48. Students Who Don't Do Their Work: What to Do

You need your students to complete their work and submit assignments so you can grade them. But how are you supposed to assess their progress when...they don't turn in their work? In this episode, you'll learn what matters most about grading and assessing student progress, and what to keep at the forefront when dealing with students who don't do their work. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Being a teacher isn't what it used to be. The good news is you don't have to figure it out on your own. If you're looking for truth, inspiration, and tips for success, in the classroom and beyond, you're in the right place. It's time to turn the page to the future of the profession. This is the next chapter for teachers podcast. Hello everyone, it's Aaron Spinagle for the next chapter for Teachers Podcast. This is episode 48. Welcome back. Hope you are warm wherever you are. This is being recorded in the middle of winter 2026, where it is below zero where I'm at. So I hope you are warm and well. We're going to get right to it with our topic today because it's something that I am sure has been at play from the beginning of the school year and with parent-teacher conferences or the second round of parent-teacher conferences coming up soon for many of us. We're going to talk about kids who don't do their work. Now I'm still I'm laughing on the outside, but on the inside, not so much, because if there is anything that can create a whole other level of frustration with a teacher, it's when you go to the trouble of preparing a great lesson and an assessment or a project that is meant to see what the kids know and then they don't do it. Or it's not done following the directions so that you can properly assess what they know. Or they don't turn their work so you can't give them their grades. It is a high point of contention when your students do not do their work. Whether it's that they're choosing not to do it or they are unable to do it, but when you don't get work out of your students, it makes it feel like your job is impossible. And by now we we know the score. We you tell us it's being recorded over Super Bowl weekend. I'd say the bases are loaded, but I think that's the wrong sport. But we we know our class by this point. Let's just go to that point. We we know our class, we know our kids, and there are certain kids at this point in the year, your students that you know are going to be your repeat offenders as far as not turning in work and not doing what you need them to do, so that you can see what they know. So, why is this such a high stress point for teachers? In fact, it could be a point that just makes you feel like teaching is just pointless. If you have a class where a lot of kids are not turning in their assignments, well, what we need to know what they know. Um, if we can't see what our students are learning or how well they are being re how receptive they are to what we're teaching, there's no way to know if they're meeting the standards or if they're making progress. We need to give them feedback. It's really hard to do if they don't have an assignment to give you that you've asked them to do. Now we can take feedback informally in progress while we are teaching or when they are working on things in class, but there are things that require a more formal assessment or a more formal assignment where you need them to show what they know. And what students know is going to prepare them for the next grade level or the next level of content. So it's important to us that we're able to make that professional judgment as to whether or not they are ready for that. But it's also a little bit deeper than just what do the kids know? Whether, you know, we can't tell if the kids know if they're not doing the work. We as teachers are often, often, we are, we just we are, we're held accountable by how well our students do in our classroom. And we don't have a record of how well they are doing or what they know if they don't do their work. Or it reflects poorly on us if they are not doing well in our class, and it's because they don't have their work completed, or they haven't done their assignments, as makes us look like we aren't doing our part. And it can be very demoralizing when it gets to that point and your students are not doing what they need to do as students, and that is impacting how you feel you're doing your job and how other people view you as doing your job. I don't know if that came out correctly, but you get it? We are being held accountable for what they choose to do or don't choose to do, or how they choose to do it. Anyway, so the basis of that is, or the gist of that is when they don't do their work, we cannot accurately assess their progress. And it can become a battle of the wills. And that's not a good place to be with your class. It's not great for the relationship, the rapport in your room, where who's gonna win? Who's is it gonna be the kid that doesn't do the work, or is it going to be you who needs them to complete the assignment? Like now, like yesterday now. But it's also very hard, like I just said, to not take it as a failure on your part when your students don't do as well as you would like them to do, or as well as you know they could do, or when they just aren't doing what they need to do, so that you can give them a grade. Isn't that I would just get to that point with fifth grades like I just want to get grade you, I just want to put something in this grade book for this assignment. Can you do it? So we take it personally, and it's because teaching is personal. You know, we put a lot of our life and our uh talents, our time into our profession. When the kids don't do what we need them to do, it guts us. It makes you feel like you have failed. Even though it's their success, it's their progress, it internally becomes ours as well. So that is the dilemma. And you might have a conference this week where this topic is going to come up with parents or caregivers when you talk with them. I'm going to put the link in the show notes to my parent-teacher snapshot. It's a free download that you can print. You can run it off for every student you're going to meet with every conferences, just to kind of get your thoughts together, what you want to address