Recently, I posted this picture on my instagram:
I didn’t realize it would get so much attention. It turned into a debate. Quickly.
I agree, there are two sides to this coin. Well, students are students, and they are learning and by accepting late homework, we as teachers can still appreciate that our students got practice and we can use the work as an assessment tool. On the other hand, students need to learn about the real world and that missed deadlines have real consequences like late fees which can turn into a never-ending cycle of debt. The main point that this instagram post brought out is that accepting late homework from students is much deeper than actually accepting late work. It’s about teaching values and instilling responsibility in our young people, even at an early age.
Here is how I feel. I actually accept late homework and I teach 12th graders. I accept late work because I believe the work itself is valuable. Even though the work is late, I may be able to identify patterns and trends relevant to the content that will be critical in helping me to identify how to target a student’s learning needs. My job is to improve student academic achievement. I made it my personal responsibility to ensure that each of my students experience academic success. Sure, the work is late, but I penalize the behavior by knocking off points. I also don’t grade work based on completion. I actually look at accuracy to determine if my students mastered the learning target. This is the score I put on my tracker, not the score that goes into the grade book. Assessment trackers are meant for you to collect and assess data to drive instruction, and homework is a formative assessment. Thus, I accept late homework so that my students know if they have mastered the objective. It is also imperative that my students have practice and exposure to the content outside of class, daily. So even if they are not doing it on time, but they are doing it at all, I will accept it.
Doing homework also teaches students minimal study skills. In college, I earned no credit for doing homework. Even though I had homework, I didn’t get any points for doing it. Homework was a tool to stay on top of the content and to study every night. I want my students to also accept the idea of doing homework as a personal commitment. Hopefully by the time they get to college, they won’t be culturally shocked about not receiving credit for homework and realize that it is meant to help prepare them for their major assessments.
This issue on accepting late work is extremely controversial. I have also had my limits with accepting late work. I wrote in that same post that next year I actually didn’t want to accept late work anymore because I felt that students in high school, especially Seniors who are months away from facing the real world, should be taught with tough love, and assessing late work made more work for me in the end. But when I think about the real intention of homework to begin with, it was never about “teaching responsibility”, although an important value, but more about “assessing student growth and misconceptions”. To me, that was more important.
And so, here we are again. What is the point of giving students homework? Does it really matter if they don’t hand it in on time? When is too late too late? What is your take on accepting late work?
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