Kids need Hard Deadlines.

I do this. My policy in my art room is that you must turn in whatever you have done on the due date, even if it's not done. If you do, you can finish it on your own and re-turn it in by the end of the 9 weeks for a re-grade. If you don't turn it in on the due date it's a 0 and you can't turn it in for. Re-grade later.

This is a good practice. Too many kids are entering college and have zero concept of deadlines. They just expect professors to accept late work and not take off any points.

As a parent I would appreciate this. When my daughter started junior high I would check her grades every Friday. I check once and there were three assignments that were late. When I asked what the problem was she said and she can turn it in whenever she wanted according to school policy. I explain to her that it is to reinforce the lecture so she gains a complete understanding of the topic and her understanding of the material will be tested. If you don’t have time to do one assignment now how will you have time to do 20? In my opinion taking late work is like closing the barn door after the horse is out. Any purpose it may have served has long past. Again I’m just a parent and I do appreciate what you guys do.

This is great for kids with ADHD. If they don’t have a real deadline, they’ll never get to it.

I wonder how much admin would like it if we turned in grades whenever we felt like it rather than turning them in on time.

My district policy for the last several years has been you can turn in work until the end of the semester. This year it changed to you can turn it in until the week after the end of each unit. I regularly had upwards of 50% of my students not turning in assignments on time (if at all). So a month ago I decided to ignore the policy and just tell them it was due at the end of the period/on the due date (for projects and such). Wouldn’t you know, I started getting 80-90% of the work turned in on time. Of course, I would have still accepted late work if I knew there was a reason beyond they just didn’t do it… but they didn’t need to know that.

It’s almost as if having expectations and consequences and sticking with them is an effective approach. Perhaps I should let admin in on my little secret (but I won’t because I’m sure I’d be told to cease and desist).

I did the same thing, except my Spring break was a bit before yours, I’ve been back two weeks.

They aren’t really turning in any more work, but they are complaining a lot more, and I am grading a lot less slapdash bullshit. So far, it’s been a negative for me because of all the whining and moaning, but maybe they’ll actually learn something from it.

For my big assignments, if they don't get it in on time it's an automatic 10% penalty.

For all other assignments, I reserve the right to take off 20% if it is late.

For assignments that are under 10 points, they cannot redo. For assignments over 10 points, they can redo.

I started locking my assignments after each unit this semester... It's a lot easier for me to grade now, and I think the natural consequence is helping the kids realize they need to do assignments in a timely manner.

As long as you allow kids to request extensions, this is the best way.

I have due dates, and I have deadlines.

Completely agree. Have less formally graded stuff, strict deadlines, try to grade it quickly, and I do believe in allowing for re-submissions (personal choice on full credit or partial but I prefer full if they earned it legitimately).

That’s my goal for next year. I allow kids to turn things up until the unit test, which is a good compromise, but I really just want to have a hard due date and deadline with exceptions for hardship.

I have the hard deadline for full credit, 2 weeks for a one grade distribution drop (A to A-) and everything after that is an NTI. It didn’t hit them that I did this until had a few turn in a bunch of work from October last week and I said this was a zero as per the policy I have on every assignment and every communication. We are in the 4th quarter so they think they can turn stuff in from the beginning of the year and so on to pass. This has been a fun week!

I do this. I take late work up to one week after the due date and it gets a 10% penalty. After that, I’m not taking it.

I give kids a due date (date it’s actually due) and deadline (last day to turn in). Usually only a few days differences. But gave a buffer for those who like to turn in early and those who are last minute.

We aren’t allowed to have hard deadlines…

I completely agree with hard deadlines...but in som3 schools I worked at, that "doesn't follow standards based grading, where we assess only content knowledge."

I think COVID really took away the concept of a deadline. But these kids really need to understand that online applications, bills, etc. have deadlines with real consequences!

I really like making it a visual progress "race." I have tnem "check-in" when theyre done with an assignment. At each point I give them feedback, then refer them to a peer who has mastered the thing I'm asking, and they have to ask them how to fix it. They can't move on without a sticker and they'll do anything for it. Even when it means asking the kid they hate the most. For 75% of my students, it's an absolute motivator. I've never been asked more questioms than I have in the last 3 weeks. But they have a hard deadline for the whole shebang - revisions at all. I'm 5 days from the end of the unit and I have all but 3 complete.

Back home (Australia) I enforced the same deadline + penalty structure to my sole Year 8 class as I did with my Year 11 / 12 classes. After the first 1-2 assessments, they pretty much all submitted work on time. But only for my class, as I often heard other teachers complain about how the students 'are terrible with deadlines'... because they'd allow late submissions with little to no penalties.

Students, especially middle school, do well with structured expectations that you stick to. That same class also willingly surrenders their devices upon entering my class every day because that's what I expect of them, and I've always followed through with the consequences I've set down.

I've heard all sorts of 'reasons' from other teachers about what could 'possibly be the issue' of kids not listening/respecting them, none of which 'miraculously' happens to me (the one I've heard most often as a new, mid-20s teacher from colleagues my age, is "the kids don't respect us cause we're young!" 🙄).

Yeah, I just had to have a hard conversation with a student this week. He missed turning in a paper about a week ago, and when I finally got through the stack (HS ELA) and posted the grades he immediately email me asking for the chance to turn it in.

I pointed out my late work policy, and let him know that if he could email it to me right then I would back it up a tier (so just take 20% off instead of 50%). He couldn't. He gave me a runaround but clearly he just hadn't done the work.

So, after class, we had to have the talk. I pointed out that this will -- temporarily -- tank his grade, but that I have a number of policies in place to allow for extra credit and work redo. So, for now, things are rough; however, ultimately his final grade will depend on his determination to accept that he screwed up and do something about it.

I have a hard due date, but allow corrections. If it's not done, they get whatever score they have earned by the due date. Hard copy assignments must be corrected/finished in my room after school. If it is an electronic assignment, it is on the student to notify me that they need a regrade. All retakes happen in my room after school on days I find convenient.

I have found that by allowing corrections/retakes but making the student responsible for the inconvenience (rather than me) I end up with the perfect balance between compassion for students with extenuating circumstances and not enabling the slackers.

Have you tried making a separate email folder that sorts your student emails out of the rest? That has really helped me.

I wish I could. The students know that the district allows them to turn in formative assessments 5 days after deadline and summative assessments 10 days after. They can retake as many times within that time period to get higher than a D.

You just realized this?

Personally, I would keep the soft deadlines and switch to hard next year.