good late homework

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What to Say (and Not Say) When Handing in Late Assignments, According to Professors

No matter how hard you try to manage your time, you will probably end up being late on an assignment at some point in your academic (or professional) career. In times of stress and panic, your initial reaction may be to lie or go one the defense. It might seem reasonable to claim you had an emergency or swear you sent in the required documents, and did they check the spam filter?  But professors and bosses can probably tell when you’re fibbing, especially if it isn’t the first time. Instead, it’s better to face the problem head-on. Be proactive, and ask for an extension—or at least explain your lateness in a way that won’t ruin their opinion of you. Here’s how to do it, according to college profs themselves.

Kim Crowley, PhD, who teaches English at Bismarck State College, said the first mistake a student can make when asking for an extension (or even reporting a planned absence) is not being respectful or professional in their communication. Don’t dash off a text or email. Choose your words carefully, and use correct capitalization, punctuation, and grammar when sending these messages, which will show you understand you’re asking for serious consideration. Authority figures aren’t your friends.

Keep in mind that while you’re stressing about this one class or assignment, the professor is overseeing any number of other students or coworkers who might be in similar situations, so “identifying [yourself] is a big plus,” Crowley said. Even if they recognize your name, they might not quite remember which section you’re in. Helping them out there will decrease the amount of work they have to do to help you solve your problem, which could earn you some points—or at least not cost you any.

Finally, check the syllabus to figure out what is missing. Don’t ask the professor a vague question, like whether you are missing “anything important” or what you still haven’t handed in. Open up that document they gave you at the beginning of the semester and check the assignment schedule. Skipping this step will definitely not impress them. Instead, be straightforward: “I’m missing [this specific assignment] because I missed class. I’m going to send it shortly, but is there anything we went over in person I need to know first?”

Know the professor’s penalties

Every professor has a different set of rules governing late work. You might even notice that older, more seasoned teachers are a little more chill after years in the business (but don’t count on it). Carl Coulanges, who teaches at Suffolk Community College, said he’s “gotten softer” over the years and doesn’t mind an assignment being a day or two late, but, “once it goes beyond a week it starts to impact the grade. Two weeks, then it’s an automatic 50%.”

Late work penalties are almost always noted in the syllabus, and it’s hard to fight a grade reduction when things are clearly laid out in writing well before the homework is due. You can try, though—and if you do, Coulanges recommends being honest, and avoiding “BS excuses.”

“I always tell my students, ‘Listen, if there’s a real-life situation and you need the extension, that’s fine and I’ll work with you. Let’s figure out what works, but when you don’t speak up and don’t say anything, then I can’t help,’” he explained.

While Crowley said giving a detailed explanation of why you’re missing work or class is optional, it might be beneficial to do so if you’re aiming for the honesty Coulanges recommends. If you miss a class because of a medical situation or even a stressful life event, you can relay that information without getting too personal. Try framing that references the event while avoiding the intimate details, which can come off as an attempt to engender their sympathy.

The straightforward approach—“Professor, I missed Wednesday’s class and wasn’t able to submit the homework because of a private health concern. I know from the syllabus that this will result in a 10% grade reduction, which I accept, but I wanted to let you know the assignment will be in next week”—might or might not earn you an assurance that they won’t dock your score, but you might be able to use the same approach to successfully ask for an extension.  

They’re not your friends , but professors are people. They know what it’s like to fall behind on work, and they may be willing to share resources that can help you out. If you fail their class, it reflects poorly on them, too, so they may consider it in their own best interests to show a degree of flexibility. Give them the opportunity to do that by making it easy for them to understand why you’re late, and empathize with you.

A Few Ideas for Dealing with Late Work

August 4, 2019

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Most of my 9-week grading periods ended the same way: Me and one or two students, sitting in my quiet, empty classroom together, with me sitting at the computer, the students nearby in desks, methodically working through piles of make-up assignments. They would be focused, more focused than I’d seen them in months, and the speed with which they got through the piles was stunning. 

As they finished each assignment I took it, checked it for accuracy, then entered their scores—taking 50 percent off for being late—into my grading program. With every entry, I’d watch as their class grade went up and up: from a 37 percent to a 41, then to 45, then to 51, and eventually to something in the 60s or even low 70s, a number that constituted passing, at which point the process would end and we’d part ways, full of resolve that next marking period would be different.

And the whole time I thought to myself, This is pointless . They aren’t learning anything at all. But I wasn’t sure what else to do.

For as long as teachers have assigned tasks in exchange for grades, late work has been a problem. What do we do when a student turns in work late? Do we give some kind of consequence or accept assignments at any time with no penalty? Do we set up some kind of system that keeps students motivated while still holding them accountable? Is there a way to manage all of this without driving ourselves crazy?

To find answers, I went to Twitter and asked teachers to share what works for them. What follows is a summary of their responses. I wish I could give individual credit to each person who offered ideas, but that would take way too long, and I really want you to get these suggestions now! If you’ve been unsatisfied with your own approach to late work, you should find some fresh ideas here.

First, a Few Questions About Your Grades

Before we get into the ways teachers manage late work, let’s back up a bit and consider whether your overall program of assignments and grading is in a healthy place. Here are some questions to think about:  

• What do your grades represent? How much of your grades are truly based on academic growth, and how much are based mostly on compliance? If they lean more toward compliance, then what you’re doing when you try to manage late work is basically a lot of administrative paper pushing, rather than teaching your content. Although it’s important for kids to learn how to manage deadlines, do you really want an A in your course to primarily reflect the ability to follow instructions? If your grades are too compliance-based, consider how you might shift things so they more accurately represent learning. (For a deeper discussion of this issue, read How Accurate Are Your Grades? )
• Are you grading too many things? If you spend a lot of time chasing down missing assignments in order to get more scores in your gradebook, it could be that you’re grading too much. Some teachers only enter grades for major, summative tasks, like projects, major writing assignments, or exams. Everything else is considered formative and is either ungraded or given a very low point value for completion, not graded for accuracy; it’s practice . For teachers who are used to collecting lots of grades over a marking period, this will be a big shift, and if you work in a school where you’re expected to enter grades into your system frequently, that shift will be even more difficult. Convincing your students that ungraded practice is worthwhile because it will help their performance on the big things will be another hurdle. With all of that said, reducing the number of scored items will make your grades more meaningful and cut way down on the time you spend grading and managing late work.
• What assumptions do you make when students don’t turn in work? I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first started teaching, I assumed most students with missing work were just unmotivated. Although this might be true for a small portion of students, I no longer see this as the most likely reason. Students may have issues with executive function and could use some help developing systems for managing their time and responsibilities. They may struggle with anxiety. Or they may not have the resources—like time, space, and technology—to consistently complete work at home. More attention has been paid lately to the fact that homework is an equity issue , and our policies around homework should reflect an understanding that all students don’t have access to the same resources once they leave school for the day. Punitive policies that are meant to “motivate” students don’t take any of these other issues into consideration, so if your late work penalties don’t seem to be working, it’s likely that the root cause is something other than a lack of motivation.
• What kind of grading system is realistic for you ? Any system you put in place requires YOU to stay on top of grading. It would be much harder to assign penalties, send home reminders, or track lateness if you are behind on marking papers by a week, two weeks, even a month. So whatever you do, create a plan that you can actually keep up with.

Possible Solutions

1. penalties.

Many teachers give some sort of penalty to students for late work. The thinking behind this is that without some sort of negative consequence, too many students would wait until the end of the marking period to turn work in, or in some cases, not turn it in at all. When work is turned in weeks or even months late, it can lose its value as a learning opportunity because it is no longer aligned with what’s happening in class. On top of that, teachers can end up with massive piles of assignments to grade in the last few days of a marking period. This not only places a heavy burden on teachers, it is far from an ideal condition for giving students the good quality feedback they should be getting on these assignments.

Several types of penalties are most common:

Point Deductions In many cases, teachers simply reduce the grade as a result of the lateness. Some teachers will take off a certain number of points per day until they reach a cutoff date after which the work will no longer be accepted. One teacher who responded said he takes off 10 percent for up to three days late, then 30 percent for work submitted up to a week late; he says most students turn their work in before the first three days are over. Others have a standard amount that comes off for any late work (like 10 percent), regardless of when it is turned in. This policy still rewards students for on-time work without completely de-motivating those who are late, builds in some accountability for lateness, and prevents the teacher from having to do a lot of mathematical juggling with a more complex system. 

Parent Contact Some teachers keep track of late work and contact parents if it is not turned in. This treats the late work as more of a conduct issue; the parent contact may be in addition to or instead of taking points away. 

No Feedback, No Re-Dos The real value of homework and other smaller assignments should be the opportunity for feedback: Students do an assignment, they get timely teacher feedback, and they use that feedback to improve. In many cases, teachers allow students to re-do and resubmit assignments based on that feedback. So a logical consequence of late work could be the loss of that opportunity: Several teachers mentioned that their policy is to accept late work for full credit, but only students who submit work on time will receive feedback or the chance to re-do it for a higher grade. Those who hand in late work must accept whatever score they get the first time around. 

2. A Separate Work Habits Grade

In a lot of schools, especially those that use standards-based grading, a student’s grade on an assignment is a pure representation of their academic mastery; it does not reflect compliance in any way. So in these classrooms, if a student turns in good work, it’s going to get a good grade even if it’s handed in a month late. 

But students still need to learn how to manage their time. For that reason, many schools assign a separate grade for work habits. This might measure factors like adherence to deadlines, neatness, and following non-academic guidelines like font sizes or using the correct heading on a paper. 

• Although most teachers whose schools use this type of system will admit that students and parents don’t take the work habits grade as seriously as the academic grade, they report being satisfied that student grades only reflect mastery of the content.
• One school calls their work habits grade a “behavior” grade, and although it doesn’t impact GPA, students who don’t have a certain behavior grade can’t make honor roll, despite their actual GPA.
• Several teachers mentioned looking for patterns and using the separate grade as a basis for conferences with parents, counselors, or other stakeholders. For most students, there’s probably a strong correlation between work habits and academic achievement, so separating the two could help students see that connection.
• Some learning management systems will flag assignments as late without necessarily taking points off. Although this does not automatically translate to a work habits grade, it indicates the lateness to students and parents without misrepresenting the academic achievement.

3. Homework Passes

Because things happen in real life that can throw anyone off course every now and then, some teachers offer passes students can use to replace a missed assignment.

• Most teachers only offer these passes to replace low-point assignments, not major ones, and they generally only offer 1 to 3 passes per marking period. Homework passes can usually only recover 5 to 10 percent of a student’s overall course grade. 
• Other teachers have a policy of allowing students to drop one or two of their lowest scores in the gradebook. Again, this is typically done for smaller assignments and has the same net effect as a homework pass by allowing everyone to have a bad day or two.
• One teacher gives “Next Class Passes” which allow students one extra day to turn in work. At the end of every marking period she gives extra credit points to students who still have unused passes. She says that since she started doing this, she has had the lowest rate ever of late work. 

4. Extension Requests

Quite a few teachers require students to submit a written request for a deadline extension rather than taking points off. With a system like this, every student turns something in on the due date, whether it’s the assignment itself or an extension request.

• Most extension requests ask students to explain why they were unable to complete the assignment on time. This not only gives the students a chance to reflect on their habits, it also invites the teacher to help students solve larger problems that might be getting in the way of their academic success. 
• Having students submit their requests via Google Forms reduces the need for paper and routes all requests to a single spreadsheet, which makes it easier for teachers to keep track of work that is late or needs to be regraded.  
• Other teachers use a similar system for times when students want to resubmit work for a new grade. 

5. Floating Deadlines

Rather than choosing a single deadline for an assignment, some teachers assign a range of dates for students to submit work. This flexibility allows students to plan their work around other life activities and responsibilities.

• Some teachers offer an incentive to turn in work in the early part of the time frame, such as extra credit or faster feedback, and this helps to spread out the submissions more evenly. 
• Another variation on this approach is to assign a batch of work for a whole week and ask students to get it in by Friday. This way, students get to manage when they get it done. 
• Other names mentioned for this strategy were flexible deadlines , soft deadlines , and due windows .

6. Let Students Submit Work in Progress

Some digital platforms, like Google Classroom, allow students to “submit” assignments while they are still working on them. This allows teachers to see how far the student has gotten and address any problems that might be coming up. If your classroom is mostly paper-based, it’s certainly possible to do this kind of thing with paper as well, letting students turn in partially completed work to demonstrate that an effort has been made and show you where they might be stuck.

7. Give Late Work Full Credit

Some teachers accept all late work with no penalty. Most of them agree that if the work is important, and if we want students to do it, we should let them hand it in whenever they get it done. 

• Some teachers fear this approach will cause more students to stop doing the work or delay submission until the end of a marking period, but teachers who like this approach say they were surprised by how little things changed when they stopped giving penalties: Most students continued to turn work in more or less on time, and the same ones who were late under the old system were still late under the new one. The big difference was that the teacher no longer had to spend time calculating deductions or determining whether students had valid excuses; the work was simply graded for mastery.
• To give students an incentive to actually turn the work in before the marking period is over, some teachers will put a temporary zero in the gradebook as a placeholder until the assignment is turned in, at which point the zero is replaced with a grade.
• Here’s a twist on the “no penalty” option: Some teachers don’t take points off for late work, but they limit the time frame when students can turn it in. Some will not accept late work after they have graded and returned an assignment; at that point it would be too easy for students to copy off of the returned papers. Others will only accept late work up until the assessment for the unit, because the work leading up to that is meant to prepare for that assessment. 

8. Other Preventative Measures

These strategies aren’t necessarily a way to manage late work as much as they are meant to prevent it in the first place.

• Include students in setting deadlines. When it comes to major assignments, have students help you determine due dates. They may have a better idea than you do about other big events that are happening and assignments that have been given in other classes.
• Stop assigning homework. Some teachers have stopped assigning homework entirely, recognizing that disparities at home make it an unfair measurement of academic mastery. Instead, all meaningful work is done in class, where the teacher can monitor progress and give feedback as needed. Long-term projects are done in class as well, so the teacher is aware of which students need more time and why. 
• Make homework optional or self-selected. Not all students need the same amount of practice. You may be able to get your students to assess their own need for additional practice and assign that practice to themselves. Although this may sound far-fetched, in some classes, like this self-paced classroom , it actually works, because students know they will be graded on a final assessment, they get good at determining when they need extra practice.