with the parents. And there's also a space on there for grades or progress in the classroom. So I'll put that in the show notes. But let's talk about what we're going to do about these kids who are not doing their work. And I want to preface this by saying that I am not perfect. And I have had my moments where I feel like I can't win with getting students to do what they're supposed to do. I will also say there is no magic being, there is no golden ticket to getting other people, whether they are big people or little people, to do what you want. You can do your best, but there comes a part where they've got to pull their end. And if they don't, well, we're gonna talk about that. So I'm putting the kids into three buckets here. I am going to not really buckets, nobody's getting put in a bucket, but three different categories, if you will, of students not doing work, and we'll get into that here. Could there be more than three buckets? Absolutely. For the purpose of this episode, I'm just gonna get to three of them. Alright, so let's start with the first one, the first bucket, if you will. And I like to refer to it as the turtle and the hare, meaning the student who takes forever to complete things, or the student that rushes through things at a breakneck pace just to get it finished. But when you get it, they might as well have not done it at all because they didn't follow the directions, or they absolutely did not do work that you can assess their progress with. So I'm putting the two speed problems together because speed is a little bit of an executive functioning issue. They're either not processing it, or it takes them longer to process it, or they are in turbo mode, they're just wanting to get it done, rush through it, and there's different issues there for both of those things. But speed can either work for us or against us. We want our kids to take their time and do their best, but there are kids that are perfectionist, there are kids that just take longer to do things in general, and that keeps them from turning in their work when we need to grade it or by the time we need it by to put grades in the book. It can take them an astronomically a long time to complete things, and it can be very frustrating. It's also very hard when you have kids that will just continuously rush through, make careless mistakes. That would drive me just as crazy as well when I taught fifth grade. That was almost ten times as worse when they would just get through it as quickly as possible just to check it off. Both of these can require a lot of patience. But I think it's important to remember that we're teaching them work habits that are going to go with them outside of our classroom. So setting timers for both turtles and for hairs, tortoise and hair, but I like I like saying turtle a bit better, helps, meaning that you have this long to do it. That works for kids who rush to, because those kids need to keep the work a little bit longer so they can either review their mistakes, they can't just turn in and be done, they have to take time to go through it. Sometimes they'll catch a lot of things that way if they have to hold on to it. Not always, but it's a it's a solution, hopefully. We want it to be a solution, whether it is or not, well. Um, but it's important to teach kids how to manage their time and to not take forever and to not rush. Now, if there are things going on, now we talked about neurodivergent students last week with Jessica Warner. I'll put the link to that in the show notes too. If there are things that are amiss, may that a student needs more time or needs modifications, that's different. And if those are those things are truly the case, they need to be documented and they need to be communicated to parents that students need more time to complete things or that modifications such as shorter assignments or uh different types of assignments are being given to meet the needs of uh the students and their ability to complete work in a in an acceptable uh time frame. But the truth is we can't just take forever to do things. And when you have a job someday, you can't just slap it all together and turn it in and hope to keep your job. So as previously stated, we are teaching kids how to do life once they leave us. Now, another bucket that we have to consider, or another group of students that don't do their work, we have to consider, are students that are very capable, could do it if they wanted to, but just won't do it. Just don't turn it in. It's not a speed issue, it is a I'm choosing not to do it issue. This can be very frustrating. It can have to do with prioritizing, it can have to do with motivation, it can have to do with choice. And none of those things are very fun for us to deal with on the teacher end. We have to hold them accountable. We need them to do their part, we need to know what they know, but you feel like you're up against the ball because they just won't turn in their work or they won't do it. And I know I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say here in a minute, but I know some of us we have policies at our school and in our district where you cannot give kids below a certain grade based on if they do their work or not, which is kind of hard to deal with because they they they get, you know, sometimes I've heard of kids getting 50s or 60s if they don't do their work. You just can't give them a zero, but you have no way of knowing if they did 50 or 60 percent work because they don't turn things in. So I know some of you are up against the wall as far as policies and things that you can't control. But one of the most important things that I feel when students just choose not to do their work is that they have natural consequences. And that's really hard to accept as a teacher sometimes because we take their failures personally. And when our students don't do well, it's it is a little bit of a gut punch to us because we feel like in some way that we failed. But somewhat times the only way that kids will learn, or anybody will learn, what's acceptable, what's right or wrong, is if they have to experience the not-so-fun part of their choices. You know, account accountability is a life skill. So if you are bound by policies and they're you feel like your students are getting away with not doing what