piles of assignments to form in the terminal few days of a marking period. This not merely places a heavy burden on teachers, it is far from an ideal condition for giving students the good quality feedback they should be getting on these assignments.

Several types of penalties are near mutual:

Point Deductions
In many cases, teachers but reduce the class as a result of the lateness. Some teachers will take off a certain number of points per day until they reach a cutoff engagement later which the work volition no longer exist accepted. Ane teacher who responded said he takes off 10 pct for up to three days late, then 30 percent for piece of work submitted upwardly to a week late; he says most students turn their work in earlier the first iii days are over. Others have a standard corporeality that comes off for any late work (like ten percent), regardless of when information technology is turned in. This policy still rewards students for on-time work without completely de-motivating those who are late, builds in some accountability for lateness, and prevents the teacher from having to do a lot of mathematical juggling with a more complex arrangement.

Parent Contact
Some teachers proceed track of late work and contact parents if it is not turned in. This treats the late work as more of a conduct issue; the parent contact may be in addition to or instead of taking points away.

No Feedback, No Re-Dos
The real value of homework and other smaller assignments should be the opportunity for feedback: Students do an consignment, they become timely teacher feedback, and they apply that feedback to improve. In many cases, teachers allow students to re-do and resubmit assignments based on that feedback. So a logical consequence of late work could be the loss of that opportunity: Several teachers mentioned that their policy is to accept tardily piece of work for full credit, but just students who submit work on time will receive feedback or the chance to re-do it for a higher class. Those who hand in belatedly work must accept whatever score they get the first time effectually.

2. A Separate Piece of work Habits Class

In a lot of schools, especially those that use standards-based grading, a student's grade on an assignment is a pure representation of their bookish mastery; it does not reflect compliance in whatsoever fashion. And then in these classrooms, if a student turns in practiced work, it's going to become a good grade even if it's handed in a month late.

Merely students notwithstanding need to learn how to manage their fourth dimension. For that reason, many schools assign a split up grade for work habits. This might mensurate factors like adherence to deadlines, neatness, and post-obit not-academic guidelines like font sizes or using the correct heading on a newspaper.

• Although most teachers whose schools utilise this type of system will admit that students and parents don't accept the work habits form as seriously equally the academic grade, they study existence satisfied that student grades only reflect mastery of the content.
• 1 school calls their work habits form a "behavior" grade, and although it doesn't impact GPA, students who don't have a certain behavior form can't make accolade scroll, despite their actual GPA.
• Several teachers mentioned looking for patterns and using the carve up grade as a basis for conferences with parents, counselors, or other stakeholders. For nigh students, there's probably a stiff correlation between work habits and bookish accomplishment, so separating the two could aid students come across that connection.
• Some learning direction systems will flag assignments as tardily without necessarily taking points off. Although this does not automatically translate to a work habits form, information technology indicates the lateness to students and parents without misrepresenting the academic accomplishment.

3. Homework Passes

Because things happen in existent life that tin throw anyone off form every now and and then, some teachers offer passes students can utilise to replace a missed assignment.

• Most teachers simply offer these passes to supersede low-point assignments, not major ones, and they generally merely offer 1 to three passes per marking menses. Homework passes tin normally only recover 5 to 10 per centum of a student'south overall course grade.
• Other teachers have a policy of allowing students to drop one or ii of their everyman scores in the gradebook. Again, this is typically washed for smaller assignments and has the same internet effect as a homework pass by allowing anybody to take a bad day or two.
• One teacher gives "Side by side Class Passes" which allow students one actress solar day to turn in work. At the cease of every marking period she gives extra credit points to students who still have unused passes. She says that since she started doing this, she has had the lowest rate ever of late piece of work.

iv. Extension Requests

Quite a few teachers require students to submit a written request for a deadline extension rather than taking points off. With a organization similar this, every educatee turns something in on the due date, whether information technology'south the assignment itself or an extension request.