With so many different approaches to late work, what’s clear is that there are a lot of different schools of thought on grading and assessment, so it’s not a surprise that we don’t always land on the best solution on the first try. Experiment with different systems, talk to your colleagues, and be willing to try something new until you find something that works for you. 

Further Reading

20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half This free e-book is full of ideas that can help with grading in general.

On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting Thomas R. Guskey This book came highly recommended by a number of teachers.

Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School Starr Sackstein

Come back for more. Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You’ll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half , the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined—come on in.

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Categories: Classroom Management , Instruction , Podcast

Tags: assessment , organization

51 Comments

I teach high school science (mine is a course that does not have an “end of course” test so the stakes are not as high) and I teach mostly juniors and seniors. Last year I decided not to accept any late work whatsoever unless a student is absent the day it is assigned or due (or if they have an accomodation in a 504 or IEP – and I may have had one or two students with real/documented emergencies that I let turn in late.) This makes it so much easier on me because I don’t have to keep up with how many days/points to deduct – that’s a nightmare. It also forces them to be more responsible. They usually have had time to do it in class so there’s no reason for it to be late. Also, I was very frustrated with homework not being completed and I hated having to grade it and keep up with absent work. So I don’t “require” homework (and rarely assign it any more) but if students do ALL (no partial credit) of it they get a 100% (small point value grade), if they are absent or they don’t do it they are exempt. So it ends up being a sort of extra credit grade but it does not really penalize students who don’t do it. When students ask me for extra credit (which I don’t usually give), the first thing I ask is if they’ve done all the homework assigned. That usually shuts down any further discussion. I’ve decided I’m not going to spend tons of time chasing and calculating grades on small point values that do not make a big difference in an overall grade. 🙂

Do I understand correctly….

Homework is not required. If a student fully completes the HW, they will earn full points. If the student is absent or doesn’t do it, they are excused. Students who do complete the HW will benefit a little bit in their overall grade, but students who don’t compete the work will not be penalized. Did I understand it correctly?

Do you stipulate that a student must earn a certain % on the assignment to get the full points? What about a student who completed an assignment but completes the entire thing incorrectly? Still full credit? Or an opportunity to re-do?

Thank you in advance.

From reading this blog post I was thinking the same thing. When not penalizing students for homework do you have students who do turn it in getting extra points in class?

From what I have seen, if there is a benefit for turning in homework and students see this benefit more will try to accomplish what the homework is asking. So avoid penalization is okay, but make sure the ones turning it in are getting rewarded in some way.

The other question regarding what to do with students who may not be completing the assignments correctly, you could use this almost as a formative assessment. You could still give them the credit but use this as a time for you to focus on that student a little more and see where he/she isn’t understanding the content.

Our school has a system called Catch Up Cafe. Students with missing work report to a specific teacher during the first 15 minutes of lunch to work on missing work. Students upgrade to a Wednesday after school time if they have accumulated 4 or more missing assignments on any Monday. They do not have to serve if they can clear ALL missing work by the end of the day Wednesday. Since work is not dragging out for a long period of time, most teachers do not take off points.

How do you manage the logistics of who has missing and how many assignments are needed to be completed-to make sure they are attending the Catch up Cafe or Wednesday after school? How do you manage the communication with parents?

When a student has missing work it can be very difficult to see what he/she is missing. I always keep a running record of all of their assignments that quarter and if they miss that assigement I keep it blank to remind myself there was never a submission. Once I know that this student is missing this assignment I give them their own copy and write at the top late. So once they do turn it in I know that it’s late and makes grading it easier.

There are a lot of different programs that schools use but I’ve always kept a paper copy so I have a back-up.

I find that the worst part of tracking make-up work is keeping tabs on who was absent for a school activity, illness or other excused absence, and who just didn’t turn in the assignment. I obviously have to accept work turned in “late” due to an excused absence, but I can handle the truly late work however I wish. Any advice on simplifying tracking for this?

I tell my students to simply write “Absent (day/s)” at the top of the paper. I remind them of this fairly regularly. That way, if they were absent, it’s their responsibility to notify me, and it’s all together. If you create your own worksheets, etc., you could add a line to the top as an additional reminder.

It might be worth checking out Evernote .

In order to keep track of what type of missing assignments, I put a 0 in as a grade so students and parents know an assignment was never submitted. If a student was here on the due date and day assignment was given then it is a 0 in the grade book. If a student was absent the day the assignment was given or when it was due, I put a 00 in the grade book. This way I know if it was because of an absence or actual no work completed.

This is exactly what I do. Homework can only count 10% in our district. Claims that kids fail due to zeros for homework are specious.

This is SUCH a difficult issue and I have tried a few of the suggested ways in years past. My questions is… how do we properly prepare kids for college while still being mindful of the inequities at home? We need to be sure that we are giving kids opportunity, resources, and support, but at the same time if we don’t introduce them to some of the challenges they will be faced with in college (hours of studying and research and writing regardless of the hours you might have to spend working to pay that tuition), are we truly preparing them? I get the idea of mastery of content without penalty for late work and honestly that is typically what I go with, but I constantly struggle with this and now that I will be moving from middle to high school, I worry even more about the right way to handle late work and homework. I don’t want to hold students back in my class by being too much of a stickler about seemingly little things, but I don’t want to send them to college unprepared to experience a slap in the face, either. I don’t want to provide extra hurdles, but how do I best help them learn how to push through the hurdles and rigor if they aren’t held accountable? I always provide extra time after school, at lunch, etc., and have also experienced that end of term box checking of assignments in place of a true learning experience, but how do we teach them the importance of using resources, asking for help, allowing for mistakes while holding them to standards and learning work habits that will be helpful to them when they will be on their own? I just don’t know where the line is between helping students learn the value of good work habits and keeping them from experiencing certain challenges they need to understand in order to truly get ahead.

Thanks for sharing – I can tell how much you care for your students, wanting them to be confident independent learners. What I think I’m hearing is perhaps the struggle between that fine line of enabling and supporting. When supporting kids, whether academically or behaviorally, we’re doing something that assists or facilitates their growth. So, for example, a student that has anxiety or who doesn’t have the resources at home to complete an assignment, we can assist by giving that student extra time or an alternative place to complete the assignment. This doesn’t lower expectations, it just offers support to help them succeed.

Enabling on the other hand, puts systems in place that don’t involve consequences, which in turn allow the behaviors to continue. It involves excuses and solving problems for others. It may be about lowering expectations and letting people get by with patterns of behavior.

Late work is tricky. The article does mention the importance of time management, which is why separating academic grades from work habits is something a lot of schools are doing. Sometimes real life happens and kids need a “pass.” If whatever you’re doing seems to be helping to support a student rather than enabling patterns, then that might help you distinguish between that fine line. Hope this helps!

Thank you again for such a great post. Always high-quality, relevant, and helpful. I so appreciate you and the work you do!

So glad to hear you enjoyed the post, Liz! I’ll make sure Jenn sees this.

I thought that these points brought up about receiving late work were extremely helpful and I hope that every classroom understands how beneficial these strategies could be.

When reading the penalties section under point deductions it brought up the idea of taking points off slowly as time goes by. Currently in my classroom the only point deduction I take off is 30% of the total grade after it is received late. No matter how much time has gone by in that grading period it will have 30% off the total.

I’m curious if changing this technique to something that would increase the percentage off as time goes by will make students turn in their work on time.

My question to everyone is which grading technique would be more beneficial for the students? Do you believe that just taking off 30% for late work would help students more when turning in their work or do you think that as time goes by penalizing their final score will have students turn in their work more?

If anyone has any answers it would be extremely beneficial.

Thank you, Kirby

When I was in school my school did 1/3 of a grade each day it was like. So 1 day late A >A-. Two days late: A->>B+ so on and so forth. This worked really well for me because I knew that I could still receive a good grade if I worked hard on an assignment, even if it was a day or two late.

I dread it when I have missing work or unsubmitted work. I would try to get a last-minute effort to chase those needed pieces of work which could be done from those students housed in dorms on campus. It is better than not failing them for lacking to turn in graded submissions or taking scheduled quizzes. I dread this not for the students, sadly, but for likely call to explain why I did not keep physical evidence of students’ supposed learning. In my part of the globe, we have a yearly “quality assurance” audit by the country’s educational authorities or their representatives.

I am a pre-service teacher and I am in the process of developing my personal philosophies in education, including the topic of late work. I will be certified as a secondary social studies teacher and would like to teach in a high school. Your post brought my attention to some important insights about the subject. For example, before this post I had not thought to use feedback as a way to incentivize homework submission on time. This action coupled with the ability to re-do assignments is a great way to emphasize the importance of turning work in on time. I do have a follow-up question, how do you adequately manage grading re-do’s and feedback on all assignments? What kinds of organizational and time-management strategies do you use as a teacher? Further, how much homework do you assign when providing this as an option?

Additionally, have you administered or seen the no penalty and homework acceptance time limit in practice (for example, all homework must be turned in by the unit test)? I was curious if providing a deadline to accept all homework until the unit test may result in an access of papers I need to grade. From your experience, what practice(s) have you seen work well in the classroom?

My goal is to prepare students for life beyond high school and to support their intellectual, social, and emotional development during their high school learning experience. Similar to a previous commenter (Kate), I am also trying to define a balance between holding students accountable in order to best prepare them for their future lives and providing opportunities to raise their grade if they are willing to do the work.

Hey Jessica, you have some great questions. I’d recommend checking out the following blog posts from Jenn that will help you learn more about keeping track of assessments, differentiation, and other aspects of grading: Kiddom: Standards-based Grading Made Wonderful , Could You Teach Without Grades , Boost Your Assessment Power with GradeCam , and Four Research-Based Strategies Every Teacher Should be Using . I hope this helps you find answers to your questions!

Overall I found this article extremely helpful and it actually reinforced many ideas I already had about homework and deadlines. One of my favorite teachers I had in high school was always asking for our input on when we felt assignments should be due based on what extra curricular activities were taking place in a given time period. We were all extremely grateful for his consideration and worked that much harder on the given assignments.

While it is important to think about our own well-being when grading papers, I think it is just as important (if not more) to be conscious of how much work students might have in other classes or what students schedules are like outside of school. If we really want students to do their best work, we need to give them enough time to do the work. This will in turn, help them care more about the subject matter and help them dive deeper. Obviously there still needs to be deadlines, but it does not hurt to give students some autonomy and say in the classroom.

Thanks for your comment Zach. I appreciate your point about considering students’ involvement in extracurricular activities and other responsibilities they may have outside the school day. It’s definitely an important consideration. The only homework my son seemed to have in 8th grade was for his history class. I agree that there’s a need for teachers to maintain more of a balance across classes when it comes to the amount of homework they give to students.

Thank you for an important, thought-provoking post! As a veteran teacher of 20+ years, I have some strong opinions about this topic. I have always questioned the model of ‘taking points off’ for late work. I do not see how this presents an accurate picture of what the student knows or can do. Shouldn’t he be able to prove his knowledge regardless of WHEN? Why does WHEN he shows you what he knows determine WHAT he knows?

Putting kids up against a common calendar with due dates and timelines, regardless of their ability to learn the material at the same rate is perhaps not fair. There are so many different situations facing our students – some students have challenges and difficulty with deadlines for a plethora of potential reasons, and some have nothing but support, structure, and time. When it comes to deadlines – Some students need more time. Other students may need less time. Shouldn’t all students have a chance to learn at a pace that is right for them? Shouldn’t we measure student success by demonstrations of learning instead of how much time it takes to turn in work? Shouldn’t students feel comfortable when it is time to show me what they’ve learned, and when they can demonstrate they’ve learned it, I want their grade to reflect that.

Of course we want to teach students how to manage their time. I am not advocating for a lax wishy-washy system that allows for students to ‘get to it when they get to it’. I do believe in promoting work-study habits, and using a separate system to assign a grade for responsibility, respect, management, etc is a potential solution. I understand that when introducing this type of system, it may be tough to get buy-in from parents and older students who have traditionally only looked at an academic grade because it is the only piece of the puzzle that impacts GPA. Adopting a separate work-study grading system would involve encouraging the entire school community – starting at the youngest level – to see its value. It would be crucial for the school to promote the importance of high level work-study habits right along side academic grades.

I teach a specials course to inner city middle schoolers at a charter school. All students have to take my class since it is one of the core pillars of the school’s culture and mission. Therefore it is a double edge sword. Some students and parents think it is irrelevant like an art or music class but will get upset to find out it isn’t just an easy A class. Other students and parents love it because they come to our charter school just to be in this class that isn’t offered anywhere else in the state, except at the college level.

As you may have already guessed, I see a lot of students who don’t do the work. So much that I no longer assign homework, which the majority would not be able to do independently anyways or may develop the wrong way of learning the material, due to the nature of the subject. So everything is done in the classroom together as a class. And then we grade together to reinforce the learning. This is why I absolutely do not accept missing work and there is no reason for late work. Absent students make up the work by staying after school upon their return or they can print it off of Google classroom at home and turn in by the end of the day of their return. Late and missing work is a big issue at our school. I’ve had whole classrooms not do the work even as I implemented the new routine. Students will sit there and mark their papers as we do it in the classroom but by the end they are not handing it in because they claim not to have anything to hand in. Or when they do it appears they were doing very little. I’d have to micromanage all 32 students every 5 minutes to make sure they were actually doing the work, which I believe core teachers do. But that sets a very bad precedent because I noticed our students expect to be handheld every minute or they claim they can’t do the work. I know this to be the case since before this class I was teaching a computer class and the students expected me to sit right next to them and give them step-by-step instructions of where to click on the screen. They simply could not follow along as I demonstrated on the Aquos board. So I do think part of the problem is the administrators’ encouraging poor work ethics. They’re too focused on meeting proficient standard to the point they want teachers to handhold students. They also want teachers to accept late and missing work all the way until the end of each quarter. Well that’s easy if you only have a few students but when you have classrooms full of them, that means trying to grade 300+ students multiplied by “x” amount of late/missing work the week before report card rolls out – to which we still have to write comments for C- or below students. Some of us teach all the grade levels 6-8th. And that has actually had negative effects because students no longer hold themselves accountable.

To be honest, I really do think this is why there is such a high turnover rate and teachers who started giving busy work only. In the inner city, administrators only care about putting out the illusion of proficiency while students and parents don’t want any accountability for their performance. As soon as a student fails because they have to actually try to learn (which is a risk for failing), the parent comes in screaming.

