How Do I Support and Also Challenge My Students?

My first-year seminar (Handelsman, 2020) is designed to help students transition to college. What should my policy be toward late assignments? At one extreme is a “zero-tolerance” policy: Students get no credit at all if they submit an assignment even a minute late. (Our learning management system records the exact time of submission.) After all, students need to learn about life, commitments, professionalism, and obsessiveness. No?

At the other extreme is no penalty at all for late assignments. After all, college students are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (see a recent survey from the American College Health Association). I care about my students and don’t want to cause them more stress.

In our course, we talk about the dangers of all-or-none thinking (Klemm). I’ve evolved a policy in this course that steers a middle ground—balancing strictness and leniency. The idea of balance has a long history in psychology. Abraham Maslow, when he was not building hierarchies of motivation, talked about the choices people make between safety and growth. Other authors talk about a balance between support and challenge.

How do I support and challenge my students regarding late assignments?

In the course, students submit a series of assignments twice a week, including short reflections, one-page critical analyses of readings, concept maps, and evaluations of required activities on campus. I’ve designed these assignments to help students adjust to college and to do the assigned readings, and to practice their thinking skills. I typically read these assignments before class, so I can incorporate students’ ideas, and correct some of their misconceptions, within hours of turning in their assignments.

In regard to late assignments, here is my syllabus:

Late assignments and the 20 percent discount: Meeting deadlines is a basic skill that you will need throughout your professional life (see Learning Objective 4-c). Part of being professional and responsible is handing in materials on time, and sometimes you will have to meet strict deadlines—without even partial credit or the chance to make up the work. However, you have a one-week grace period for most submitted assignments. After one week, I will deduct 20 percent of the grade you would have earned (the “20 percent discount”). You can still learn from doing the assignments, you have until the last day of class to turn them in (with the 20 percent discount).

Among the practical advantages of this policy: The policy is simple and understandable for students. Students are not slammed as they learn and develop their time-management and other professional skills. And the policy is convenient: I avoid the “each-day-costs-points” calculations. I also avoid many discussions about the reasons a paper is a few hours late: bad technology, good doctors, hungry dogs. Finally, students can re-submit their assignments within the grace period to get a better grade.

For the ethical justifications of my policy, I apply principles based on biomedical ethics (Beauchamp and Childress).

Respect for Students’ Autonomy and Dignity

My students’ lives are as important to them as mine is to me (this concept has been called sonder). There are, to be sure, some strict, drop-dead deadlines in life. But many deadlines in life are flexible. How many times have I promised to grade papers by Monday and not succeeded? How many of my committee and task force reports made it to the Dean’s office a few days late? How many times have I been driving on an expired license (but within the 30-day grace period)?

I feel respected when people allow me a little leeway for reasons that are important to me. Thus, I try to respect my students’ choices by avoiding a zero-tolerance policy. But I also think that having no penalties for late assignments is also disrespectful. I’ve made a promise to help students learn some important academic and professional skills. Breaking promises is disrespectful, and may also violate the next two principles.

Beneficence and Nonmaleficence

Beneficence means doing good. Nonmaleficence means avoiding (unnecessary) harm. We became teachers to help students learn. Right?

In general, I want to employ an authoritative teaching style (see Bassett et al., 2013). Based on the seminal work of Diana Baumrind on parenting styles, an authoritative teaching style includes high levels of control and demandingness balanced with high levels of responsiveness, warmth, and support to students to meet those demands. My policy of frequent graded assignments is demanding, but the grace period, along with my feedback and encouragement, helps students meet my demands.

There is some evidence that committing to difficult tasks helps students achieve. For example, a recent study by the College Board (unpublished; J. Matthews, personal communication, September 28, 2022) compared students who committed to taking their AP test early in the year to those who waited until later. They found, “Every ethnic and gender group in the early registration sample increased in the number of students completing the AP course, taking the final exam and earning scores of 3-plus or higher on the 5-point scoring scale. Low-income students and female students in STEM did particularly well” (Matthews).

Stress Essential Reads

Stress Thickens the Blood

Redefining the Debt Experience

Allowing students to redo assignments, and take extra time on an assignment if they need it may help them adopt a new attitude towards “failure”—that continued effort can turn failures into success. This attitude is a correlate of a growth mindset and a predictor of academic success (Dweck).

Justice

Justice basically means fairness, and includes equity. Extreme policies about late assignments might disproportionately harm (a violation of nonmaleficence) students who have faced discrimination in the past and who may not have enjoyed the privileges of academia in their families. Allowing students multiple opportunities to learn may help all students achieve more.