• Most extension requests ask students to explain why they were unable to consummate the consignment on time. This non only gives the students a chance to reflect on their habits, it also invites the teacher to help students solve larger problems that might be getting in the way of their academic success.
• Having students submit their requests via Google Forms reduces the need for paper and routes all requests to a single spreadsheet, which makes information technology easier for teachers to keep track of piece of work that is late or needs to exist regraded.
• Other teachers employ a like system for times when students desire to resubmit work for a new form.

v. Floating Deadlines

Rather than choosing a single borderline for an assignment, some teachers assign a range of dates for students to submit piece of work. This flexibility allows students to plan their work around other life activities and responsibilities.

• Some teachers offer an incentive to turn in work in the early role of the time frame, such as extra credit or faster feedback, and this helps to spread out the submissions more evenly.
• Another variation on this approach is to assign a batch of work for a whole week and ask students to get it in by Friday. This way, students get to manage when they go it washed.
• Other names mentioned for this strategy were flexible deadlines, soft deadlines, and due windows.

6. Let Students Submit Work in Progress

Some digital platforms, like Google Classroom, allow students to "submit" assignments while they are all the same working on them. This allows teachers to see how far the pupil has gotten and address any problems that might be coming upwards. If your classroom is more often than not newspaper-based, it'south certainly possible to do this kind of matter with paper too, letting students plough in partially completed work to demonstrate that an effort has been made and show you where they might be stuck.

7. Give Late Work Total Credit

Some teachers accept all belatedly piece of work with no penalty. Most of them agree that if the work is important, and if nosotros desire students to practise it, we should let them hand information technology in whenever they become information technology done.

• Some teachers fearfulness this approach will crusade more students to stop doing the work or delay submission until the end of a marking period, but teachers who like this approach say they were surprised by how little things inverse when they stopped giving penalties: Most students connected to turn work in more than or less on time, and the same ones who were late under the old system were still late under the new one. The big difference was that the teacher no longer had to spend time computing deductions or determining whether students had valid excuses; the piece of work was simply graded for mastery.
• To give students an incentive to actually turn the work in earlier the marking period is over, some teachers volition put a temporary nada in the gradebook every bit a placeholder until the assignment is turned in, at which point the zilch is replaced with a grade.
• Here's a twist on the "no penalization" option: Some teachers don't accept points off for belatedly work, simply they limit the time frame when students tin turn it in. Some will not accept tardily piece of work after they accept graded and returned an assignment; at that bespeak information technology would exist too easy for students to copy off of the returned papers. Others will only take tardily work up until the assessment for the unit, considering the work leading up to that is meant to prepare for that assessment.

8. Other Preventative Measures

These strategies aren't necessarily a way to manage belatedly piece of work as much as they are meant to prevent it in the beginning place.

• Include students in setting deadlines. When information technology comes to major assignments, have students aid yous make up one's mind due dates. They may have a better thought than you practise about other big events that are happening and assignments that have been given in other classes.
• Cease assigning homework. Some teachers have stopped assigning homework entirely, recognizing that disparities at dwelling house make it an unfair measurement of bookish mastery. Instead, all meaningful work is washed in form, where the instructor can monitor progress and give feedback as needed. Long-term projects are done in class equally well, so the teacher is enlightened of which students demand more time and why.
• Make homework optional or self-selected. Not all students need the same amount of practice. You lot may be able to get your students to appraise their own need for additional do and assign that practice to themselves. Although this may sound far-fetched, in some classes, like this self-paced classroom, it actually works, considering students know they will exist graded on a concluding cess, they get good at determining when they need extra practice.

With so many different approaches to late piece of work, what's clear is that at that place are a lot of different schools of thought on grading and cess, then it's not a surprise that nosotros don't e'er land on the best solution on the offset try. Experiment with different systems, talk to your colleagues, and be willing to try something new until you find something that works for you lot.

Farther Reading

20 Means to Cut Your Grading Time in Half
This free e-volume is full of ideas that can help with grading in general.

On Your Marker: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting
Thomas R. Guskey
This book came highly recommended past a number of teachers.

Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Become Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School
Starr Sackstein

Come dorsum for more.
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Source: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/late-work/

Posted by: dyerlaceirdid.blogspot.com

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