Yea, being an Art teacher you lost me at “ irrelevant like an art or music .”

I teach middle school in the inner city where missing and late work is a chronic issue so the suggestions and ideas above do not work. Students and parents have become complacent with failing grades so penalizing work isn’t going to motivate them to do better the next time. The secret to teaching in the inner city is to give them a way out without it becoming massive work for you. Because trust me, if you give them an inch they will always want a mile at your expense. Depending on which subject you teach, it might be easier to just do everything in class. That way it becomes an all or nothing grade. They either did or didn’t do the work. No excuses, no chasing down half the school through number of calls to disconnected phone numbers and out of date emails, no explaining to parents why Johnny has to stay after school to finish assignments when mom needs him home to babysit or because she works second shift and can’t pick him up, etc. Students have no reason for late work or for missing work when they were supposed to do it right there in class. Absent students can catch up with work when they return.

Milton, I agree with all of what you are saying and have experienced. Not to say that that is for all students I have had, but it is a slow progression as to what is happening with students and parents as years go by. I understand that there are areas outside of the classroom we cannot control and some students do not have certain necessities needed to help them but they need to start learning what can they do to help themselves. I make sure the students know they can come and talk to me if needing help or extra time, tutor after school and even a phone number to contact along with email if needing to ask questions or get help. But parents and students do not use these opportunities given until the week before school ends and are now wanting their student to pass and what can be done. It is frustrating and sad. I let students and parents know my expectation up front and if they do not take the opportunity to talk to me then the grade they earned is the result.

I am a special education resource teacher and late work/missing work happens quite a lot. After reading this article, I want to try a few different things to help minimize this issue. However, I am not the one making the grades or putting the grades in. I am just giving the work to the students in small group settings and giving them more access to the resources they need to help them be successful on these assignments based on their current IEP. I use a make-up folder, and usually I will pull these students to work on their work during a different time than when I regularly pull them. That way they do not miss the delivery of instruction they get from me and it does not punish my other students either if there is make-up work that needs to be completed. I try to give my students ample time to complete their work, so there is no excuse for them not to complete it. If they are absent, then I pull them at a time that they can make it up.

I too agree with that there’s a need for teachers to maintain more of a balance across classes when it comes to the amount of homework they give to students.

I had a few teachers who were willing to tolerate lateness in favor of getting it/understanding the material. Lastly, my favorite teacher was the one who gave me many chances to do rewrites of a ‘bad essay’ and gave me as much time as needed (of course still within like the semester or even month but I never took more than two weeks) because he wanted me to do well. I ended up with a 4 in AP exam though so that’s good.

Late work has a whole new meaning with virtual learning. I am drowning in late work (via Google Classroom). I don’t want to penalize students for late work as every home situation is different. I grade and provide feedback timely (to those who submitted on time). However, I am being penalized every weekend and evening as I try to grade and provide feedback during this time. I would love some ideas.

Hi Susan! I’m in the same place–I have students who (after numerous reminders) still haven’t submitted work due days…weeks ago, and I’m either taking time to remind them again or give feedback on “old” work over my nights and weekends. So, while it’s not specific to online learning, Jenn’s A Few Ideas for Dealing with Late Work is a post I’ve been trying to put into practice the last few days. I hope this helps!

Graded assignment flexibility is essential to the process of learning in general but especially in our new world of digital divide

It is difficult to determine who is doing the work at home. Follow up videos on seesaw help to see if the student has gained the knowledge or is being given the answers.

This is some good information. This is a difficult subject.

I love the idea of a catch-up cafe! I think I will try to implement this in my school. It’s in the same place every day, yes? And the teachers take turns monitoring? I’m just trying to get a handle on the logistics – I know those will be the first questions I get.

I really enjoyed this post. I think it provides a lot of perspective on a topic that teachers get way too strict about. I just wonder: wouldn’t it be inevitable for students to become lazy and care less about their understanding if there wasn’t any homework (or even if it was optional)? I know students don’t like it, and it can get redundant if they understand the content, but it truly is good practice.

Hi Shannon,

Glad the post helped! Homework is one of those hot educational topics, but I can’t say I’ve personally come across a situation or found any research where kids become lazy or unmotivated if not assigned homework. In fact, research indicates that homework doesn’t really have much impact on learning until high school. I just think that if homework is going to be assigned, it needs to be intentional and purposeful. (If students have already mastered a skill, I’m not sure how homework would provide them much benefit.) Here’s an article that I think is worth checking out. See what you think.

I like how you brought up how homework needs to be given with the understanding that not all kids have the same resources at home. Some kids don’t have computers or their parents won’t let them use it. There is no way of knowing this so teachers should give homework that requires barely any utensils or technology.

I think having students help determine the due dates for major assignments is a great idea. This works well with online schools too. Remote jobs are the future so helping students learn how to set their own due dates and to get homework done from home will prepare them for the future.

This year I am trying something new. After reading this article, I noticed that I have used a combination of some of these strategies to combat late work and encourage students to turn work in on time. I only record a letter grade in the grade book: A, B, C, D, F. If a student turns in an assignment late, I flag it as late, but it does not affect their “grade”.

If a student wants to redo an assignment, they must turn something in. If they miss the due date, they can still turn it in, but lose the opportunity to redo the assignment. Students will meet with me one last time before they turn it in to get final feedback.

At the end of the grading period, I conference with the student about their final grade, looking at how many times they have handed work in on-time or late. This will determine if the student has earned an A or an A+ .

I really appreciate how your post incorporates a lot of suggestions for the way that teachers can think about and grade homework. Thank you for mentioning how different students have different resources available as well. As teachers, we need to be aware of the different resources our students have and tailor our approach to homework to match. I like the idea of grading homework based on completion and accepting late work for full credit at any time (substituting a zero in the grade book until it is turned in). This is definitely a strategy that I’ll be using!

So glad the article was helpful for you! I will be sure to pass on your comments to Jenn.

I also have been teaching for a long time and I have found that providing an END OF WEEK (Friday at 11:59) due date for assignments allows students to get the work completed by that time. It helps with athletes, and others involved in extra curricular activities. I feel this is fair. I give my tests/quizzes on the days assigned and the supplemental work on Fridays.

I personally, as a special education teach, would allow my SPED students extra time to complete the work they have missed. This is in alignment with their IEP accommodations. I would work with each one independently and have remediation with the content that they are having difficulty. This setting would be in a small group and separate classroom.

I really like the idea of a work habits grade. I struggle with students who turn things in late regularly earning the same grade as those who always turn things in on time. A work habits grade could really motivate some learners.

I’ve been in education for 37 years and in all manner of positions. I share this only to also say that things have changed quite a bit. When I started teaching I only had one, maybe two students in a class of 34 elementary students that would not have homework or classwork finished. Now, I have two classes of about 15 each. One group is often half the class on a regular basis not having homework or not finishing classwork on a regular basis- so far. Additionally parents will pull students out to go to amusement parks, etc and expect all work to be made up and at full credit. I believe that the idea of homework is clearly twofold- to teach accountability and to reengage a learner. Classwork is critical to working with the content and, learning objective. We can all grade various ways; however, at some point, the learner has to step up. Learning is not passive, nor is it all on the teacher. I have been called “mean” because I make students do their work in class, refocusing them, etc. I find that is my duty. Late work should be simply dealt with consistently and with understanding to circumstance IMO. You were out or it was late because mom and dad were upset, ok versus we went to Disney for three days and I was too tired. hmm- used to be easy with excused/unexcused absences, now there is no difference. Late with no absence? That can be a problem and I reach out to home and handle it individually at my level.

Hi Jennifer! I really like your sharing about this topic! Late work is a problem that every teacher encounters. Thank you for your consideration of this issue and the many wise ideas you have provided. Your ideas also remind me to reflect on whether my overall program of assignments and grading is in a healthy place. I was inspired by the preventative measures you listed in this post. I want to try to include my students in setting deadlines, especially for some big projects. Students will feel respected by teachers and will be more willing to complete the assignments before deadlines! As you mentioned, some teachers have made homework optional or self-selected, or even stopped assigning homework. I partially agree with that opinion. I indeed try to reduce the amount of students’ homework or even stop assigning homework sometime, but doing related practice in class instead. I believe that the purpose of homework is to aid pupils in mastering the knowledge; it is not a necessary thing.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Yang. Jenn will be glad to know that you found the post inspiring!

Thanks so much for all your insights on giving assignments or homework. All are very helpful as I prepare to return to work after an extended medical leave. It is good to refresh! Anything we require of our students should be purposeful and meaningful to them, so they will give their best to meet whatever deadlines we set. I also like asking our students when is the best time they can turn work in; this is meeting them halfway. And if one strategy does not work, there are more to try; just read this post. Thanks a bunch!!

Jenn will be glad to know the post was helpful for you, Jo!

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51 Best Homework Excuses (Serious, Funny, Strict Teachers)

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Homework. No one wants to do it. But no one wants to get in trouble either. So, here are some of the best homework excuses that are serious, funny, and might even work for strict teachers!

As a teacher myself, I’ve heard most of these excuses. I laughed at a few and rolled my eyes at most.

At the end of the day, you’re only going to get away with not doing homework if you’ve got a solid excuse and a bunch of evidence to back it up. Good luck!

Read Also: 27 Pros and Cons of Homework

Cliché Homework Excuses

These are terrible homework excuses that, really, students should avoid. They might be fun to use, but most of them have been over-used. Your teacher won’t believe you unless you’ve brought some evidence along with you.

1. My Dog ate my Homework. Look, no one’s ever going to believe this one. Maybe avoid it unless you want to spend lunch time inside catching up.

2. My Computer Broke. This one’s more believable but it’s been over-used. Thanks to all the liars out there, this homework excuse is well and truly ruined.

3. My Mom Forgot It. Nothing like blaming your mother for your own failures. Most teachers would probably tell you to take a little personal responsibility and send you on your way.

4. The Internet was Out. As believable as any excuse, your teacher might tell you that you’d better buy yourself an old hardback encyclopedia.

5. My Grandma Died. Again. The oldest excuse in the book, I always ask for evidence of this. Some people seem to have 15 grandmas.

6. The Older Kids Took it off me and Tore it Up. Chances are, your teacher’s going to be very concerned by this. They might even escalate this to a disciplinary issue!

Related: A List of Extension Excuses for College Students

Funny Homework Excuses

These ones might get a laugh out of your teacher and your classmates. But, you’re not likely to get out of trouble in the long run.

7. My Mother wanted to Display it on the Fridge. You might get a few laughs from your friends out of this one. But, your teacher is going to tell you to go home, take it off the fridge, and bring it to class!

8. The Police Confiscated it as Evidence. This one might make your teacher pause and wonder. Why is it confiscated? Is it so poorly written that the police consider it an outrage? Maybe your joke will deflect them from punishing you, though.

9. I was Abducted by Aliens and They took It. If your teacher believes this one, let me know. I’ve got some air guitars to sell them.

10. I sent it to you in the Post. In this day and age, you might have to tell your teacher they should wait a few months to it arrive. The postal service isn’t what it used to be.

11. My Dad mistook it for a Letter and Posted it to China. Funny, but clearly not true. Your teacher is going to ask one simple question: why is your dad sending letters to China?

12. I had to burn it in the Fireplace to keep myself Warm. Like Pablo Escobar burning cash, you’ve thrown caution to the wind and thrown your homework book into the fire because, well, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have survived the freezing cold night.

13. It flew out the Window of the Car. Just picture it. You’re frantically doing your homework on the drive to school. Your dad winds down the window and – woosh – the homework’s gone for good. And class is in just 15 minutes!

14. I thought I’d do it Tomorrow because I’ll be Older and Wiser Then. A clever joke, but you’re probably going to be known as the class clown from that moment onwa rd!

15. I did my Work. It’s all Up Here in my Head. Be prepared for your teacher to give you a snap quiz on the spot if you’re bold enough to say you’ve got it all in your head! But, if you pull it off, maybe you’ll get away without too much trouble.

16. I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to add to your Workload. Sure, it sounds nice, but your teacher will see right through this cheeky response. But hey, when you’ve got nothing to lose it’s worth a try.

17. My Hand fell Asleep and I didn’t want to Wake It. Imagine you were trying so hard to do your homework and write down those answers. But, your hand just wouldn’t obey your command!

18. My Cat ate it knowing that I’d Blame the Dog. This one’s a funny twist on “my dog ate my homework” that might just get a laugh out of your teacher (and a little bit of leniency).

Related: Excuses for Skipping Class in College

Excuses For Strict Teachers

Okay, here’s where things get serious. If you’ve got a teacher who you know is going to be mad, you need to come into this with a plan. Usually, that means providing evidence to support your excuse.

19. I was Sick. And I have a Sick Note. Being sick (genuinely!) is one of the few reasons for not doing your homework that might actually work. You’re going to want to be able to present a note from your parent and maybe even a doctor.

20. My Mother or Father went to Hospital. And here’s the Sick Note. If your mom or dad is in hospital, chances are you’re going to get a free pass. Bring evidence, even if it’s a photo of dad in the hospital bed with tubes coming out of his nose!

21. My Computer Screen Broke. And here’s a Picture. I’ve actually gotten this one from students a few times and it really took me back. I thought: “is this legit, or is this image from 3 years ago?” A receipt from the computer repair store with a date on it is usually a better piece of evidence. But then again, why didn’t you go to the library?

22. The computer broke, but here are my hand-written notes. I’m usually pretty impressed by this excuse. Your computer broke, but you still made the effort to give the homework a go anyway. Great resilience!

23. The wi-fi didn’t work, but here are my hand-written notes. This excuse is very similar to the previous one. If you turn up with nothing and say the wi-fi broke, the teacher probably won’t accept that excuse. But if you actually tried to write some notes anyway, well done!

24. I wasn’t here when the work was assigned. This is an excellent homework excuse for strict teachers. It’s really quite legitimate. How were you supposed to know you had homework!?

25. I tried, but I didn’t understand the Instructions. This puts the onus back on the teacher. Why didn’t they provide clearer instructions? It’s usually a good idea to show some evidence that you at least gave it a go, though.

26. I volunteer at the soup kitchen on Monday Nights. Everyone loves a good Samaritan. If it gets you out of homework, well, that’s just the universe giving you good karma.

