Handing work in late has always been an issue in the education system. Students aren't able to always hand in their work on time, whether the excuse be they didn't have time or their dog ate it. I believe the current punishment of 5% off every day is a tad unfair, because it may not seem like a large number but if your barely passing a course, it could make all the difference in the world. This punishment has mainly just taught students how to make up good enough excuses for them to not lose the 5%.
I have always believed that awarding students to have the assignment in a day early was always successful. If a teacher were giving bonus marks to students who handed it in a day early, that would encourage students to get it done. Another possible solution is saying that students can hand in the assignment anytime in the week (Monday-Friday) and if it's not in by Friday then it won't be accepted. This way students will be reminded every day of the week, giving them no excuse for them to not hand it in. In my opinion, this is the best way to not completely resolve but definetely improve work being handed in late.
I fully support the ideas in this post. I can sometimes be a terrible procrastinator, and knowing that something is due on a certain day (no sooner and no later) often stresses me out more the closer the deadline becomes, causing me to leave everything until the night before.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if offering a bonus for handing in an assignment a day early would benefit everyone (the dedicated students would probably do it and gain the bonus marks, but the other students might not), but it would definitely help.
I really like the idea of a project being open for submission all week. There would be enough pressure to prevent you from leaving everything to the last day, but not so much pressure that you would feel like you needed to hand in the project on the very first day.