they're supposed to do because they'll know they'll get just enough of a percentage that it'll keep them from failing or keep them right above the fray, I am sorry. If that is your reality, what we can do on our end is hold them to accountable to what we need as a teacher from them. And if they don't do it, that needs to be communicated to their parents. And yes, I know someone have to say, but the parents don't care. Well, you did your part though. You are doing your part, and then we have to let go of the rest, letting parents know what's going on, the students are or are not fulfilling what they need to do to be successful in the classroom, and then making a plan to have them make changes and get where they need to be with you as far as doing their work and performing. So we've got two buckets so far. You've got our speed bucket, we've got our choosing not to do it bucket. I do think that it's important that even when students choose not to do work, whether it's something that they have to do outside the classroom or during the classroom, that they're still held to be doing it. Whether it's like a project they're supposed to turn in, they should still be able to, or they should still be made to complete the assignment so that you can assess what they know because they need to they need to do the work just like everybody else. And your your job is to assess them and see what they know, so see if they're prepared for the next step in your classroom. Does that mean they should get full credit? Not necessarily. Again, that goes back to what your policies are in your school or your district, but it is important that kids know that regardless they're gonna need to do their end in the classroom because school is not just for the teacher, it's not just the teacher's work, it is also, it's also their work. All right, and another bucket, the third bucket. I've actually I was just sitting here, I've thought of another category we're gonna talk about here in just a moment that can be probably the most frustrating of all. But before we get to that, we have the group of students that they would if they could. Bucket. I should say I shouldn't have started the bucket thing, but I will. Meaning that they would do the work if they could, but there are other things going on that are out of their control. Meaning they may not have the supplies at home to do an assignment, they may not have what they need emotionally or physically at home, and those little things that keep adding up outside of the classroom make it very difficult for them to do what they need to do when they are in school mode. As the saying goes, uh Maslows before blooms, like blooms taxonomy, our students have to have their basic needs met, just like teachers need their basic needs met, before they can do the hard work of being a learner. Because that requires a mental energy that needs to be supported by having all the physical and emotional needs met. So it is important to get to know our students, to know what they need, to give them grace when needed, when they are going through hard times and knowing that they're probably not going to be able to do what they would normally do. But I think it's also very important to keep in mind that we teach the kids that we have now any one given time and any year. We do not teach the kids that we would, you know, ha like to have every year. We have something to learn from all of our students and their circumstances and what we need to bring to them, even though we need to also take care of ourselves. But sometimes that means that it's not that we necessarily give them less to do or give them something that's beneath them, but kids need to have things that will assess what they know and will allow them to demonstrate what they've learned. But there were years when I taught fifth grade, and there's times now when I as an art teacher, where based on the group of kids I have and what certain kids might be going through at any one time, I'll change what I had planned on doing, even if it's an assignment that I like to do or an assignment that I think is great, I'll change it to something that I think is going to best meet their needs at that time. Because just knowing what I know about the students or what's going on with certain students at that time, I know that this is what they personally need to be successful. Sometimes the things that we would love to do with our classes doesn't mean that it's what's best for our students. And there are many, there are many ways to assess and to gather what our kids know besides just what we have always done in the past. Sometimes we have to make changes to best meet the needs of our students, and sometimes that means we make changes to meet the needs of an individual student when they are not able to be at their highest potential because of things outside of their control. Now, those are the three main buckets of think of what I would put students in as far as not doing work. But there's another bonus bucket, if you will, and that's when kids are absent. Because it's very difficult for kids to do work when they don't come to school. And if they're not in your classroom, how are you able to tell what they know and how are you able to give them a grade when they haven't had your instruction? That can be a whole other level of frustration. And it can make you feel very hopeless when you are being held accountable for the progress of students who simply don't show up to school. Now, can you control everything your kids do or their parents do as far as getting them in the classroom? No, you can't. And it's very hard to accept that. You know, there there are things that we have to communicate, or as far as like if you've got a truancy issue with something like that, we have to uh address, follow the correct channels, but it's hard to let that go or to just not take that as a failure on your part when the kids aren't doing well, and it's because they just aren't at school. And again, I think that comes down to they need natural consequences for when you aren't present, you miss out. And if you miss out, you aren't going to know what you should, and you might not be able to complete things and you might you might fail, which is a gutting thing to think about. We don't want our kids to fail because of us, but