Every professor I know has to deal with requests from students to turn in homework after the specified due date. And, every professor I know of is annoyed by this. When, I first began teaching, I attempted to minimize the number of late homework requests I would get by stating in my course syllabus that every student would be allowed to turn in one (and only one) homework late without being penalized. But, as any seasoned professor could have predicted, this simply resulted in students turning in one homework set late, and then asking for an extension on a subsequent homework. Over the next few years, I attempted a number of different strategies designed to combat lat homework requests. None of them worked. But, a few years ago, I had a significant breakthrough. On my syllabus, I now write the following:
"Late homework policy: I make sure to always cover all of the material needed to complete a HW set before I assign it. And I always give students at least one full week to complete the assignments. As such, late homework will not be accepted under any circumstance."
Of course, simply writing the above phrase does not accomplish anything. Students do not read the syllabus nor do they listen to me when I go over the syllabus on the first day of class. The real breakthrough was the following: Question #1 of Homework set #1 in every course I teach is the following:
"What is my late homework policy?"
Since I began putting this question at the start of the first homework assignment, I have not needed to entertain a single request to turn in homework late. And the concept is easily to extend. Presumably, if there were other information from my course syllabus that I wanted to etch into my students' brains, I could create a analogous homework question.
If you are a current or future university professor, let me just say "you're welcome!"
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