Increasing On-Time Homework Submissions
Tom Deignan, New York City College of Technology (City Tech)
Bio
Tom Deignan has been a CUNY and NYCPS English teacher for more than 20 years. He is also a CUNY and NYCPS graduate, as well as a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere.
Course Setting
The NYC College of Technology English course is on Saturday mornings from 9:30-1:30, and includes NYCPS high school students in grades 10-12 from many different schools. My City Tech students are high school students from across the city and are generally self-motivated and highly skilled. The school is a transfer school for kids who struggled in traditional settings and are over-aged and under-credited.
Problem of Practice
I continue to struggle with inconsistent work submission outside of the classroom. While an overall high(ish) percentage of work is being submitted it does not reflect thoughtful time management or, frankly, consistent thoughtful engagement with the rigor that the task demands. This matters to students because ideally a student should be able to come up with some kind of system that works under deadlines, while also producing high quality work. How can I use my class time and homework grading system to encourage on-time homework submissions?Strategy
My strategy involved additional support as well as a more strict grading policy.
I set aside class time for students to discuss and reflect upon the homework assignment rather than me simply telling the class what the assignment is. I also met with students individually for the first several weeks to discuss the assignment and why they did or did not complete it. I wanted to make sure that students thoroughly understood what the assignment was, how and when to access and submit it, and to simply not forget it once they left the classroom. Having provided this additional support, I was also more strict about not accepting late work. Homework assignments that were one week late were penalized 25% and I did not accept homework assignments that were more than one week late.
Documentation
Student Planning / Reflection for Homework #1
During each class, students discussed the homework assignments, planned when to do it, anticipated problems, and then discussed it with me afterwards.
Student Planning/ Reflection for Homework #2
Measuring Impact
Fall ‘25 Homework Grades
Too many students earned almost nothing out of 500 points.
Spring ‘26 Homework Grades
More students submitted work.
Analysis
Overall, I would say the strategy was successful. The various strategies I used and implemented addressed my Problem of Practice which was ultimately to have more students submit homework on time. I probably learned the most during this process by talking to students individually. It made me think about the degree to which homework assignments, for students, require many levels of comprehension. If there is any breakdown along the way it gives students an excuse, sometimes valid, to simply not bother doing the assignment. By having multiple levels in which students have to think about and make it clear they understand the homework assignment, it also gives them multiple opportunities to ask questions, clarify, or explain themselves. The data I looked at really was the week-to-week submissions which came in at a higher rate than in the past. This also did away with the cluster of assignments submitted right before the midterm. Still, a sobering challenge arose when I decided to make a homework assignment part of their midterm grade. The students had two weeks to complete this, with Spring Break on one of those weeks. I met with each student to discuss it. And yet, the submission rate for this assignment was actually lower than an average weekly class. The main reason, I learned? They simply did not think about the class much once they left the classroom.
Recommendation
My class is unusual, given the amount of time we have during one class. But, I would recommend:
- Providing time for students to discuss and plan their essay
- Talking to students about what they discussed and planned for their essay; if they didn't execute the plan, find out why