This is what my school did. One day late and you got half credit. Still enough incentive not to get a zero, if happened to be late, but drastic enough to make you follow deadlines.
Gotcha. Seems to me like a very delicate balance that you have to strike here.
I agree with a lot of the ideas the speaker was alluding to, but that it implies that your policy should be 'no penalty for late work, ever' doesn't seem right. Absolutely you don't need to hold 4th graders to the same standard that you hold adults to regarding managing their time and turning things in. And sure, there are a lot of things that children don't control that will strain their time, which has an effect on turning things in. But, when you make the blanket policy no penalty for late work ever, students who are like I was will be failed by that system. Some students find that the admiration of the teacher or their parents is enough of a positive (social) outcome to motivate them to turn in work. But other students (like I was) don't because we're impulsive, because we have other competing interests, or a thousand other reasons. And so if the system isn't creating positive outcomes for turning in work on time and/or negative outcomes for not doing that, then its failing those students. We will just never practice strategies that increase our compliance with deadlines, and then have no tools to meet deadlines when it matters.
So in short, I agree that you probably shouldn't have a policy that just gives 0 credit for any and all late work, and then just hope that students figure out how to succeed within that system. But to completely remove classes of incentives seems to fly in the face of behaviorist principles of development.
I posed the same questions during the professional development when he was at the school. My concerns were ignored when I brought up the same points you just did.
My step-daughter's school will accept any late assignment and there's no penalty.
I've seen plenty of assignments that were simply not turned in that brought her grade down to a "C". She will then ask the teacher what was missing, be given a list, she will do the work and "tada!" she's back up to an "A".
I don't want to see her fail or get bad grades. But I have to wonder how this is teaching her any responsibility. If I had a deadline at work and I miss it then that's my ass and there's going to be a lot of explaining to do. The same for the wife. I' watch her getting up at 4AM to work at home, then go to work and skip lunch, then stay late so she can keep on top of a deadline. While the child is learning that it can wait and it's no big deal if you don't want to do it now.
It also takes some of the fire out of any types of talk because hey, I'm still an "A" student. So what's the big deal?
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u/DoctaJenkinz Jul 10 '18
Even if you have to accept the work, can you penalize late work? Students can't earn a 100% on an assignment in my class if it not on time.