What to Do About Unfinished Student Work

Ways to Teach Students Responsibility and Organization

Dec 15, 2008

Teaching students how to keep track of their work and finish it on time can be troublesome for many teachers.

Teachers must deal with incomplete student work on an almost daily basis sometimes. Coming up with a creative yet efficient method of organizing this unfinished work will not only be beneficial to the teacher, but also to the student's grades. In the process, the student may learn a thing or two about organization and responsibility.

Student Ketchup Folder

Providing each student in your class a red folder for catch up work is a creative way to keep all the extra work together that students need to complete. This folder can then be pulled out during free times, taken home for homework or worked on during study hall. Assigning a point in time that the folders be turned in is a good idea to reinforce the fact that students need to not procrastinate. By Friday, each student must turn the folder in and any incomplete work still in the folder will count against her grade.

Keeping Track of Unfinished Work

Keeping a basket on your desk for unfinished student work is an efficient way to keep track of everything that the students have yet to finish. This also makes the work handy for those few minutes you have at the end of class to hand work to students to complete. Not only does this manage extra time in your day, but it helps teach students to take advantage of the moments in their day to get work done. If this becomes overwhelming from day to day, consider sending any left over work in the basket home each night as extra homework.

Work Finishing Period

Once a week, have a work finishing period for your students. This would be a set amount of time where students sit and complete any unfinished work. Anything else not completed during this period goes home for homework. This method can be combined with the folder and basket methods of organization, as it simply works in a specific time for students to complete the work.

Allow One Incomplete

Each assignment that the student turns in unfinished can have the word "incomplete" written on it. You can decide on a certain allowance of incomplete work in a given period of time, for example, you can allow only one incomplete per week or only 5 incomplete assignments in a month. You can also give students the ability to write incomplete on their assignment, and turn it in. This way, you both know they used their incomplete, and you know they did not lose the assignment.

Since a teachers job includes teaching students organization and responsibility, coming up with a method to have students finish incomplete work is important. Whatever method you choose to implement in your class, remember to be consistent, and provide extra praise for students who complete all of their assignments on time.

The copyright of the article What to Do About Unfinished Student Work in New Teacher Support is owned by Jennifer Wagaman. Permission to republish What to Do About Unfinished Student Work in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.