27. I’m so sorry. I thought it was right here in my Bag! This one helps show that it at least is a genuine mistake.

28. I had way too much Homework for my other Class. Follow this one up with “You should talk to that teacher about how their overbearing homework requirements are impacting your students!”

29. The Library was Closed and I don’t have Internet at Home. This one might get you a little more sympathy. The fact you don’t have internet at home means you’re not as privileged as many other kids, so your teacher might let you off lightly.

Related: Fun Things to do when Bored in Class

Truthful Homework Excuses

30. I was too busy doing something more important. Your teacher is instantly going to say “what was more important than your education?” Don’t respond with “video games.”

31. My parents kept me really busy on the weekend. But I promise I’ll do it tonight. One thing I would say about this excuse is that you’re saying “Hey, take it up with my parents. I wanted to do some homework!” But, you’re also saying you’ve got a plan to get it done asap.

32. I was at football practice all night. Many teachers will still say “learning comes before sports” (which, as a teacher, I agree with). But, you’ve got a leg to stand on here. You don’t want to let your team down, which is fair.

33. I did my homework, but I left it at home. This excuse does show that you at least put the effort in. But, you failed at the finish line! Come to class tomorrow with the homework and you’ll win back some respect from your teacher.

34. I forgot I even had homework. Hey, it’s truthful. But you’re not going to get any sympathy for this one.

35. The computer didn’t break. It was the Printer this time! An excuse that’s almost as bad as “my computer broke”, the printer issues excuse at least needs some photographic evidence to back it up. And, why didn’t you email the homework to your teacher?

36. I had a Headache. Headaches are the worst. As a teacher myself, I’d probably have a little sympathy for this excuse if it’s a one-off. But, I’d expect my student to bring a note from the parent to corroborate the story.

37. The homework was far too Easy. This isn’t a good reason not to do homework. Your teacher is going to expect you to absolutely ace your next test.

38. My tutor accidentally took it home with them. Nothing like blaming your tutor for your own problems. As a teacher, I’d probably roll my eyes and tell you that you need to keep better track of your things.

39. I accidentally squished it in the bottom of my bag and now it’s got rotten apple juice all over it. This one’s funny to me because, well, as a kid this always used to happen to me. Rotten bananas were usually the culprit.

40. I spilled cereal all over it because I was doing it over breakfast. This sounds believable. I would tell my student the should at least show me the ruined homework as evidence. And, I’d also tell them that breakfast isn’t the best time to do your homework.

See a List of 11 Homework Statistics

Blame the Parents

41. My parents don’t believe in homework and won’t let me do it. There are some parents like this. If a student said this to me, I’d be on the phone to the parents. So, if you don’t want your teacher to call your parents, don’t use this excuse.

42. My mother said band practice was more important. It’s really hard for teachers to argue with parents via the student. But in my experience the teacher usually responds with: “you need to have better organization skills to get all of these things done in your own time!”

43. I help my father at work on a Tuesday afternoon. I just can’t get it done on Tuesdays. Once again, the teacher is likely going to tell you to have more organization skills. But, you might occasionally get an extension out of this. Especially if you let the teacher know in advance.

44. My father looked at it, said it was outrageous government indoctrination, and told me not to do it. While I think this is hilarious, it’s also something that happens a lot these days. Why is this world so divided? Science isn’t controversial, people!

45. My mother was looking over my homework and forgot to give it back to me. Okay, time for me to put my teacher voice on: “She didn’t forget to give it back to you. You forgot to ask for it back.”

46. My mother threw it in the trash. This must have been frustrating to you! A teacher with a quick wit will respond: “it shouldn’t have looked like trash then. You must have done a bad job!” Or, a more serious teacher might just tell you that you need to be more organized net time.

Blame the Teachers

47. You give too much Homework. There are plenty of people out there in this world who think teachers do give too much homework. They believe it’s not fair and it’s preventing children from leading a balanced and healthy life.

48. Your instructions are impossible to understand. This one really puts the pressure back on the teacher because you’re basically telling them that they’re bad at their job.

49. This was way too hard for me. You need to give me more guidance. Sometimes, it’s true, teachers do assign homework that’s way too hard. You do need to be resourceful and find ways to learn yourself. But at the same time, the teacher really should know better.

50. The homework is too easy. It’s a complete waste of my time. Assigning homework is like playing Goldilocks. It can’t be too hard, can’t be too easy.

51. Between you and all my other teachers, you’re assigning hours of homework every night. You all need to get together and resolve this. This one’s surely going to set a cat amongst the pigeons. The teachers are going to talk about this at their next staff meeting. But, they might coordinate and come back at you as a united front!

FAQ: How to Get Out of Doing Homework?

The best ways to get out of doing homework are to:

• Let the teacher know in advance that you won’t be able to do it. Teachers respond better when you give them an excuse before time, not after.
• Bring evidence of why you didn’t do it. If you want your teacher to truly believe your excuse, you need evidence. This can be notes, photos, receipts, or anything else proving your story is true.

Really, the best way to avoid any issues is to just do the homework in the first place. But if you’re reading this article, chances are the horses have left the stable. You’re at a stage where you’ve got to come up with an excuse because in 10 minutes your teacher is going to be asking you why you haven’t done anything!

Well, good luck with that! I hope you don’t get into too much trouble, but I also hope you learn that next time the best solution is to just get that homework done in advance.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 101 Class Group Name Ideas (for School Students)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 19 Top Cognitive Psychology Theories (Explained)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 119 Bloom’s Taxonomy Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ All 6 Levels of Understanding (on Bloom’s Taxonomy)

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The Ten Best Excuses for Late Homework from a Teacher Who's Heard Hundreds of Them

• Trent Lorcher
• Categories : Study & learning tips for parents & students
• Tags : Homework help & study guides

Best Excuses for Late Homework

1. Know how gullible your teacher is. Some teachers will believe anything, especially new teachers. More experienced teachers are much more difficult to fool and more likely to be bitter and jaded. Experienced teachers have also heard most of the lame excuses you have planned. 2. Know how strict your teacher is . I’ll let you in on a teaching secret: most teachers want you to succeed. They want to believe you stayed up all night nursing your sick hamster. Use this to your advantage. 3. Find out if your teacher likes you. I’ll let you in on another secret: teachers play favorites. Are you a favorite? If you are, use any excuse you like. 4. Find out your teacher’s interests . Here’s another secret: teachers love being the center of attention. Why else would they subject themselves to the torment that comes with instructing teenagers? They love talking about themselves. Listen when they do.

• The 10 Best Homework Excuses

1. I got my backpack stolen: use rampant crime among high school students to your advantage. No teacher in his right mind would expect you to turn in that big assignment if it got stolen the very day it was due. Although most teachers won’t follow through, filing a missing backpack report might not be a bad idea. 2. My mom and dad got in a huge fight last night and the cops came and I couldn’t concentrate on the assignment: Domestic violence isn’t something to lie about…unless it’s done to save your grade. This excuse works on so many levels: (1) Your teacher will never bring this up to your parents; and (2) you will garner sympathy for the rest of the year. The only way this could go wrong is if your teacher reports this to your guidance counselor and your counselor contacts your parents. That’s probably not going to happen. 3. I stayed at my dad’s this weekend and left it there and my mom refuses to let me go back and get it: Teachers are suckers for dysfunctional family stories. This is an all time classic. 4. I left my binder in my mom’s car and she’s at work across town: This is a twist on the easy to see through “I left it at home” excuse. A teacher can reasonably expect someone from home to bring your homework, but not even the meanest teacher would expect your mom to leave work. 5. I was really sick yesterday and unable to do anything. The only reason I came is because I didn’t want to miss any more work: Teachers will admire your perseverance and give you the extra day. 6. It’s that “time of the month”: If you’re a boy, don’t try this. This only works for females on male teachers. 7. Grandma died: Even if the teacher doubts the veracity of your grandma’s death, he’s not gonna call you out on it just in case it’s true. There are obvious problems with this excuse, including the guilt you’ll feel if your grandma does die that week. 8. My dog died and I was too upset to do my homework: This is rarely used, but effective, especially if your teacher has a dog. Only a heartless task master would not cut you a break over losing your best friend. 9. I had to take care of my baby sister who was up last night throwing up: Another underused classic. Be careful your teacher isn’t an e-mailer or he just might e-mail your parents for an update on your baby sister who doesn’t exist. 10. Tell the truth: This is a revolutionary excuse. Often if you just go to your teacher in the morning and tell him or her the truth, you’ll get some additional time. What’s your favorite homework excuse? Image by  Jan Vašek  from  Pixabay

This post is part of the series: Homework Excuses

Find the best, the worst, the most popular, and the funniest homework excuses with just a few clicks of the mouse.

• The 10 Most Common “I Forgot my Homework” Excuses
• Funny Homework Excuses

9 Reasons Why Teachers Should Accept Late Work: Balancing Discipline and Flexibility in Education

This article navigates through the intricacies of late submissions, examining when it is justifiable for educators to accept overdue assignments. We explore the compelling reasons that support accepting late work, such as the enhancement of learning quality, the nurturing of a supportive educational environment, and the importance of adapting to students’ individual circumstances. Conversely, we also consider the arguments against this practice, highlighting the essential role deadlines play in fostering self-management skills and preparing students for real-world expectations.

Who says I’m not? I never said all teachers need to accept late work for good reasons either. I’m just saying that there could be reasons why students turn in late assignments besides “they’re lazy”. I wasn’t trying to have a debate about what teachers should and shouldn’t do. — Danielle™️ (@_D_Eazyy) May 3, 2021

When Should a Teacher Accept Overdue Assignments?

Reasons why teachers should accept late work, 1. encourages high-quality work.

Accepting late work can significantly improve the quality of student submissions. A study by the University of Minnesota found that when students were given extended deadlines, the quality of their work improved by 33%. This is because students often need more time to fully understand and engage with the material.

Rushed work, done just to meet a deadline, often lacks depth and fails to reflect a student’s true abilities. In contrast, when students are given the opportunity to submit work late, they tend to invest more time in research and critical thinking, leading to more comprehensive and insightful assignments.

2. Fosters a Supportive Learning Environment

3. shows compassion and understanding.

Demonstrating compassion and understanding in educational settings has a profound impact on student well-being and academic performance. The research underscores the importance of teacher empathy in student success. A study from the University of Cambridge found that students who felt understood and supported by their teachers had higher motivation and better academic outcomes. Accepting late work is a practical way to show empathy. It acknowledges the diverse challenges students face, such as family responsibilities, mental health issues, or learning difficulties.

4. Strengthens Student-Teacher Relationships

5. teaches flexibility and adaptability, 6. encourages creativity and new ideas, 7. promotes problem-solving skills, 8. ensures continued participation, 9. avoids potential tension with parents and administrators, reasons why teachers should not accept late work, 1. deadlines promote self-management skills, 2. avoid developing a bad habit, 3. fairness and consistency, 4. prepares students for the real world, 5. inconvenience for the teacher, effective strategies for managing late student work in the classroom.

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Best Practices for Dealing With Late Homework

While there are different views on the use of homework, late homework may be an inevitable part of your teaching experience. If you choose to use homework, you also have to decide how you will address tardy assignments. Here, we offer ways to handle late homework.

While there are different views on the use of homework , late homework may be an inevitable part of your teaching experience. If you choose to use homework, you also have to decide how you will address tardy assignments.

Here we offer five ways the handle late homework that can help you manage the task efficiently, while still being fair to students who complete their work on time.

1. Create Consequences for Late Work

Penalizing students for turning homework in late is a common practice among teachers. If your student misses a deadline, there’s a clear, expected consequence.

Penalties, however, can also encourage students to complete the late assignment to receive partial credit. This ensures fairness — late work can’t achieve the same score as work that was submitted on time — while also giving students who turn homework in late an opportunity to learn the materials and succeed in the class, which is the ultimate goal.

2. Accept Late Work — for Legitimate Reasons

No, “my dog ate my homework” is not an acceptable reason for missing a homework deadline. But there are some situations that may warrant tardiness, such as a medical or family emergency. 

Help your students understand your expectations for accepting late work without a penalty, as well as what you’ll need to verify those conflicts (such as a signed letter from a parent, for example). This is also a great way to preempt students’ attempts at making excuses, which could reduce the number of excuses you’ll field throughout the year.

3. Put Extensions on the Table

Not every student who turns work in late is unmotivated or irresponsible. Some students might be struggling to keep up with the workload, or they could be dealing with situations at home that make managing classroom deadlines difficult. 

By encouraging students to ask for extensions, you can empower them to proactively manage their workload. Note that some students might try to take advantage of extensions to avoid late penalties. Creating boundaries, like requiring students to ask for an extension in advance of the deadline, can help.

4. Grant a ‘Next-Day Pass’

A next-day pass is a pass that grants your students the opportunity to submit a homework assignment the day after it’s due without penalty. Next-day passes afford students some flexibility that they can tap into when they need it, while also helping you eliminate the need to field excuses for late work and requests for extensions.

5. Take ‘Late’ Out of the Equation

Some teachers have adopted policies that don’t penalize students for turning work in late — no matter how late the assignment is or how many assignments are late. Instead of penalizing students for tardiness, this method grades students separately based on their ability to turn their assignments in on time. By creating a distinction between the work and deadlines, you may be able to better understand whether students who are struggling are not grasping the concepts or are dealing with other obstacles.

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Late work that actually works

Posted by Stacie Williams | 12 comments

How to approach late work with students in online classes is a topic I’ve discussed many times with my colleagues. My own thoughts and practices around late work have changed significantly over the years.

What have I tried?

• No late work unless extenuating circumstances (this hurt completion and morale).
• 50% deduction for work submitted up to a week late (students seemed to think it wasn’t worth doing the late work).
• 10% deduction for work submitted up to a week late (this did work better because a 90% was still possible).
• No due dates at all, but I kept suggested due dates (this worked for some students, but many students fell really far behind and tried to do seven weeks of work in the last two weeks of the term).

One of the questions that has guided my thinking is this: “is submitting the work ‘on time’ more important than submitting the work?” I teach because I love to see students learn and grow, not because I like to micromanage due dates.

I understand the argument of teaching students to manage their time and be accountable for deadlines because that’s an important workplace skill. But I’m a professional in the workplace, and I don’t get everything done by every deadline all the time.

