I truly have not decided what I want to do here, but this article has seriously made me consider dropping late designations all together (having, instead, simply completed work or missing work). If you are interested in weighing in, I ask that you read the article above in its entirety, and then put your opinion here. Moreover, please engage with one another's ideas to help flesh them (and my own thinking) out more fully.
I have a couple ideas in mind that you could also reflect on. First, I would take Dr. Hasinoff's suggestion that there still be due dates, as the course is meant to work at a particular pace--work coming in after a due date would not be penalized but I would require you to visit office hours for feedback. Second, I would also be willing to enter into a binding contract with any student who felt that they needed deadlines--firm, enforceable deadlines--to stay on track. I welcome any other suggestions you might have! (However, to be clear, I have not made any decisions about a change to the current policy as outlined in our syllabus.)
I'm generally in favor of a no-late-work policy, but I personally am someone who really, really needs external deadlines to stay on track. I've got a professor this semester who's got six assignments based on the textbook that he made due on the last day of the semester but that we can complete at any time - that's like, my worst possible setup for getting things done on time. Echoing what the article said about drawbacks - "One student explained that it “gave me too much room to procrastinate,” and another said they had a “hard time finding motivation to complete things.” - I will procrastinate to kingdom come given the opportunity, so to some extent I need to not be given the opportunity.
To me, an ideal solution would be something like a perpetual extension policy - communicate VERY CLEARLY verbally in class and on the syllabus that you'll give a basically endless extension to any assignment /given that/ we requested said extension, say, at least 24 hours in advance (or less?). If you want to make it even easier, the requests could go through a google form or something like that. Obviously not a tested strategy, but I think that would allow students to take time on assignments they need time on for any reason, as well as keep some semblance of deadlines. I don't know, is that the type of happy medium that has the problems of both but the solutions of neither? Not a clue. I don't study educational psychology.
Personally, the no-late penalty works for me. I have a lot on my plate as someone who is not a normal college student, I have a whole lot more responsibilities and have to balance a full-time job and full-time school. It definitely isn't easy. In addition, I have a panic disorder on top of other things. These are not excuses they're just my life. I understand why late penalties are necessary and I understand the values they instill. But, it's not a matter of not wanting to do these assignments, its a matter of time, stress, and choosing what's more important to prioritize. Also, the stress of having to get things done in a certain amount of time when you have other things going really does make me want to ignore it altogether.
Here's one of my concerns--the purpose of the work we do in class is meant to scaffold on itself so that later work can benefit from the lessons learned from earlier work (e.g., all of those feature essay RRSs should help you write your own feature essay; the memoir essay's takeaways and the album review's takeaways all come into play in the feature essay). So, falling behind hurts you all because it prevents the scaffolding of lessons learned; doing it all at once means that all the works is getting done while you're in the "same" cognitive stage...so what's the value? If there were no late penalties, would it cause you to turn in lots of stuff late, which might--in the short term--"feel better" because you're not penalized but in the long run work against you because it hampers your growth?
I thought Hassinoff brought up a lot of interesting points, especially in the results of her experiment with getting rid of late penalties in her classes. Personally, I struggle with procrastination and enforced deadlines one of the main reasons I’m able to stay on top of my work, so I think the option of having a contract for enforceable deadlines would be great for someone like me. However, I see many of my friends struggling to meet deadlines and prioritizing their homework over their mental health so that they aren’t penalized for being late. When there’s late penalties and grades, students usually work to get a high grade or avoid penalties rather than for the actual learning goals of the assignment, so I can see how removing those motivators could make what some one takes away from their assignments more valuable. Leaving whether or not a student is penalized for late assignments up to their own discretion and knowledge of themselves may serve to accommodate each person’s individual learning needs better and relieve stress.
In high school I took AP biology and my teacher at the time didn't have a late penalty policy. You would assume he would since it is an AP class but he was more concerned about how many other AP classes other students were taking and if he rather have well-done work or a rushed one. The teacher would request all work to be done the week before the quarter would end and to my surprise, he would correct it all and even give us an extra day to fix whatever we have gotten wrong. Not ever teacher and professor is like this so it depends whether you could handle it or not. This article pretty much expanded my understanding in it because I never liked the idea of getting points off because I needed extra time especially since I take other classes, I have to work and even give myself time mentally. The punishment for students itself is having work accumulating, so why give extra punishment by taking points off?
I personally think the no late penalty idea is great for me. I have my own chronic health issues that tend to hinder my work some days more then others. For example the weather can greatly impact how I’m feeling on a given day. However, I am also a world class procrastinator so the ideas of deadlines are still good too. I personally don’t think I would need to come to office hours if the assignment was only turned in a few days after the due date. A suggestion I would make would be to have a late assignment mandatory office hour meeting for those assignments turned in a week after the original due date. Not sure if that last sentence made sense lol.
I think the article is very interesting. My first questions were: “Why trust this lady?” And “how do kids learn the value of turning things on time in professional environment?” The article does plenty to answer these questions. Maybe my flaw is thinking that there should be punishment in the first place. I think that it is great that student tend to learn better when there are no deadlines. I’m glad to know people turn things in anyways because it is for their own benefit. I think that even though there is no deadline the responsibility is still on the students. If the student waits to the end of the semester to turn in everything, there is the chance that they don’t get everything in and they get the grade they get. It is possible they get everything in but don’t know how they did it on because the professor does not have the time make detail comments and the student gets the grade they get. This leads me into thinking that the elimination of a late penalty is unfair to the instructor because they have to constantly be grading or grading all at once. I understand the data says that doesn’t usually happen and if it explained to the students that if you turn things in late you’re not getting detail comments saves instructors for the massive overload but I am still skeptical. That possibility is my biggest problem with a no late penalty policy.