![]() ![]() Because of this, grades in my classes have improved. This December marks my fourth run of the DTKOT. Students can allocate and spread out their time to complete the final project while also working on other assignments for other classes. I can actually enjoy the time before the holidays and alleviate stress, both for myself and for my students. ![]() Sometimes I’d think to myself, “What was the point of all that tedious writing and feedback if the students never saw it?” Now, I am able to ensure students get their feedback when the assignment is still fresh in their mind. I am loving it and my students are too. Previously, students would leave for the semester before I could give them back their projects with feedback. I could grade a few projects at a time, and I could give immediate feedback to my students on their projects. The amazing by-product was that I no longer became incredibly anxious about having to do all of my grading at once. Who wants 60 projects handed in on the same day to grade? Having a DTKOT paced me. Some before Thanksgiving break, some during, and some after. I got three to five submissions a day for several weeks. To my surprise, I did not receive an abundance of submissions on the last possible due date. Instead, the projects came trickling in at a steady rate. As a way to hedge my bets though, I let my students know that if they submitted the project before the exam (and with enough time for me to grade it before the exam), and if their grade at that point was an A (including their grade on the project), they would be exempt from the exam. I admit, I was a bit apprehensive as to what might happen if everyone decided to submit their projects in late December. I let them know that as long as I got their assignment in time to submit my grades on time, I was fine with it. I encouraged students to examine their schedules and decide what worked best for them as a deadline for the major project. There was no penalty for not submitting by the DTKOT, and I did this for all assignments including the final project. I instructed students to aim to submit assignments by these dates. Is the penalty really a detriment or just a way to penalize students with attentional issues? Since the pandemic, I’ve learned to let go of some of these ideas completely.īeginning in the spring of 2020, I started using a new method: The Date To Keep on Track (DTKOT). But I’ve never been a strong proponent of such ideas. We know the argument: If there are no consequences, students will continue to engage in these behaviors. Conversations with my students today lead me to believe that many of my colleagues are practicing similar arbitrary approaches to handling tardiness, lateness, no names, etc. ![]() I dared not pick it up. Let’s just say I entered the educational world with a sense of suspicion about the rules and penalties some teachers employed. Pierced into my memory was an image of my paper with carefully colored pictures on the classroom floor with a large F written in red ink and circled. They could come retrieve them, she added I didn’t. The teacher announced that several students had failed to put their names on their papers and as such had received an F. ![]() Perhaps my eagerness to re-examine hard and fast due dates was influenced by the fact that my earliest childhood memory of the education system is of a first-grade experience when I did not receive back a paper I had worked hard on. You know the rule the one that says students must submit assignments by midnight on a specific date or fail to have the assignment accepted. We were all urged to be flexible for students, and so during this time I decided to revisit hard and fast due dates, or what I call the “Pumpkin Rule”. The pandemic has had educators across the globe revisiting why they do what they do. ![]()
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