As an instructor I had to ask myself, do I  always return grades and provide feedback by the time I say I will? Honestly, no. Sometimes my daughter gets sick and my schedule is thrown by a day or two. Sometimes an unexpected need for a committee or project pops up and I fall a little behind on grading. In these situations I expect grace from my students. So I believe that I should extend grace to students who also need it.

I’m going to share the most current iteration of my late work policy. And I invite you to share yours in the comments, and offer me some new ways of thinking about my policy.

What does my syllabus say?

Unit reflections and homework assignments can be submitted up to one week late without any deduction- no questions asked and no judgment given! Assignment folders close at 11:59pm one week after the due date. Discussions must be completed on time, and the final reflection cannot be submitted late because it’s due in finals week.

What does my policy look like in practice?

The day after an assignment was due (Monday morning), I go into the grade book and enter a 0 (or the word “Ignored” because I use contract grading). I then add a note like this:

“Oops- looks like you didn’t get a chance to submit this assignment. But don’t worry! You have until 4/24 at 11:59pm to submit this assignment- no questions asked! Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

What if a student needs even more time? I extend extra grace when needed. Sometimes a student needs an extra day or two, and that’s okay with me. If a student wants to do the work, and I think that the assignment deepens their learning, then a little extra time seems like a valuable way to support learning and equitable student success.

I do have a creative (unadvertised) way for students to make up a missed discussion, and I offer that to any student who needs to get caught up as we enter the last third of the term. Most students take me up on it, which means they got yet another important opportunity to engage with our course content.

How has this approach been working?

Really well! Most students end up submitting their work within just a couple of days after I notify them via the grade book that they can still submit an assignment. Completion is up – I see students persisting in the class more than I did with my previous policies.

I also have received notes from students thanking me for the reminder and ability to submit the assignment late. And overall, I find that students are more likely to reach out via email when they have a question about completing their late work. That open dialogue between us makes such a difference.

I’m happy with my current policy because I can be empathic and show grace while having a schedule and structure for completing coursework. But will I change my late work policy in the future? Probably. I’m always looking for ways to grow and do better for my students.

About Stacie Williams

I'm the Faculty Department Chair for Communication Studies at the Rock Creek Campus, and I also serve as an Online Faculty Mentor for Communication Studies and Journalism. I love learning new things about teaching online, and seeing student... more »

There are 12 comment for this article. If you see something that doesn't belong, please click the x and report it.

Stacie, how do you handle making up a missed discussion?

I have to admit I struggle with late homework, I really like this approach. I am going to try it! I didn’t see what the reduction is once the end of the “late week” ended. I would put it at 15% meaning they could not achieve an A on that particular assignment.

Hi Stacie – I have implemented a similar policy in my courses and have found a lot of success with it! I am passing along your post to our SAC as we are implementing and studying some grading policy changes next year!

Great post. I’d love to hear more about your creative way to make up discussion posts. Those are tricky as timely engagement is so important to the learning. Thanks for sharing!

We all fight the battle of “who’s getting trained” where homework is concerned. Do students learn to turn it in by the due date or does the teacher use their personal time to review and give credit for late work. My current policy for my remote classes is to have a due date with a 24 hour extension. If a student contacts me, I am happy to accept late assignments from them after that time, but there must be communication. I do limit the homework to pre-midterm and post-midterm. I have spent too much time in my career going over a terms worth of homework at the end of the term. After the midterm I do not accept homework from the first half of the term. The requests for submitting late homework come only from a few students each term. 80% submit their assignments on time but I believe homework is important and I don’t want my policy to hinder its submission. Students know that but respect my time as well.

Thanks for sharing what works for you, Stacie! I’ve been doing something similar, but a bit differently, and it also seems to work fairly well. I advertise a due date and it shows as the due date on the Assignments page, but it isn’t enforced. They can still submit the assignment after the due date. I also put in a zero, which gets their attention, and in the comments I say that it is a temporary grade until I receive the assignment as well as encouraging them to contact me if they want help. I don’t actually block the assignment folders until a week before the end of the class. Most students submit the work on time, but some trickle in over a week or more afterwards. I haven’t tried a “no judgement given” message in the Syllabus and the grading comments, which I think is a good idea! I do think that some students feel embarrassed to contact the instructor if their work is late. I’m curious: what is your ‘creative (unadvertised) way for students to make up a missed discussion’?

I do some similar things as well, deducting 10% or 20% for late work so that students can still get an A or B.

Here’s how I handle weekly discussions in D2L, which are time-sensitive. I set a hard due date of Wednesday night at 11:59PM so that it appears in the D2L calendar. Then on Thursday morning, I go through and score the posts that were on time. I then reopen the discussion and post feedback for students who didn’t post: “I am putting zeros in the gradebook but have reopened the discussion if you would like to post for half credit.”

I usually have a hard deadline around midterm (say, Monday of Week 6) for any late work from weeks 1-4, then an absolute hard deadline at the end of the term (say, Monday of Week 11) for any late work from Weeks 6-9. It helps compartmentalize things.

Thanks for sharing. I really like the method you’re using and plan on starting to emulate it next term! I wonder if there is a way to have D2L automatically send students that message you’re putting in the comment section of the gradebook to students as well. That way they’re seeing it twice.

Ron, I use pretty much exactly the same approach, and it works really well! The zero gets people’s attention, but I stress that this is only until the assignment is submitted. I never remove points for lateness. There is a hard deadline of Friday Week 9 for submissions and revisions, though, to avoid the folks who try to do a term of work in the last week.

Jessica, you can’t automate it, but there is a fairly painless way to send out the “You have a temporary 0 because you haven’t submitted X yet” message: when you’re viewing the submissions in the Assignments tab, there is a “Email Users Without Submissions” button right on top. It takes a minute to compose and send, but you can contact all these students with a single email. I usually get “Thank you so much for reminding me!” responses and good follow-up.

I worked more than half-time all through university and grad school, and I was not raised to have any time management awareness. The few times my own instructors extended me this grace back then were really crucial to keeping me going. I *so* appreciate hearing my colleagues rethinking this issue.

This is a really interesting read. I have suggested (but not enforced) deadlines. Like you, I have noticed that a significant number of students often put off their work until the last minute, then struggle to catch up. One term this resulted in me having the majority of students submitting all their work for the term pretty much on the last day of class, which was a grading nightmare, and I also don’t think this provides a good learning experience for students. This has definitely given me some food for thought!

Thanks for sharing your strategy. I do something similar with a due date and an end date in D2L. Instead of putting a zero in the gradebook, I use D2L’s Assignment folder feature that allows you to email all students who haven’t submitted an assignment. I do this just after the due date (the next morning if the assignment was due at 11:59pm). The email is just a short reminder that the assignment was due last night, but that they can still submit it within [time period] to get credit. I have had students email me back to thank me for the reminder, sometimes saying that they had completed the assignment by got side tracked and forgot to submit. So it has been very helpful. Of course, the email doesn’t do much in cases where students aren’t checking their PCC email accounts. I’ll consider trying your strategy of inserting a zero with a note in the gradebook as an attention grabber in the future in addition to the email.

I am in complete support of this approach to teaching with compassion. I do the same thing, realizing that this is a very challenging time for most of our students, and they will benefit from the lessons learned and pass it on to others, in their own lives.

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Accepting Late Homework – They’re Twelve!

We had a staff meeting yesterday, however, that brought up a subject that may be something that new teachers might be concerned with – accepting late homework.

I had to take a break to blog.

According to the philosophy of some teachers, accepting late homework is allowing students to get away with not following class guidelines which can set a bad precedent. They see their tough stance on late homework as a lesson that will teach the student to be more responsible. Some college professors don’t allow any students to turn in their work late, so the lesson will serve them well when they get to the university level.

That’s when one of my colleagues raised her hand and started speaking. Her name is Lee Ann.

She started by saying that she accepts late homework. She’ll give the student a harsh finger wag, and maybe a short lecture on responsibility, but she takes the homework. Then she reminded us, “They’re twelve.”

This hit it right on the head for me.

Although I agree that students need to learn to budget their time and to place value on due dates and be more responsible, they’re twelve. That lesson can come later in life. Right now, the positive effect of a passing grade in Language Arts or History or Science or Math will do more to make that student successful than the lesson they’ll learn about the importance of due dates.

Lee Ann went on and said, “The electric company accepts our payments late. They’ll ding us with extra charges or they’ll even turn off our lights, but if we pay them an extra fee, we’ll get our power back.”

Great comparison.

In my class, I always accept late work. I tell the students that they’ll lose some points, because it’s not fair to those other students who worked hard to turn in the work on time, but I’ll take it. I’ll give them a speech about responsibility and how in college, the professors won’t be so nice, but I’ll take it.

I have so many students who would just give up on school if they saw that there was no way to turn the power back on in their grade. I can’t let them fail just to maintain a policy that has little to do with real life.

So all you new teachers out there, when the older teachers on your staff start pressuring you to hold to their “no-late-work” policy, ignore them.

Tell them Sam said so.

So, what do you think about accepting late work?

Thanks again, Sam

But if you accept late homework, it makes it impossible to go over the work in class the next day. How do you handle this? Doesn’t the student handing in the homework late have access to all of the answers? Sure they may get a diminished grade, but for all you know they simply copied the answers from their peers corrected/returned work,…and if you go over the homework in class the next day, you’ve just done their late homework for them.

Hello Chris, This is a good question. Thank you for the comment. Sorry I didn’t respond earlier. You’re right. You can’t accept late work if you’re going to go over it in class. What I was talking about was accepting work like projects or larger assignments. These are assignments that are very important to the student’s grade, and if I don’t accept it, then although I may be teaching them an important lesson on being responsible, their overall grade will suffer, and it’s not worth it at this age. This brings up a question that maybe I’ll discuss in a future post: What is a good homework assignment? I never give out worksheets from the book, or if I do, I don’t grade it. You can’t be sure if the student did it or if he/she copied the answers before school from a friend. Unless you’re there watching the student do the homework, you can’t be sure if he/she is actually completing the assignments him/herself. The homework I give out is more project-based. The students get the information in class, and then they demonstrate their knowledge in a poem or a poster or a scrapbook or a test or a game board. I have a lot of different kinds of project ideas that students can do to demonstrate that they understand the concepts we learned in class. I don’t put too much weight in the worksheets that come with the text book. Thanks again for the comment and question. Sam

They’re twelve… very true. Although I teach tenth graders, and not students that young, I still note that it is often not skill mastery or even motivation that keeps students from doing their work on time: it is organizational and time management skills that is the true culprit. And, while we want to educate them to work within deadlines, a no tolerance policy, simply means the work–and the need to find to do it–disappears after a certain deadline: terrible way to resolve the issue, and not at all like real life. Here is how I handle it: http://jessicawiseinmyshoes.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventure-zero-heroes-in-my-new-comic.html

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Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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Late Work Policy Options for Secondary Classrooms

Late work is of the most annoying classroom management challenges for middle and high school teachers. If your late work policy is not working out for you, there are alternate options. Let’s look at a few of the most common classroom management solutions.

Student:   “Can I turn this in?”

Teacher:  “When was it due?’

Student:  “September.”

Teacher:  “No, I’m sorry. It’s too late.”

Student:  “What do you mean? Final exams aren’t until tomorrow!”

Teacher:   “Jeremy…it’s December. That assignment was from first nine weeks.”

Student:   “Oh. Well, can’t you go back and change the grade?”

Teacher:   Sigh.

Maybe that conversation comes across as comical, but when it happens in real life (and it does), it’s enough to send us into a little bit of a crank fest. Teachers don’t need to spend hours at the end of the quarter or the semester grading a stack of papers a mile high that was due weeks ago.

A consistent late work policy helps students to learn responsibility and timeliness…both important skills for real life. What’s more, a late work policy makes classroom management more reasonable. But, should that lesson on responsibility come at the expense of relationships, learning, and confidence?

In today’s post, we’re exploring a handful of late work policy options for the secondary classroom. Needless to say, more than these policies exist, but they are among the most common that I have witnessed and experienced. If you have a different system that works, please tell us about it in the comments. Help us gather a teacher-tested bank of late work policies to help educators solve one of their most pressing classroom management issues.

Before choosing a course of action, make sure to consider both your teaching philosophy and the expectations of your administration. You will want to have a late work policy that reflects your beliefs about teaching and learning, and you also need to know that your administration will support your decisions regarding students’ grades.

5 COMMON LATE WORK POLICY OPTIONS

Don’t accept late work. period..

Why? Not accepting late work puts a strong emphasis on the importance of the work you assign. Students know you mean business, and the work from your class should be considered a priority.

Advantages:   Students will turn more work in on time because of the urgency. They will learn responsibility and the importance of deadlines. You have no paperwork headaches to deal with. By collecting more work on time, you are able to assess students’ ability with a given topic more quickly.

Disadvantages:   Parents will be upset. It penalizes all students, even conscientious ones who make a mistake every once in a while (everyone make mistakes).  The zero on the assignment won’t reflect students’ knowledge of course content. Compiling that many zeros will cause some students to give up early in the nine weeks.

Things to consider:  

• If you choose to adopt the “no late work ever” policy, I highly encourage you to seek support from your administration and to clearly communicate this policy with parents early and often.
• It might be a good idea to offer students a “Whoopsie!” pass , which students could use once…or more! per quarter. That way, every student has four times per year that he or she can legitimately make a mistake and not suffer unwarranted consequences. After all, zeros are detrimental.
• Also, consider the executive functioning of your students. I’ve seen this type of policy successfully used with enriched / advanced high school upper-level classes, but with younger students or at-risk classes, this policy would fail.
• Ask yourself how you will allow students to practice the skills so that they master the content. If we are being honest, most high school students will not complete a late assignment they know they will not receive credit for just to “prepare for the test.”

Disclaimer: I have never used this late work policy, and it wouldn’t be the one I would advocate for because it skews the overall grade, and it often causes tension between teachers and their students.

Deduct a % or a letter grade each day the assignment is late. 

Why? This approach offers students an opportunity to earn credit for their work, but there is still a learning experience involved, and students who turned the assignment in on time are rewarded with full credit.

Advantages:   More students will be passing the class because they won’t have as many zeros. The fact that students know the percentage or letter grade opportunity declines every day motivates them to turn it in more quickly. This approach is more than justifiable to both parents and administration.

Disadvantages:   It’s a little bit of a grading nightmare. Knowing how many days late the assignment would be is usually dependent on the accuracy of the date submitted (which the student typically writes on the paper). If your students are anything like mine, we’re lucky if they write down their name…let alone multiple pieces of information. In addition, because students know they will be able to receive  some credit for the assignment, they might wait until the last minute to turn it in.

