We, like many others, are battling how to deal with students not completing HW. In my opinion, this is a behavioral issue and should be dealt with as such. With this philosophy in mind, our school implemented a Lunch-time HW make-up session.
The Rule:
1) A student missing HW was assigned to the lunch make-up session beginning the next day. Student’s name was entered in a Google Share document with missing assignment
2) If student turned the work in the next morning, he/she was removed from make-up session.
3) Make-up sessions took place each day in same location. Students were to pick up their lunch and report to the make-up session and complete HW.
The Problems:
1) Students took too long to get their lunch resulting in minimal time to work on HW. The time was unproductive.
2) Upper classman turned it into a social time bringing along friends who weren’t in the make-up session.
3) Teachers didn’t have time to take students off the make-up session list and there was a lot of running around at the beginning of lunch to get names taken off.
4) It became a burden on homeroom teachers to keep track of students in the make-up session.
We disbanded the HW club because it wasn’t working well. So, many teachers are still trying to find a way to encourage the students to do their HW. Many teachers resort back to giving “0”s or reduced grades for late or missing work.
I think a Friday afternoon session from 15:00 to 18:00. Sometimes I wonder whether the school should get hard-core and inform parents that if their student is missing any work when Friday afternoon arrives, they will be required to stay at school and work on their missing work. The parents will be responsible for finding a way for the student to get home. I wonder if that would be enough of a hindrance for students?