sometimes they fail in spite of our efforts. So should you give extra credit? Because there are times we want our kids to get caught up or to or they want or their parents want them to do better, or throw that Hail Mary at the last minute. That's up to you if you feel that's what you need to do to. Have your students be successful, but for myself, extra credit is a hard no. And this is why. First of all, grades are supposed to be about what kids know, how they have demonstrated their knowledge in their room on any one assignment that's supposed to contribute to showing what they know about those standards or objectives or whatever you're teaching in your room for that period of time. And extra credit is kind of a way of to skew that. So, yes, would that help them make up for a bad grade? Possibly. But when it comes to not doing work and needing that boost, I feel like it's not teaching them the natural consequence of not doing your work. Or it's not necessarily going to be something that helps you see what they know and are able to do. And we like grades that look pretty in the gradebook, that look nice on the report card, but sometimes they need to be what represents what you were able to learn, what what you were able to gain in that snapshot in that period of time as far as their learning. And as I've already mentioned, if you need to reduce a workload or modify assignments so that students are able to complete it, that's something that might have to go through different channels, but it's also something that has to be communicated to parents so that they're aware that the grade is representing something that was not done at the same level as everyone else in the class necessarily. It doesn't need to be broadcasted to everybody, but it does need to be communicated. And a very hard conversation that I'm going to do a separate episode on later on this semester is retention, is when we don't have what we need from our students as far as their work or their ability level, we have to start talking about do they need to do this again. It's not an easy conversation to have. There's a lot of debate over whether retention is something that is effective, but it is a conversation that does need to take place. What really matters, or we need to keep as our focus, is that grading work, the assignments we give, it's about the standards and skills. And like I said a few minutes ago, there are lots of different ways to teach or to have students demonstrate what they know. It doesn't have to be the same way every time. But it's the quality of the assignment, not necessarily the volume of grades that you take. We want to be able to see how well they understand what we're teaching. So not that you need to expect less of your students, but the volume of grades does not necessarily equate to having the most effective snapshot of their progress. So if there is a way to streamline what you teach, not sorry, not sorry, not what you teach, streamline what you give your students to do so that we are your focus is on assignments that will demonstrate their knowledge of what you've taught, that can help your students focus on what they need to do, and it can help you focus on what you need to be grading so that you're not overwhelmed with too many things to grade and too many assignments that may not come back complete. So three things to leave you with. As far as students who don't do work, they all begin with C. Not sure how that worked out, but it did. Consistency. Whatever you have to do to keep the flow in your classroom or to have the cause and effect of doing work or not doing work, be consistent with it. As far as extra credit goes, if you're going to give it to one person, you might have to give it to everybody. I wouldn't go down that twisty road if I were you. But whatever you need to do, or however you need to show your students that they are accountable, you need to be consistent with it. The other one is communication, communicating it to them and not only to them, but to their parents and caretakers. And we don't have to put the emotion into it. Yeah, yes, teaching is very emotional and very personal, but this is just, it's like, it's not personal, it's business. And nobody is like, you didn't do your work. This is the result of that. And along with that comes consequences. While we can't necessarily punish them, and depending on where you're at, you may not be able to take recess, you may not be able to take activities away, but the consequence of not doing your work is that you won't know what you need to know. And we need to ensure to our students or uh communicate to our students that there is a result of their not doing what they need to do. We don't have to put our emotions into it, we don't have to be show them anger, but we do need to be firm and consistent with what we expect. So we want our kids to do well, but there are life lessons to be learned. And one of those life lessons is developing work habits. Sometimes when we don't do what we're supposed to do, there's a result that we don't like. So just to recap, whether or not you have the students who are the speed issue, the turtle or the hare, the ones that are capable but are choosing not to work, the ones that would if they could, or even the ones that man, you just like to see their face a little more consistently. Uh we all we're all people. We are older people, or we are people that are learning how to people, our students. And uh it is difficult to create relationships or to navigate relationships rather in the classroom when you need them to provide something to you and they're choosing to in some way provide it to you differently or not at all. But in a very personal and emotionally driven profession, it's important to give ourselves grace and give our students respect in spite of insisting kindly and respectfully that they do their part to learn. So that is all for this episode of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast, and I will talk to you next time. That's all for this episode of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate, subscribe, and leave a review. Join us next time when we turn the page to the future of the profession. Until then, remember to be different, but more importantly, be the difference. And I'll see you in the next chapter.