• Will you have a cut off? In other words, after a certain date (let’s say a week), will students still be able to turn in the assignment?
• How will you ensure accuracy of the date the student submitted the assignment?

Disclaimer: I have used this policy in the past, but I found keeping track of how many days late an assignment was to be a little bit tedious. And, I really want my students grades to represent learning, not to reflect responsibility.

Give a % (let’s say 75% or 50%) of credit for all late work within a unit up until the unit test.

Why? Like option 1, this approach is still a major motivator. No one wants a bad grade on an assignment.  Yet, the penalty is not so severe that it causes students to fail.

Advantages:   It’s simple for teachers to grade late work because it’s all worth the same amount of credit. Students are encouraged to complete their assignments within the window that the information applies to the test.

Disadvantages:   A student who turns in the assignment one day late is earning the same amount of credit as the student who submits the assignment two weeks late. With this approach, students still don’t score well on the assignment, but the grade is not as detrimental to their overall score as a zero.

• What percentage would motivate your students to turn in the assignment?
• What percentage would keep your students passing if they demonstrate understanding of the concept on the assignment (if that’s your goal)?
• Will you automatically give students the predetermined percentage, regardless of accuracy of answers, or will points be deducted from the highest percentage they can possibly earn (for incorrect or incomplete responses)?

Disclaimer: I’ve used this policy, and it was relatively easy for me to manage, but I didn’t love how it impacted students’ grades…or how it impacted my relationship with students. I think this speaks into where the academic world is right now…caught between traditional and standards-based reporting systems.

Have a “no later than” deadline.

Why? Many times, the most value students can get from completing work comes during the unit of study it pertains to. This policy helps both to address student organization and responsibility and to keep assessing late work manageable. Basically, via this route, students can earn full credit up until the deadline you establish.

Advantages:   You don’t have to worry about students turning in assignments months after the due date. Plus, you are being flexible and responsive to student needs, within reason. When using this policy, parent communication is key. If you have given students multiple reminders to complete work and they simply just aren’t doing it, let parents know. This proactive approach will prevent you from possibly having to back-peddle on a late grade after it’s assigned. With this policy, students can always contact you to ask for an extension if they have a valid reason.

Disadvantages: With this approach, your late work stack may still be larger than normal. Depending on how long your units last, you may want to set deadlines before the unit is over. For instance if your Shakespeare unit lasts 7 weeks, you may want to have a mid-point “no later than” date to keep students from having too many assignments outstanding at once.

• Would this approach allow you to better differentiate for students?
• Could this open doors for more self-paced learning and choices in the types of assignments students are completing?
• Will you ask students to email their parents to let them know about assignment due dates to help them own their learning?

Note: With the growing movement of standards-based reporting, this seems to be a more viable option. However, you’ll have to consider what will happen if students don’t meet the “no later than date.”

Accept all late work with no penalty.

Why? Many people contend that a student’s grade should be a reflection of his or her understanding of course material. It should give an accurate picture of their mastery of standards, not of their responsibility or maturity level.

Advantages:   There’s no headache as far as figuring out how many points to take off. You just don’t! Also, students are more motivated to turn in late work because they  can earn full credit if it’s done well. What’s more, there’s a stronger feeling of trust and credibility between teacher and student when teens feel their teachers are on their team.

Disadvantages: In the “real world,” people really are given extensions. However, they aren’t necessarily given an undetermined amount of time to finish a project.

• Would it help parents to communicate late work through a separate indicator? Instead of including it in the grade, would you give students an executive functioning rating or short narrative as a goal-setting point?
• What is the best way to make this manageable? Do students have tentative or suggested due dates? Are zeros then placed in the grade book until the work is turned in, at which point they can earn full credit? If students do not ever turn the work in, do they get an incomplete or a not achieved?

Note: I’ve seen this type of policy work in situations where students can fluidly move among units without the constraints of nine week or trimester report cards. However, it could work in any situation with careful planning.

KEY CONSIDERATIONS

Teach students to advocate for themselves. Instead of receiving an angry call from a parent, if a student is upset about a late grade, they should approach you first. Of course, in order to do so, they need to have a good relationship with you. They need to know you have their best interests at heart. Taking time to invest in our students by having frequent conversations and by teaching students self-advocacy skills will pay dividends.

Differentiate.

You don’t have to stick with just one option. Choose the one that works best for students, but don’t feel boxed in. You know your students best. If a student who usually struggles works exceptionally hard turns an assignment in late but done well, you may consider giving him or her some grace. Reward their effort and their success with full credit!

Students will be more likely to hold themselves accountable to late work policies when they feel they have helped to define them. Invite students to help you create a fair late work policy at the beginning of the year. Throughout the year, check in with them to monitor the pulse.

We all have different stories. During a time period when students are struggling with social emotional issues more than ever, the conversation matters. If a student has late work, talk with them. What is going on in their life? Perhaps they have emotional situations on their plate that are preventing them from being able to focus on school work like they could otherwise.

Use a parent communication app. Remind 101. Class Dojo. There are many platforms that will allow you to send homework reminders to both students and parents. In my experience, using a parent communication reminder app reduced late work drastically.

Reflection Questions.

• What is the goal? What lesson do you want students to learn? Do they really need to complete this assignment to show they are at grade level for this skill or standard?
• How will you manage the gradebook? Will you put in zeros for assignments that are late until they are submitted? If you don’t, how will you remember to go back and enter the missing grades at a later time?
• Should your school implement some type of homework intervention system so that students who have late work can work during their lunch or study hall periods to submit missing work?
• How will you deter students from choosing to turn in work late if they know there is no penalty?
• What will you do about assignment dumping tendencies at the end of the quarter or semester?

Choosing an effective late work policy largely depends on the age, subject, grading system, and track of your students. Teachers need to select a late work policy that encourages independence, responsibility, and work ethic without alienating or punishing students punitively. Which late work policy is the “right” one? The answer is different for each instructor.

Interested in diving further into the late work policy discussion? Listen in on a podcast conversation I had with Todd Bedard from Teachers as Leaders.

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No Points Off for Late Work

A look at how one teacher adjusted her policies to encourage learners to turn in quality assignments, even if they were late.

When I think back on my school experience, I distinctly remember attempting to finish homework a few minutes before class. They were frantic, heart-racing moments where I was scribbling illegibly. I wasn’t focused on doing good work—just trying to get words on paper so I could get some credit.

As a student, I knew I was being punished for procrastinating. As a teacher, I implemented a policy that I thought was kinder: I always welcomed work, but students lost points based on the number of days the assignment was late. I reasoned that I needed to prepare them for the real world of deadlines and consequences. It also seemed to be a clear-cut way to incentivize on-time work while allowing for wiggle room when students struggled.

Allow Nuance in Accepting and Assessing Student Work

Then, the pandemic hit, and nothing was clear-cut anymore. The pandemic showed that there had always been nuances in some student absences, but now it was on a much larger scale and complicated my policy. I also saw that when I discussed my students’ skills, my late policy made it difficult to see a student’s actual skill level if their grade reflected lateness, not a lack of understanding.

Dr. Jeff Judd, an education professor I work with at Leeward Community College, experienced similar challenges, noting that it was hard “to make viable statements about whether my students were actually learning anything. Does a failing grade mean that the student didn’t learn anything or that the student couldn’t manage their own time well ?”

A few colleagues, including Dr. Judd, shared a new approach: allowing students to receive full credit on their assignments, no matter how late, and including a grade focused on their organization and planning. This allowed teachers to grade students on the skills their assignments were assessing. Judd appreciated the clarity, saying, “I no longer had to evaluate or confirm excuses on why it was late because they could still score full credit. If a student completed the assignments but received zero points for “on-time”/planning and organization [multiple times], I could intervene and focus on organizational and time management strategies rather than academic ones.”

Shift Your Late Policy to Encourage Quality Work

I was hesitant at first. The concept was outside my comfort zone. Then, I realized that my comfort zone was largely dictated by my own K–12 education experiences. I wanted to spare my students those frantic, heart-racing moments scribbling down words and instead try to get quality work.

So, this quarter, I informed students that I would no longer take off points for late assignments and they would also receive a separate “organization, planning, and preparedness” (“OPP”) grade in connection with each submitted assignment. The score was averaged into their overall class grade and used a rubric based on a percentage of late and missing assignments and student reflections so they could improve in the future.

Ultimately, my students and I both appreciated the change. It was more straightforward than my previous late policy. Instead of navigating excuses and calculating points to take off, I noted the assignment as “late,” knowing that I could consider it in the aggregate at the end of the quarter. This freed me up to provide more meaningful feedback to my students on the actual skills I was assessing with the assignment. 

A few weeks before the end of the quarter, I shared their current OPP grade based on their present work, so they had time to raise that grade if they had been struggling or ask questions if there was a discrepancy. At the end of the quarter, I was able to quickly calculate what percentage of assignments were late and only needed to investigate if it drastically changed a student’s grade, so I could provide a comment to students and families about why and how the grade was affected.

Students said the change allowed them to turn in their best work. One student shared that the policy “motivates students who haven’t planned and prepared for class to be more prepared and… to be the best version of themselves.” Another shared that “it allowed us to not rush our work to turn in things. Although it’s important to turn in homework on time, I believe it is more important to submit work that [shows] your best abilities.”

Additionally, my students shared that it made them feel more valued. “[The new grading system] reflects more of an overall student contribution,” one reflected. “Taking off points for each assignment turned in late almost defeated the whole purpose of the assignment.” Another felt that “[I] should keep doing it because it assesses us as a whole.”

Set Boundaries so You Can Submit Grades on Time  

While I was initially worried about getting a flood of work at the end of the quarter, I actually didn’t experience that. My mid-quarter check-in encouraged many students who had numerous late assignments to turn them in then. I also set a deadline for all work that gave me adequate time to grade work before I had to submit final grades to my school. This helped set boundaries so I could still assess work while giving students as much time as possible.

I’m glad I went outside my comfort zone to try this new style of grading. I’ve also appreciated learning from the work of other colleagues making similar changes, like Matthew R. Kay’s fantastic student-led reflective rubric for projects , which I want to incorporate into my classroom. In doing this, I’ve now reframed my classroom—not just to focus on assessing skills instead of timeliness, but also to worry less about punishing procrastination and instead find ways to look at my students in a more holistic way.

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How to Email Professor About Late Work

Last Updated: April 12, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Caroline Heiderscheit . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. This article has been viewed 155,545 times.

With deadlines, jobs, activities, and relationships to juggle, managing your schedule as a student can be tough. If you’ve realized you’re going to miss a deadline (we’ve all been there), you might be wondering how to email your professor for an extension, to apologize, or to limit any late penalties. Don't worry, we've got you covered. Below, we'll walk you through how to email your professor, plus we'll give you some sample emails to inspire you, too. To learn how to email your professor about late work, read on!

Example Emails to Professors for a Late Assignment

Every now and then, it’s okay to miss a deadline. When this happens, send an email immediately and say something along the lines of, “I apologize for turning in this assignment late. Know that I take my work seriously, and I'll do my best to avoid this in the future. I would greatly appreciate an extension on this paper if possible.”

Tips For Late Work Emails

• Don’t say: “I’m just genuinely so, so sorry. I can’t believe I turned this in late, and you have no idea how long I prepped for this assignment. I really am so sorry that I missed the deadline, and you should know that I will do my best in the future, even when I have tech issues, to not let this happen again.”
• Instead say: “I apologize for turning in this assignment late. Know that I take my work seriously and I’ll do my best to avoid this in the future.”

• Don’t say: “Message from a student in Psych 104,” “Need an extension,” or “Hello from Randy Bernard!”
• Instead say: “Extension Request for Psych104, Paper 2: Randy Bernard”

• Use a formal greeting. “Dear Professor James,” and “Professor James,” are perfect. “Hey,” and “Hi,” are too informal and should be avoided.
• Same goes for your signoff—choose a formal phrase. “Best,” and “Sincerely,” are great picks.
• If you’re asking your professor for something, be sure to ask, not demand. Instead of saying “I need” an extension, say that an extension would be extremely helpful to you.
• Remember to use “Please” and “Thank you," too!

• This could hurt your relationship and increase penalties on your assignment.
• So instead, say you're sorry: “I apologize for my late assignment. I know you're busy, and I don’t want to waste your time.”
• “I’m sorry for this late paper, especially because it communicates a lack of care and concern for my grades that I don't feel is accurate.”

• “If I had an extra 48 hours to complete this assignment, I’d be able to fully explore and structure my insights for this term paper.”
• “I would greatly appreciate an extension on this project. With a little more time, I could turn in my very best work and learn even more from this assignment."

• “Last night, my dog had a bar of chocolate without me realizing. I’ve spent the entire evening with her at the vet.”
• "To be entirely honest, I've been dealing with some mental health issues that are seriously affecting my schoolwork."
• If you can, avoid lying. If you're granted an extension and the truth comes out later on, you could face major consequences.

• Don’t say: “Honestly, it was out of my hands entirely. I’m a victim of circumstance, and that’s why my assignment is late.”
• Instead say: “It's true that I didn’t plan for this to happen. That being said, if I’d started earlier, this wouldn’t have been an issue. So I know, ultimately, this is my fault. I take full responsibility.”

• “This isn’t like me, and in the future, I promise to do better.”
• “I take my schoolwork very seriously. If it weren’t for my dog’s illness, I would have made getting this assignment in my top priority.”

Sample Emails

Why You Should Email Your Professor About Late Work

• Policies around extensions differ from school to school, but by writing an A+ email, you can only help your chances.
• Generally, professors only give you an extension under extenuating circumstances, like a major accident. They're going to be less inclined to extend an assignment if you had competing priorities, like work.
• Professors are people too, and they want to help! Especially if you don’t have a history of late work, when you plead your case, they may be more forgiving than you’d expect.

• Especially if you had a major, unforeseen factor pop up in the final moments before submitting your assignment, you may be able to explain and limit your punishment.

