HW not complete? Clean the lab.

The task was to read another’s blog and then comment on it.  So, what to do with the students who hadn’t written or published their blog posts? My colleague and I were somewhat in a quandary over this.  It seems a reward to allow them to work on it in class. It’s futile to give them a “0” because then they miss out on the opportunity of joining the blogging community of our classrooms.  Finally, after some deliberation, we hauled in the cleaning cart loaded with mops, brooms, chemicals, gloves, paper towels, rags, and sponges.  Both of our labs need a thorough cleaning.  So, whoever hadn’t published the assignment was pulled from the class and joined me in another room.  As the consequences gradually made it to their consciousness, suddenly the small group came alive with cries, “But I’ve done the assignment”.  So, I told them if they could publish it and link their url to the Google Share document in two minutes, I’d let them return to their peers. What a flurry of activity ensued and sure enough, within two minutes every blog site in the class was up and running!  Well, our lab space still needs a good cleaning but I’ll gladly put up with that in exchange for having 100% student participation in our class blogging community!