The Case of the Missing.....Everything: Missing Work and What to Do About It

Missing work: the bane of every teacher's existence.

There is an army of Fs every year created by the long list of zeros in the grade book. As a teacher, it's maddening, but we have a choice. We can continue to complain about the worsening work ethic of students, or we can look at the pieces of the problem we can control. 

We control four major things when it comes to whether or not students are going to engage with the work we assign them.

1. Trust and Relationship

If a student really doesn't like me, I know I'm not going to get high-quality (if any) work from them. I'm sure we've heard it at some point from a student when you ask them about their grade in some other class.

Teacher: "Why do you have an F and so many missing assignments in [insert teacher]'s class?"

Student: "Ugh, I hate that teacher. They don't like me, so I don't do any of the work in their class."

Good reasoning on the student's part? Nope, not at all. Are they a teenager/child? Yep. 

If we want students to turn in work, there needs to be a healthy, functioning relationship established before that can happen.

2. The Possibility to Succeed

Learned helplessness is a real thing. If a student has seen Fs all along, yeah, they're probably not going to care if it's a 0% or a 50%. 

Fixing this is easier said than done, though. We have to look at our grading systems. If it's possible for a student to fail a course halfway through, then we are setting our classes up for failure. 

One possible way of fixing this is to think about setting up your grade book in a way that allows you to determine the final score for each learning target or standard only at the very end of the term. This way students know that learning is a process and that they always have hope to reach their goal. Give students hope, and they'll start giving you assignments.

3. Do More With Less

If I assign three assignments covering one skill/target each versus one assignment covering three skills/targets, it's pretty obvious which option is more likely to result in missing work. In the same vein, if I assign four targeted math problems versus a long worksheet of math problems on the same skill, you will get a different result in turn-in rates. The question to always wonder is, how much do I need to make an accurate assessment of skill? Why gather data from twenty problems when you can get the same information from five? If students need supplemental practice, then make it truly that – supplemental.

4. The Type of Work We Assign

Think about the last time someone asked you to do something that seemed pointless. I'm sure as teacher we never "accidentally" forget about those meeting notes we needed to type up or the data analysis we were supposed to turn in without knowing what it was for. Students are the same; they have to see their work as valuable. As teachers, we have a responsibility to provide students with meaningful work. 

Again, easier said than done, but I've developed a rubric for myself that I try to use whenever I am creating something I'm going to ask my students to do. 

Here's what it looks like: (Link to the Actual Rubric)

I'm sure I'll continue to update this, but it's a good starting point for me in deciding whether or not the work I want to assign is work the students will see as worth doing.

As always, I'll be the first to admit I still have plenty of assignments with low turn-in rates, but the good news is that it's getting better. It's a process. Try things. Have terrible ideas that teach you for the next time. Take little baby steps. Just don't settle.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, comments, responses, etc., leave them in a comment below!