• By offering a respectful and honest apology for your late assignment, you can improve your relationship with your professor, earn their respect, and possibly limit your late assignment’s penalties.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://dean.williams.edu/files/2010/09/Guide-to-Emailing-Professors-1.pdf
• ↑ https://advising.yalecollege.yale.edu/how-write-email-your-instructor
• ↑ https://studentaffairs.loyno.edu/health-counseling/university-counseling-center/news-ucc/emailing-your-professor-tips-tricks-health
• ↑ https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/how-to-ask-for-an-extension/
• ↑ https://www.makemyassignments.com/blog/how-to-complete-your-assignments-before-the-deadline/
• ↑ https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/09/23/tips-handling-missed-deadline-opinion

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How to Remember to Turn in Homework

Last Updated: November 29, 2021

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a Private Tutor and Life Coach in Santa Cruz, California. In 2018, she founded Mindful & Well, a natural healing and wellness coaching service. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. Emily also received her Wellness Coach Certificate from Cornell University and completed the Mindfulness Training by Mindful Schools. This article has been viewed 50,304 times.

You’ve had enough of that soul-crushing stare your teachers hit you with when they find out you forgot your homework again. They silently shake their head as you tell them you finished it, and even enjoyed working on the assignment, but simply left it at home. Even worse, you get home and realize you had brought your homework to class but forgot to turn it in! Again! Fortunately, there are proven steps you can take to help you remember to turn in your homework.

Organizing to Boost Your Productivity

• There is the classic two pocket, a side-folding folder in any color you can imagine, or adorned with the comic book hero, cartoon character, or sports team of your choice. One option is to get a few of these and use one for each of your classes.
• If you have separate folders for each class, keep all of them with you throughout the school day, perhaps in a three-ring binder.
• Alternatively, get yourself an accordion folder. These multi-pocketed wonders, usually equipped with a flap or other mechanism to ensure your materials stay where you put them, can immediately improve your organization. [1] X Research source
• Take time twice a week to organize all your folders or online files. This way they’re kept clean on a regular basis.

• Put any notes, handouts, worksheets, or assignment materials into the proper folder location as soon as you receive them, and keep them there whenever you’re not using them.
• Keep your organizing materials with you. Bring your binder or accordion with you to every single class. This ensures you always have all of your assignments with you for every class.
• For some extra tips, check out How to Be Organized in School.

• Before school every morning, triple check your bag! There’s nothing worse than simply forgetting completed homework at home. Make sure you have your organizing materials with you, and that you placed you completed assignments in them.

Developing Strategies to Remember Your Homework

• As soon as you sit down, take your completed assignment out of its folder and place in on your desk in front of you. Keep it there until you are able to turn it in.
• Get an extra folder exclusively for completed assignments and keep it in the very front of your binder. This way, you’ll be reminded of your completed assignments whenever you access any of your class materials.

• Always write down all of your homework assignments as soon as you are made aware of them. Be extremely detailed with the information you include. For example, jot down the chapters or page numbers of the textbooks or other materials associated with each assignment.
• If your class has a syllabus or course schedule, enter all of the included due dates into your personal planner.
• Include information regarding time slots you will not be able to work on homework, such as music or sports team practices, a babysitting gig, or family meals.

• Tangible planners are easier to update with quick additions or edits.
• It’s always satisfying to cross a completed assignment off with an actual writing utensil.
• Day planners are more appropriate for in-class use. Since you’ll often be assigned homework in class, and want to enter new assignments immediately, this is a particularly important factor.

• Another great source of reminders is your teacher. If you struggle to remember to bring your homework to class, talk to your teacher about it. Your teachers will likely have some helpful advice, and can even remind you the day before homework assignments are due.
• Your teachers will likely remind the whole class if you ask them to start reminding you, which may help your classmates remember their homework too!
• Alternatively, find a friend who will be sure to hold you accountable and remind you what needs to be done.

Using Your Time More Efficiently

• Think about how long it will take you to complete assignments and plan accordingly.
• Schedule specific portions of larger projects separately.
• If you struggle with finding large enough time slots to complete your homework, recognize that you need to make the time to do so. For instance, if you spend a good portion of each evening socializing with friends (online or in person), do all of your homework before you go out or get online.

• Kick starting your day will increase your productivity generally and prepare you for more efficient homework sessions. [2] X Research source
• Stick with it. If you get in the habit of getting up a bit earlier, you’ll likely start going to bed earlier as well.
• Don’t fall into the trap of staying up late working on homework, as your focus and productivity is greatly diminished late at night.
• Don’t procrastinate your homework and try to finish it when you wake up in the morning. It will make your day more stressful and ruin your previous night’s sleep.

• Wear headphones and sit facing a wall if you’re prone to visual distraction.
• Remind yourself that getting your homework done during school hours allows you to do whatever you want in your free time, including hang out with friends.

• If you are ever unsure of an assignment, ask your teacher about it as soon as you have a question.
• Get a jumpstart on weekend homework on Thursday or Friday. If you know you’re going to need to do some homework over the weekend, try to get it done earlier so you can relax and enjoy yourself over the weekend as well.
• Do not leave all of your weekend homework for Sunday.
• Try to plan weekend social activities for Saturday, and dedicate at least a few hours of Friday evening to schoolwork. If you do end up with plans on a Friday night, make sure you set aside a few hours on Saturday to work on homework.

Staying Focused on Your Homework

• Try studying in different environments to find the one that allows you to focus the best.
• Avoid screens, especially TVs. This includes your phone. Put your phone in your bag and leave it there. Only check it during scheduled breaks.
• Wear headphones (or earplugs). Whether in a library or coffee shop, headphones will help reduce the frequency of auditory distractions. Choose music that does not have lyrics, and is more ambient than bass-driven. Think “background music” when you’re making your selection, but know that you can still listen to music you enjoy.
• If you’re studying at home, try to use a room in which you won’t be interrupted by family members or roommates. Let others know you intend to work on homework for a certain amount of time, and ask them to let you be.

• The company of a friend can keep you from wondering what everybody else is up to, and can even make doing your homework feel like hanging out.
• Avoid studying with friends who tend to interrupt a lot, or who have trouble focusing themselves. You can hang with whoever you want once your work is done!

• Include a healthy snack, as well as a water bottle. Not having to get up for sustenance will keep you grinding through your homework for a longer period of time.
• Don’t forget sticky notes. They’re weirdly helpful. Use them as visual reminders of important things to remember, and to keep pages in books you’re studying or otherwise referencing frequently.

• Computers can also help you organize. Familiarize yourself with web-based storage systems like Google Drive and Dropbox. These will allow you to save and access files from anywhere you have internet access. [3] X Research source
• Use a flash drive too. Save all electronic files to both a web-based storage system and a thumb drive. Keep the drive with you at all times. (Get a thumb drive with a keychain attachment!) This way, even if you forget your hard copy, you can print another at school and eliminate the unfortunate “I forgot my homework” scenario.

• Try a 10 minute break after every 50 minutes of focused work.
• Use these breaks to go for a short walk, use the washroom, do a brief physical exercise (like stretching, push-ups, or jumping jacks), or to get a simple chore out of the way.
• Do not allow yourself to get distracted by activities that will prevent you from going back to work or will get your mind out of study mode. For instance, don’t call someone you haven’t spoken with in a while or sit down with friends who are hanging out but not studying.
• Reward yourself when completing assignments – but not before. If you’ve been itching for a bowl of ice cream, don’t dive into the freezer during a break. Instead, enjoy the ice cream once your homework is done for the evening and you can focus all of your attention – or none at all – on every bite.

Community Q&A

• If you’re doing your best to organize, plan, and focus on your homework, but are still struggling to get it all done, talk to a school counselor or your parents. School counselors, in particular, are trained to help students, and they will be happy to work with you on strategies and options to improve your ability to succeed in school. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accordion%20file
• ↑ http://keystooptimalliving.com/6-am-challenge-the-benefits-of-waking-up-early/
• ↑ https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en

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Why it is NEVER a good idea to turn in late work

Courtney McQuay , Staff Writer | October 19, 2016

It is not uncommon for students to be overwhelmed by the amount of work assigned to them in their classes. Having too much work can make them stressed and more likely to procrastinate. That big pile of homework seems intimidating, but your grade is in jeopardy if you let it sit there. Students often feel that it is okay to do a little bit of their work at a time and take a break in-between assignments, except for when those breaks last longer than it takes for you to complete the assignment. This mindset can end in work not being completed by its deadline, while the student’s workload does not decrease. It does not work like that. Sometimes students feel that it’s okay to turn in an assignment late since one late assignment won’t affect their grade all that much.

But that’s where they’re wrong. One assignment might not impact a grade that much, but when the student turns in the work late, it really impacts the teacher. Instead of having your paper to grade at the same time as everyone else, a teacher must now grade your paper separately, well after they’ve read everyone else’s, and must now go back through the requirements of the assignment and must look back through the answer key, instead of knowing exactly what they are looking for when they grade everybody else’s work at the same time. This causes it to take much longer to grade the assignment than when the assignment is turned in on time, plus most teachers deduct points for being late.

“There comes a point when an assignment loses its value.” says Mrs. Hartman, an English teacher, “it’s not worth turning in.”

Assignments have deadlines for a reason. To get you to do it. If you learn and get into the habit of good time management, then you are set for life past high school. No boss will want an employee that constantly misses a deadline. Plus, missing deadlines puts stress on you, especially if you didn’t do that speech due today. When you turn work in on time, that means you also have less work to do later instead of it piling up. Your grade is also saved. You might actually get a hundred on that assignment.

“Turning in something undone is better than not turning it in.” says Mrs. Hartman, “partial credit is better than no credit. If it’s late, the most you can get is a 60%. That’s the English department’s late work policy.”

Missing due dates in school can impact your learning too. If you don’t do the work, then you won’t understand what is going on in class. If your class is having a discussion over last night’s assignment and you didn’t do it, then you won’t have a clue what’s going on. If the teacher calls on you to summarize what the assignment was over and you didn’t do it, then it can be quite embarrassing for you, and distract the rest of the class.

“Assignments won’t get graded as quickly.” Says Mrs. Hartman, “If you aren’t worried about your grade then I won’t be.”

Turning in work on time also shows that your responsible and well organized. You’re more likely to get a good reputation if you turn in things before their deadline. If you plan how to do your assignments so that they are turned in on time, then you will likely be able to actually do it. Don’t ever leave assignments unfinished and thinking that you will just “do them later” because there likely won’t be a later and you will forget about them. Set reminders if you need to about due dates, and bring the completed assignment to class on that day it’s due.

Do not think that this means that you won’t ever have time for yourself. Finishing things early just lets you relax later knowing that you have everything done. Always schedule time for you to relax between assignments, just remember that you have to come back to them later.“It becomes a cycle.” Says Mrs. Hartman, “college doesn’t accept late work. It’s better to figure it out now, not later.”

“It becomes a cycle.” Says Mrs. Hartman, “college doesn’t accept late work. It’s better to figure it out now, not later.”

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What's a good policy for accepting late homework?

There are a lot of ways of handling late homework submissions, of which I've only tried a few. The general policy I've settled on is something like the following.

• Homework must be submitted at the beginning of class on the day it's due.
• Late homework is not accepted.

This is pretty harsh, I think. But with this policy in place, I make unofficial exceptions on a case-by-case basis (it's easier to start with an overly harsh policy and make exceptions in the students' favour than the other way around), for example, if a student happens to be late to class on a day that homework is due.

I want students to be motivated to hand in their work on time. Highly motivated. That's why I make the official policy so strict. But I feel bad about actually adhering to such draconian measures (they should get zero for missing the bus?), which is why I make exceptions. But overall, I'm dissatisfied with the ad hoc nature of this approach. How can I motivate students to submit homework by the deadline without being "overly harsh"?

• student-motivation

• 2 $\begingroup$ Are there aspects of the question particular to maths homework? $\endgroup$ –  Roland Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:28
• 7 $\begingroup$ @Roland There don't seem to be, but it's not clear that all questions are required to be math-specific. I certainly think this question is of interest to the community here. $\endgroup$ –  Jim Belk Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:49
• 3 $\begingroup$ @Roland the style of homework assignment in a math class is quite different from most humanities classes, and late policies might be correspondingly different. But I agree that this question might be equally applicable to, e.g., CS or physics homework policies. Nonetheless, this is an issue I face every time I teach a class with weekly or biweekly problem sets, and I think the math-ed communitiy will have a lot of specific insight to offer. $\endgroup$ –  Adam Bjorndahl Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 14:54
• $\begingroup$ @JimBelk: I'm not saying it's required, and I think that this question is fitting well as it is now. I wouldn't vote for closing it. I was just wondering if there are aspects which are specific to maths. $\endgroup$ –  Roland Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 15:16
• 1 $\begingroup$ I'm wary of "case by case exceptions", it is too easy to be unfair. Worse, this tends to favour the ones that are cutting corners and teaches them they can get away with it, not those who deserve help. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 10:58

8 Answers 8

My policy is that late work is not accepted, but I also give students multiple ways to turn in work, most of which revolve around electronic submissions.

The vast majority of work that I assign students is done electronically -- computer programs, Geogebra constructions, LaTeX-ed up proofs, etc. and so all they have to do is attach the file to an email and send it. Having electronic submissions cuts down on physical stuff happening, like missing the bus, that would prevent timely submission.

Last semester I experimented with having students use Dropbox folders to hold all their work and then sharing the folder with me. As they worked, they kept their works-in-progress in the Dropbox folder. Once they were done, they just added the word FINAL to the file name so I would know what to grade. This way they never "turned in" homework -- all the versions of the work were in the Dropbox folder at all times, and they didn't have to "remember" to turn something in. I've been doing the same thing with SageMath Cloud this semester with my discrete structures students.

If you use paper submissions, then tell students that if they are prevented from being physically present to submit their work on paper, they can (and should) scan it with their phones and send it to you. Not every student has a smart phone, but most do.

TL;DR -- "Late homework gets a 0" is a perfectly fine policy to have as long as you give students multiple avenues of submitting work.

• 2 $\begingroup$ I spent this morning working on code for automating submission of homework in SageMathCloud, making all the students' projects visible (as subfolders) of the instructor's project, and automating peer-grading so one can assign deeper problems. Course workflow will be the next big feature of SMC. Stay tuned. Also, of course SMC has snapshots every 2 minutes, so you can tell exactly when students did what. $\endgroup$ –  William Stein Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 18:15
• $\begingroup$ SageMath Cloud is amazing and getting...amazinger. $\endgroup$ –  Robert Talbert Commented Apr 23, 2014 at 0:11

My policy is that homework has to be turned in by the due time, for each day late 20 points (of 100) are discounted, after the third day no more submissions are allowed and the solution is posted.

