Modern studies show that punitive responses to missing or late work generally do more harm than good. Students fall further behind. Their motivation declines. Their ability to catch up shrinks by the day.

And yet, for many teachers, it's difficult to find a suitable alternative approach — one that seems fair to the class and consistent with why homework gets assigned in the first place.

This article provides an evidence-based framework for managing missing or late assignments. 

All of the recommendations contained below are provided with the specific intention of promoting standards and helping students succeed.

Traditional Responses to Late or Missing Work

Traditional responses to late or missing assignments have included outright zeros or staggered punishments based on how long the assignment has been missing.

 For example, the student's grade may decline by a factor of 5–10% for every day that the assignment remains missing. 

These are the practices that most teachers and paraprofessionals most likely grew up on. They don't reflect the full scope of modern pedagogy. There are a few theories that support a more forgiving stance on outstanding assignments.

• Standard-based grading is a theory that claims that assignments should reflect only what a student knows and can do. In other words, it's the job of a school to evaluate a student's comprehension of the coursework, not necessarily their productivity habits. Managing assignments, at least within a standard-based grading framework, is an adjacent but ultimately unrelated skill set for determining content mastery, which is the ultimate objective of homework in the first place.

• The growth mindset framework states that academic ability is something that can be developed with time. When assignments are consistently late, missing, or incomplete, a growth mindset framework would recognize these patterns as only an indication that more skill development is needed. 

A teacher utilizing a growth mindset approach would not punish a student for late or missing assignments, but rather take them as evidence that the child needs more help with time management or related skills.

• Self-determination theory states that success is the byproduct of three psychological factors: autonomy (a student's ability to have an influence over their own work), competence, and relatedness—how connected the student feels to their learning environment. When a child is punished for late or missing work, self-determination theory indicates that all three success factors are being threatened. The student lacks control over their own work. They are shut out from the possibility of increasing their competence because the failing grade has already been given. And they may even feel displaced from their learning environment.

These theories reflect the ineffectiveness of punitive-based assignment management. There are also schools of thought that suggest homework simply does not suit every student’s situation. 

Equitable Grading

Equitable Grading is a theory produced by Joe Feldman in his book Grading for Equity. This theory states that traditional grading standards disadvantage students who are living in a complicated home environment. 

Kids facing housing instability, food insecurity, or even inconsistent guardianship simply can't prioritize doing their homework every night.

 Is the proper response to fail them, or to develop a set of learning circumstances that they can still find success with despite their hardships?

Most teachers don't need to immerse themselves in educational theory to find an answer to that question.

 Educators want what is best for their students. Often, that will mean taking a more permissive approach to missing or late assignments. That can be the right response, but only when it's executed in a way that helps the student thrive.

Relaxing Deadlines in Practice

It's nice to say that we want to modify deadlines to reflect a wide range of student circumstances, but what does that look like in practice? You can't tear something down without replacing it, after all. 

The goal should be to develop a system that funnels students toward project completion without punishing them for circumstances that may be outside their control.

 It is still acceptable, and indeed often advisable, for educators to assume a standard of non-negotiable assignment completion.

Here’s what an equitable and efficient homework policy could look like: 

• Target deadline: Ideally, the majority of students are still getting assignments in on time. This provides structure and predictability. It also helps develop important project management skills that are still valuable for students, even if it needn’t be the core focus of how their performance is evaluated.

• Built-in grace period: Within this framework, you can also extend an automatic grace period of two to three days, during which time students can submit their missing work with no questions asked for full credit. This should help you collect the majority of outstanding work without any additional steps required.

• Extended deadline: With the extended deadline, you'll need to collaborate more with the student. This is the point where you sit down one-on-one, explain the problem on your end, and work with the child to find out what the barrier to assignment completion is and how you can help them overcome it. Sometimes, extended deadline communication might also benefit from parental involvement. In these cases, you notify the parent, who may often not realize that their child is missing work, and see if there is a structure of support at home that could facilitate project completion.

• Hard cutoff: Obviously, the school year is finite, and so, too, are deadlines. No matter how forgiving your homework policy is, the grading period will eventually end, during which time assignments do need to be completed. Communicate this deadline to the student and their guardians. Develop a plan to help them manage their outstanding work while keeping up with new assignments that will arise during the extended completion timeline.

The basic idea behind this approach is to ensure that one bad result doesn't translate into a second one. 

Develop Homework Policies That Do The Most Good

A child who falls hopelessly behind in the first two months of school could lose out on an entire academic year if the issue isn't addressed proactively and in a way that's tailored to their circumstances. 

The homework policy described above can still create points of friction. There will be students who never complete their work, regardless of how hard you try to work with them. 

But by tailoring your policies with the goal of eventual completion, as opposed to hard deadlines, you maximize the amount of productive potential within your classroom.

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