As OP says, there is a bit of leeway for exceptional cases, i.e., if somebody was sick or otherwise unavailable they might be allowed to turn it in late with no penalty, or get a replacement homework.

In my experience, a (somewhat) harsh policy, with fixed dates for homework turn in and exams, dates that are only changed in case of extreme circumstances, is best, it isn't really hard and lightens work by not having it pile up at the end of the term.

The comments that follow pertain mainly to classes at or below the level of the beginning calculus sequence, elementary linear algebra, and a first course in differential equations.

To minimize the effect of situations where someone couldn't make it to class for some reason or had legitimate questions about one or more of the problems, over the years I gradually began to take up the homework in class when it was due, but still accept homework delivered to my mailbox or slid under my office door. I established a absolute due time , which typically was that it should be there before I get to my office and check mail the next morning. I warned them that I sometimes got to work very early (5:00 a.m. or earlier), and sometimes not until after 7:00 a.m., so to not take any chances, they should essentially regard the absolute deadline as the night before.

However, as much as possible (these being departmental or course supervisor constraints), I tried to avoid actually taking up and grading homework as much as possible. Instead, I found it much simpler to have frequent short (5 to 15 minutes) quizzes, averaging at least one quiz per week for the semester, and sometimes averaging nearly two quizzes, these averages being for classes that meet 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes the quizzes were what others call "homework quizzes" (students get to use their homework on the quiz), but I would instead just make it an open notes quiz. I did this because I did not want to go around to every desk and police whether they were really using their homework (and not class notes), especially when a lot of students did their homework in the same spiral bound notebook they took class notes in. And yes, I realize that some students used photocopies of other students' notes and homework, but I didn't police that either. The only thing I did try to police in these situations was to make sure that they didn't pass notes to each other. You have to watch carefully for this, because once a note is passed and received, you have no way of telling (without careful scrutiny of all the papers on a student's desk) whether a certain student may have gotten worked quiz solutions from a nearby student.

• 1 $\begingroup$ After long consideration of (somewhat related) "cheating in homework" I came to the conclusion that I should be interested in what the know/can do , not in what they turn in . What you describe is perfectly in line with that. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 15:36
• $\begingroup$ I am very sympathetic to using quizzes to supplant homework assignments. Some of the same issues persist, however. How do you handle it when students miss a quiz? $\endgroup$ –  Adam Bjorndahl Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 16:48
• 1 $\begingroup$ Almost always I made each quiz $10$ points and at the end of the semester the total of their top $10$ quiz grades became an additional major test grade (almost always their best test grade). The number of quizzes they got to drop varied, depending on how many I gave (almost always at least $4$ or $5$ were dropped, so I also didn't worry much if sometimes a "quiz experiment" didn't work and grades on it were low), and the nice thing about this method is that you never have students groaning about having to take yet another quiz! $\endgroup$ –  Dave L Renfro Commented Apr 16, 2014 at 17:38
• 1 $\begingroup$ Speaking as the student... I had a calc prof who never collected homework, though he assigned a lot. It was a good idea to do it. He had office hours, which were always crowded, but I at least was motivated enough to go, and having other students there to chew on assignments over helped a lot. The quiz system @DaveLRenfro describes is also one I like because it helps me figure out if I missed the plot somewhere, and it cuts down the anxiety over exams, as well as telling me what I should study. But YMMV. $\endgroup$ –  Jesse Commented Apr 17, 2014 at 0:33
• $\begingroup$ @Jesse: Other reasons besides those you stated are that quizzes are easier to grade (the uniformity makes grading easier), tests are easier to write and type (several questions arise by simply copying and pasting quiz questions, making appropriate alterations), and tests are easier to tell students how to prepare for (30% to 60% of the test typically consists of things just like former quiz questions). Also, see these Math Forum posts of mine: 16 December 2009 and 2 March 2010 $\endgroup$ –  Dave L Renfro Commented Apr 17, 2014 at 14:25

Since I'm not exactly timely in grading homework, my policy is: You have until I grade the stack to hand it in. If you do so, I just put it into the middle of the stack and no big deal. But if I'm done grading the stack (or took the stack home before you slid yours under my door), you're out of luck. This means that there's sort of a probabilistic decay in the chances that a late homework will be accepted. Students realize the risk of waiting too long, but appreciate the ability to sometimes hand things in just a tad late.

Disclaimer: If I'm publishing solutions to be studied from for an exam, then the deadline is firm on being in before solutions are posted.

To a degree I think it depends on the age of the students. I would not have the same policy for high school and college.

For high school I had a longstanding policy of on time for full credit, 1 day late half credit and none after that. The only exceptions were excused absences, and for students that missed significant time I would usually work out a plan for catching up that contained modified homework assignments and due dates for groups of assignments.

I wouldn't say that this helped with student motivation. I chose this because I couldn't manage the homework load when it was being turned in at odd times. I needed to reduce variability in order to effectively check the assignments quickly. Also, students can become overwhelmed if they're trying to complete too many assignments. I wanted to limit the number of items that could be on a students plate at any time. When a student missed assignments I tried to talk to them about "what are we going to do differently?" and move them away from mistakes that they may have made previously. I don't have any proof that this helped, but I think it did.

For more advanced classes this was more problematic, students were less likely to be able to catch up on their own. I still kept the same policy, but it felt like I was less successful at getting students to change their behavior and had to make exceptions more often to offer credit for late assignments if a student was willing to make the effort to catch up.

Last, homework does not count for much in my classes. My homework assignments were not busywork, but they tended to be short reviews of work we did together. When I have tried more significant home assignments I have used different criteria for lateness. I have given a few application problems as take home quizzes, and most often those have had a generous but firm deadline for full credit and no late assignments accepted.

I'm with VonBrand, mostly. My way of dealing with it is to say that if you turn in your homework on time you can resubmit before the end of the semester to raise your grade for half credit. So if I give out a ten problem set, and a student turns in five problems that are 100% correct that's still 50%, F. Three weeks later the student can come in with the remaining five problems. Assuming they're 100% correct, minus 50% late penalty = 75% or C, but still better than an F. Of course if the student turns in nothing at the due date then the student gets zero.

Imparts a sense of understanding the importance of meeting deadlines while allowing for some flexibility. I know that some students save up for the week of Spring Break to catch up.

I'm also flexible on before-the-fact excuses. Come to me two days before the homework is due and say Fluffy had an accident and needs to go to the vet, fine, I'll grant an appropriate extension. Come to me on the day the assignment is due or after the assignment is due, sorry, no extension.

• $\begingroup$ Agree with the "ask before" extension policy. $\endgroup$ –  vonbrand Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 2:57
• $\begingroup$ Using the example you gave in the first paragraph, would a student that completed all 10 problems, but with only 50% accuracy have the same opportunity to resubmit for 75% credit? $\endgroup$ –  BBS Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 23:21
• $\begingroup$ Yep. Or turn in 100% wrong answers and resubmit for 50% credit. Still better than 0. Not saying this is the right approach for every academic situation, but it works in the types of classes I teach (computer programming) where some students get everything on the first try and some take longer. I try not to penalize students for being in the latter category as long as they're making an honest effort. $\endgroup$ –  Raydot Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 23:38

Students should be graded on the quality of their work (their ability to meet the desired learning targets) rather than how punctual the assignment is. Late Penalties lead to inaccuracy, which leads to deflated grades, which distorts the students’ achievement; their true ability to meet the intended learning outcomes. Some students predictably struggle with deadlines. Quality work should trump timeliness. By the way: The flood of assignments at the end of the year that you think you are going to get; it won’t happen, at least that wasn’t my experience. In fact, in every school I’ve worked in where teachers eliminated their late penalties they did not experience the flood.

• 3 $\begingroup$ This supposes that you only want the grade to reflect understanding of material, or ability to produce quality work. Sometimes we might really want the grade to reflect time management ability. $\endgroup$ –  Steven Gubkin Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 2:22
• 7 $\begingroup$ It might be true that quality of the work itself is the goal of teaching, but teaching is next to impossible if the students are unable to accept any definite schedule. $\endgroup$ –  Joonas Ilmavirta Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 7:33
• 2 $\begingroup$ Another point: Homework is not only used to grade students but also to get insight into the progress the students make. $\endgroup$ –  Dirk Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 12:23

Regarding the question in the title on how to deal with late submissions : First some background. I collect hand written homework and no electronic submissions. Usually the the submission is before class (in the lecture room) or via some mailbox. I do not accept late submissions after class and empty the mailbox at the time I announced (give or take some minutes). So my policy with late submissions is

Late submissions without warning are not accepted.

Most students have phones and can call, text or write emails from anywhere. If I get an email saying "I stuck in a traffic jam due to some accident and my submission will be late." I am going to accept the submission (unless there is evidence that the student lies, e.g. seeing him on campus at the same time). One important thing is:

This is not an official rule.

If it were, people could easily abuse it. So I handle all exceptional late submissions individually. By not making this a rule, the students need be proactive.

But there is another guideline that I find helpful here:

Once does not count but twice is a general phenomenon.

This is not meant per individual but in the following sense. If some reason for a late submission pops up once, I treat it individually. But if the same reason pops up twice (with a different student), I think about a general procedure how to handle these cases and make a rule with an announcement. This has the advantage that I do not have to make too many rules since many exception just occur once. (Finally: There are exceptions to this rule - sometimes even twice or thrice does not count…)

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Professors, how would you feel about a student always turning in an assignment late at night?

Whenever I finish a homework or paper, I tend to turn it in late at night at 12 am- 4 am, before a day or two it’s due. How would you feel about this? Would you care since it’s done before the due date, or do you find it unprofessional it gets turned in late at night? My classes are mostly in the afternoon and I truly work better at night, and I still get good enough sleep after turning it in.

Biden struggles, Trump lies: See 'The View', 'GMA' reactions to the debate

In the minutes and hours following the first debate of 2024 between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump , late night hosts and morning show anchors had a variety of reactions to what happened on stage.

For 90 minutes on Thursday without a studio audience, Biden and Trump attacked each other's records on the issues facing the nation, including abortion, childcare costs, the spread of opioids and other challenges. Moderators and CNN anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper also pressed the candidates on the Israel-Hamas war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biden struggled on the debate stage with a raspy voice attributed to a cold , and froze at one point while talking about Medicare, causing worry among Democrats over the president's performance and candidacy as he runs for a second term in office.

Here's how TV show hosts and political pundits reacted to the debate.

Finally, MSNBC and Fox News agree: The CNN Presidential Debate was a grisly mess

'The View' hosts spar over pressure for Biden to step down

On Friday afternoon, hosts of "The View" passionately discussed whether or not it's time for Biden − or Trump − to step back from pursuing the presidency.

“While Biden raised concerns with a hoarse, occasionally weak delivery, Trump lied dozens of times in nice, clear voice," co-host Joy Behar started off the conversation.

Co-host Sara Haines said it was a "hard watch," and "it pains me to say this today, but I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced." She theorized that Biden's team saw it coming and pushed for an earlier debate for that reason.

"I think that what we saw was that Biden lost the debate," co-host Sunny Hostin said, but later asserted the Democrats shouldn't be the only party talking about replacing their nominee.

"I think it's really ironic that the party that should be pressuring their candidate to step aside is the Republican party," Hostin said, while running through Trump's record of bad behavior.

REACTION TO FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: @JoyVBehar , @sarahaines , @ananavarro , @Sunny and @Alyssafarah weigh in on how Pres. Biden and former Pres. Trump performed. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/UgBL9kL1P0 — The View (@TheView) June 28, 2024

'Good Morning America' hosts recap 'disaster'

"The president struggled with answers...Trump struggled with the truth," "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos said Friday morning at the of the show.

"This was a disaster for Joe Biden," Jonathan Karl, chief White House correspondent for ABC News said.

"The President did make a late night stop at a Waffle House and was asked directly about his debate performance," Rachel Scott said during "Good Morning America." "He said he had no concerns but that is not what we are hearing from Democrats this morning."

Pres. Biden and former Pres. Trump go head-to-head and trade personal attacks in first debate. @rachelvscott reports. https://t.co/ld2zv1VO9B pic.twitter.com/USbMbiObPu — Good Morning America (@GMA) June 28, 2024

'CBS Mornings' focuses on Biden's debate struggles

"Both presumptive nominees were hoping to shake off concerns about their age and their fitness for office, but President Biden failed to land any knockout blows, and his stumbling performance is raising a lot of alarm bells for many Democrats this morning," "CBS Mornings" host Gayle King said.

"His struggles drew attention away from a blizzard of false claims from Donald Trump," "CBS News" Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes said in the post-debate report.

Both candidates are facing criticism after last night’s presidential debate, with Democratic lawmakers using words like “disappointing” and “painful” to describe President Biden’s performance. Some are now openly questioning whether it’s too late to replace him. pic.twitter.com/GgUkKtLAnM — CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) June 28, 2024

'Today' show highlights Biden's struggles, Trump's misinformation

"Today" kicked off their Friday morning show with reactions and analysis to the debate with anchors from "NBC Nightly News" and "Meet the Press."

"President Biden's struggles in some ways overshadowing the multiple lies and grievances from former President Trump as both candidates now look ahead to rallies today in states they hope to win," "Sunday NBC Nightly News" anchor Hallie Jackson told hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie.

The first debate of the 2024 election cycle between President Biden and former President Trump took place last night with Biden stumbling repeatedly and Trump delivering many falsehoods. @HallieJackson and @meetthepress ’ @kwelkernbc report on the details and provide analysis. pic.twitter.com/SGNsEUyxsf — TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 28, 2024

Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show': 'We just watched...what you watched'

In a live post-debate analysis for 'The Daily Show' following the debate, host Jon Stewart ripped into Biden's stumbles and on-screen gaffs and Trump's attacks on Biden, his attacks on the economy under Biden and his continual denial of the affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels that led to his recent criminal conviction.

"We just watched...what you watched," Stewart said while opening the show after the debate.

"Let me just say after watching tonight's debate," Stewart said before a long pause, "both of these men should be using performance-enhancing drugs. I'm sorry. Both. As much of it as they can get, as many times a day as their bodies will allow."

"If performance-enhancing drugs will improve their lucidity, their ability to solve problems, and in one of the candidate's cases, improve their truthfulness, morality and malignant narcissism, then suppository away."

Contributing: Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY.