pass up assignment

Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that they will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove their point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, they still have to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and they already know everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality they expect.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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End the Unfinished Work Battle: Catch-Ups and Pickles

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Are your students struggling to complete their work? Up to your eyeballs in missing or unfinished work assignments? Then you might need to institute a “Catch-up and Pickles” routine in your classroom as a way to win the missing or incomplete work battle! This is seriously my favorite unfinished work routine!

A few weeks ago, I posted a Reel on Instagram about some of my more “controversial ” grading practices. Between you and me… they really aren’t that controversial… just good teaching! But folks LOST THEIR MINDS! And honestly, it shed light on a bigger problem: the struggle of incomplete work.

Controversial Grading Practices

You’re probably wondering what those controversial grading practices were. I’ll let you watch the IG Reel to see all three, but the one that had most teachers up in arms was the belief of not putting anything less than 50% in the grade book.

This one line led to me being called many things, but most teachers asked, “What about missing or incomplete work?”

To which I responded that I rarely struggled with incomplete or missing work. I can think of one time I had to put a zero in the grade book because of a missing assignment – ONCE – in 13 years of teaching. Those are some pretty good odds!

Unfinished Work Routine

So, how can this be?

First, let’s clear up some things:

• No – I didn’t have perfect students who completed every assignment without asking.
• No – I didn’t work at fancy schools with high volumes of parents involved who made sure the work was completed at home.
• And, no – I didn’t work myself to death chasing down students.

I rarely had missing or incomplete work because I planned time in my week for students to work on missing or incomplete assignments.

Today, I’m sharing this simple yet HIGHLY effective routine that basically eliminated the struggle to get students to complete missing or incomplete assignments.

This magical weekly routine that solves the missing work problem is fondly called, “ Catch-up and Pickles. ” But, that’s really just a fancy name for a time set aside on a Friday morning so students can work on unfinished work.

What is Catch-Up and Pickles?

I shared about this concept a while ago in my “Small Group Time Exposed” post , but I feel like after all the hoopla that Reel caused, it warranted its own place on the blog!

Each day, I had 60 minutes of time built into my schedule for small group rotations. That worked great Monday through Thursday. But, I noticed that Fridays were a bit cramped. Not only did we have our spelling and vocabulary test that day but we would also have a reading comprehension assessment. Time is needed to complete all these assessments, and that ate into a portion of our small group time.

Rather than try and stuff the small group instruction into the 30 minutes that were left after completing everything else, I decided to transform that awkward time slot into productive work time.

So at the end of the week, instead of formal center rotations, I did a “Catch-Ups and Pickles” routine. Students who had not finished their work used this time to “Catch-Up,” while those who were done were allowed to “Pickles” a reading-based activity to complete.

For students, this time was dedicated to completing their work or choosing a preferred activity to complete.

For the teacher, this routine provided time to reteach lessons, pull students for  assessments , or conference with students one on one.

And let me just say… this was a wildly popular time in my classroom!

How to Find Time?

So the big question here is, how do you find the time? Everything you are required to teach in a day leaves very little time in your schedule for “makeup work,” but like I shared before… I was able to find time by reallocating the time I was using for reading centers. It wasn’t working for us on Fridays, so we changed it up.

I suggest you take a look at your schedule. Do you have some awkward or weird times?

I like the idea of doing Catch-up and Pickles on a Friday, so it’s easier to track the work that needs to be completed. But maybe Fridays don’t work for you. Look for a block of time (at least 20 mins!) and see if it works. If it doesn’t, restructure or choose a different time. This could even be something you do at the end of a unit in reading or math or on the last school day of the month.

Warning:  I wouldn’t do this one day a quarter… that’s too big a chunk of time to complete everything. Doing that is like saving all your laundry for a month and trying to do it all in one day. Someone will get overwhelmed, and it’s not going to get done.

How to Get Started with Catch Up and Pickles

Once you’ve found your time, it’s time to plan the “Catch-Up and Pickles” activities.

In my classroom, I allowed students to “catch up” on any work, whether it be math, reading, or something else entirely. You need to select what students will be working on. Maybe it’s just reading, so you do only reading makeup work.

Whatever you decide, be specific. The unstructured nature of this routine means that chaos could happen at any minute. Being clear on what students should be working on at this time (and reinforcing it each time you have a Catch-up and Pickles session) can help keep the crazies at bay.

Who is a Catch-Up and Who is a Pickle?

From there, you’ll need a system for knowing who is a “catch-up” and who is a “pickle.”

Right before we started, I’d scan my grade book for any missing assignments. Those students with missing work would go on my “catch up” list.

Another way I identified students was through their “Unfinished Work” folder. Any classwork that didn’t get completed went in there (not tests or quizzes, just classwork). Right before we’d begin, students would pull out their folders and check to make sure there wasn’t any work that needed to be completed. If there was, they were on the “catch-up” list.

Let me just say, just even having an “Unfinished Work” folder helped a great deal with handling incomplete work! It was much easier for students to keep track of their work. If they finished an assignment early, they could either grab a book to read or work on unfinished work from their folder. The finished work folder lived in their desk, and I always told them, “If you aren’t done, put it in your finished work folder!”

You can read more about the unfinished work folder here !

I kept this routine real simple, guys! No fancy slide shows…just a whiteboard and names. In one column, I’d write “catch-up” with the students’ names and a list of work they needed to complete. In the other column, I’d write “Pickles” with the names of students who had completed all their work. When a student completed assignments and turned them in, they could erase their name and put it under the “pickles” side instead.

Activity Idea for Pickles

Now, remember, the name of any student who had completed all their work or their I-Ready minutes would be placed in the Pickles column.

My students loved being a pickle! They loved the idea of choosing their own activities (even if they were reading-based).

Some activities my students could pick from:

• Writing and illustrating stories – Pretty popular! Especially the illustrating. I showed students how to make a mini-book with lined paper folded and stapled together.
• Playing an educational computer game – Probably the most popular!
• Creating or playing on the IPad – Don’t worry, I was very clear about which apps they could use during this time!
• Completing a reading center game – Students could do this with their friends. I’d put any stations we had completed that week in an area towards the back of the classroom, and students could grab one to play. This also worked well for any student who needed to complete a station activity for their “catch-up” activity. Need reading center ideas? These were always a hit !
• Free choice reading – They could choose their own book and where they’d like to sit and read. They could also read with a buddy.
• Helping a friend complete their work – This one was pretty popular! I allowed it as long as they weren’t just telling their buddies the answers. Honestly, it was a win-win: The student got help, and the student helping was learning more! Bonus- it freed me up to complete DRAs, fluency checks, or reteach skills as needed.
• Teacher assistant – Sometimes I needed help, so if they were done and didn’t want to do one of the other activities, I’d put them to work, helping to organize papers or filling the mailboxes with returned work.

Unfinished Work Routine- Catch-up and Pickles

So there you have it, teacher friends. This is the simple, routine way I kept my students on top of their work. I mean, what teacher wants to feel like they are constantly chasing students around trying to get them to finish their work? NOT ME! Now you don’t have to!

Free Catch Up and Pickles Download

Want to grab a few resources to help you get started? Click below and have this resource sent straight to your inbox! Now you can easily implement a Catch-up and Pickles routine in your classroom this week! This free download includes printable tracking sheets, whiteboard labels, and an editable PowerPoint file.

More Great Ideas!

Check out these other great ideas to try in your classroom!

• 5 Tips for Dealing with a Chatty Class
• How to Organize Your Google Classroom for 2nd Grade
• Help Students Take Ownership of Their Learning without a Data Notebook
• End of the Year Survival Tips
• Categories: Classroom , Classroom management

Hi, I'm Leigh.

The Applicious Teacher is all about creating hands-on and engaging lessons that align with the standards while still having time for your life. This is your place for ideas, tips, and resources for the REAL teacher!

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How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments?

Prepared by allison boye, ph.d. teaching, learning, and professional development center.

Assessment is a necessary part of the teaching and learning process, helping us measure whether our students have really learned what we want them to learn. While exams and quizzes are certainly favorite and useful methods of assessment, out of class assignments (written or otherwise) can offer similar insights into our students' learning.  And just as creating a reliable test takes thoughtfulness and skill, so does creating meaningful and effective assignments. Undoubtedly, many instructors have been on the receiving end of disappointing student work, left wondering what went wrong… and often, those problems can be remedied in the future by some simple fine-tuning of the original assignment.  This paper will take a look at some important elements to consider when developing assignments, and offer some easy approaches to creating a valuable assessment experience for all involved.

First Things First…

Before assigning any major tasks to students, it is imperative that you first define a few things for yourself as the instructor:

• Your goals for the assignment . Why are you assigning this project, and what do you hope your students will gain from completing it? What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you aim to measure with this assignment?  Creating assignments is a major part of overall course design, and every project you assign should clearly align with your goals for the course in general.  For instance, if you want your students to demonstrate critical thinking, perhaps asking them to simply summarize an article is not the best match for that goal; a more appropriate option might be to ask for an analysis of a controversial issue in the discipline. Ultimately, the connection between the assignment and its purpose should be clear to both you and your students to ensure that it is fulfilling the desired goals and doesn't seem like “busy work.” For some ideas about what kinds of assignments match certain learning goals, take a look at this page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons.
• Have they experienced “socialization” in the culture of your discipline (Flaxman, 2005)? Are they familiar with any conventions you might want them to know? In other words, do they know the “language” of your discipline, generally accepted style guidelines, or research protocols?
• Do they know how to conduct research?  Do they know the proper style format, documentation style, acceptable resources, etc.? Do they know how to use the library (Fitzpatrick, 1989) or evaluate resources?
• What kinds of writing or work have they previously engaged in?  For instance, have they completed long, formal writing assignments or research projects before? Have they ever engaged in analysis, reflection, or argumentation? Have they completed group assignments before?  Do they know how to write a literature review or scientific report?

In his book Engaging Ideas (1996), John Bean provides a great list of questions to help instructors focus on their main teaching goals when creating an assignment (p.78):

1. What are the main units/modules in my course?

2. What are my main learning objectives for each module and for the course?

3. What thinking skills am I trying to develop within each unit and throughout the course?

4. What are the most difficult aspects of my course for students?

5. If I could change my students' study habits, what would I most like to change?

6. What difference do I want my course to make in my students' lives?

What your students need to know

Once you have determined your own goals for the assignment and the levels of your students, you can begin creating your assignment.  However, when introducing your assignment to your students, there are several things you will need to clearly outline for them in order to ensure the most successful assignments possible.

• First, you will need to articulate the purpose of the assignment . Even though you know why the assignment is important and what it is meant to accomplish, you cannot assume that your students will intuit that purpose. Your students will appreciate an understanding of how the assignment fits into the larger goals of the course and what they will learn from the process (Hass & Osborn, 2007). Being transparent with your students and explaining why you are asking them to complete a given assignment can ultimately help motivate them to complete the assignment more thoughtfully.
• If you are asking your students to complete a writing assignment, you should define for them the “rhetorical or cognitive mode/s” you want them to employ in their writing (Flaxman, 2005). In other words, use precise verbs that communicate whether you are asking them to analyze, argue, describe, inform, etc.  (Verbs like “explore” or “comment on” can be too vague and cause confusion.) Provide them with a specific task to complete, such as a problem to solve, a question to answer, or an argument to support.  For those who want assignments to lead to top-down, thesis-driven writing, John Bean (1996) suggests presenting a proposition that students must defend or refute, or a problem that demands a thesis answer.
• It is also a good idea to define the audience you want your students to address with their assignment, if possible – especially with writing assignments.  Otherwise, students will address only the instructor, often assuming little requires explanation or development (Hedengren, 2004; MIT, 1999). Further, asking students to address the instructor, who typically knows more about the topic than the student, places the student in an unnatural rhetorical position.  Instead, you might consider asking your students to prepare their assignments for alternative audiences such as other students who missed last week's classes, a group that opposes their position, or people reading a popular magazine or newspaper.  In fact, a study by Bean (1996) indicated the students often appreciate and enjoy assignments that vary elements such as audience or rhetorical context, so don't be afraid to get creative!
• Obviously, you will also need to articulate clearly the logistics or “business aspects” of the assignment . In other words, be explicit with your students about required elements such as the format, length, documentation style, writing style (formal or informal?), and deadlines.  One caveat, however: do not allow the logistics of the paper take precedence over the content in your assignment description; if you spend all of your time describing these things, students might suspect that is all you care about in their execution of the assignment.
• Finally, you should clarify your evaluation criteria for the assignment. What elements of content are most important? Will you grade holistically or weight features separately? How much weight will be given to individual elements, etc?  Another precaution to take when defining requirements for your students is to take care that your instructions and rubric also do not overshadow the content; prescribing too rigidly each element of an assignment can limit students' freedom to explore and discover. According to Beth Finch Hedengren, “A good assignment provides the purpose and guidelines… without dictating exactly what to say” (2004, p. 27).  If you decide to utilize a grading rubric, be sure to provide that to the students along with the assignment description, prior to their completion of the assignment.

A great way to get students engaged with an assignment and build buy-in is to encourage their collaboration on its design and/or on the grading criteria (Hudd, 2003). In his article “Conducting Writing Assignments,” Richard Leahy (2002) offers a few ideas for building in said collaboration:

• Ask the students to develop the grading scale themselves from scratch, starting with choosing the categories.

• Set the grading categories yourself, but ask the students to help write the descriptions.

• Draft the complete grading scale yourself, then give it to your students for review and suggestions.

A Few Do's and Don'ts…

Determining your goals for the assignment and its essential logistics is a good start to creating an effective assignment. However, there are a few more simple factors to consider in your final design. First, here are a few things you should do :

• Do provide detail in your assignment description . Research has shown that students frequently prefer some guiding constraints when completing assignments (Bean, 1996), and that more detail (within reason) can lead to more successful student responses.  One idea is to provide students with physical assignment handouts , in addition to or instead of a simple description in a syllabus.  This can meet the needs of concrete learners and give them something tangible to refer to.  Likewise, it is often beneficial to make explicit for students the process or steps necessary to complete an assignment, given that students – especially younger ones – might need guidance in planning and time management (MIT, 1999).
• Do use open-ended questions.  The most effective and challenging assignments focus on questions that lead students to thinking and explaining, rather than simple yes or no answers, whether explicitly part of the assignment description or in the  brainstorming heuristics (Gardner, 2005).
• Do direct students to appropriate available resources . Giving students pointers about other venues for assistance can help them get started on the right track independently. These kinds of suggestions might include information about campus resources such as the University Writing Center or discipline-specific librarians, suggesting specific journals or books, or even sections of their textbook, or providing them with lists of research ideas or links to acceptable websites.
• Do consider providing models – both successful and unsuccessful models (Miller, 2007). These models could be provided by past students, or models you have created yourself.  You could even ask students to evaluate the models themselves using the determined evaluation criteria, helping them to visualize the final product, think critically about how to complete the assignment, and ideally, recognize success in their own work.
• Do consider including a way for students to make the assignment their own. In their study, Hass and Osborn (2007) confirmed the importance of personal engagement for students when completing an assignment.  Indeed, students will be more engaged in an assignment if it is personally meaningful, practical, or purposeful beyond the classroom.  You might think of ways to encourage students to tap into their own experiences or curiosities, to solve or explore a real problem, or connect to the larger community.  Offering variety in assignment selection can also help students feel more individualized, creative, and in control.
• If your assignment is substantial or long, do consider sequencing it. Far too often, assignments are given as one-shot final products that receive grades at the end of the semester, eternally abandoned by the student.  By sequencing a large assignment, or essentially breaking it down into a systematic approach consisting of interconnected smaller elements (such as a project proposal, an annotated bibliography, or a rough draft, or a series of mini-assignments related to the longer assignment), you can encourage thoughtfulness, complexity, and thoroughness in your students, as well as emphasize process over final product.

Next are a few elements to avoid in your assignments:

• Do not ask too many questions in your assignment.  In an effort to challenge students, instructors often err in the other direction, asking more questions than students can reasonably address in a single assignment without losing focus. Offering an overly specific “checklist” prompt often leads to externally organized papers, in which inexperienced students “slavishly follow the checklist instead of integrating their ideas into more organically-discovered structure” (Flaxman, 2005).
• Do not expect or suggest that there is an “ideal” response to the assignment. A common error for instructors is to dictate content of an assignment too rigidly, or to imply that there is a single correct response or a specific conclusion to reach, either explicitly or implicitly (Flaxman, 2005). Undoubtedly, students do not appreciate feeling as if they must read an instructor's mind to complete an assignment successfully, or that their own ideas have nowhere to go, and can lose motivation as a result. Similarly, avoid assignments that simply ask for regurgitation (Miller, 2007). Again, the best assignments invite students to engage in critical thinking, not just reproduce lectures or readings.
• Do not provide vague or confusing commands . Do students know what you mean when they are asked to “examine” or “discuss” a topic? Return to what you determined about your students' experiences and levels to help you decide what directions will make the most sense to them and what will require more explanation or guidance, and avoid verbiage that might confound them.
• Do not impose impossible time restraints or require the use of insufficient resources for completion of the assignment.  For instance, if you are asking all of your students to use the same resource, ensure that there are enough copies available for all students to access – or at least put one copy on reserve in the library. Likewise, make sure that you are providing your students with ample time to locate resources and effectively complete the assignment (Fitzpatrick, 1989).

The assignments we give to students don't simply have to be research papers or reports. There are many options for effective yet creative ways to assess your students' learning! Here are just a few:

Journals, Posters, Portfolios, Letters, Brochures, Management plans, Editorials, Instruction Manuals, Imitations of a text, Case studies, Debates, News release, Dialogues, Videos, Collages, Plays, Power Point presentations

Ultimately, the success of student responses to an assignment often rests on the instructor's deliberate design of the assignment. By being purposeful and thoughtful from the beginning, you can ensure that your assignments will not only serve as effective assessment methods, but also engage and delight your students. If you would like further help in constructing or revising an assignment, the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center is glad to offer individual consultations. In addition, look into some of the resources provided below.

Online Resources

“Creating Effective Assignments” http://www.unh.edu/teaching-excellence/resources/Assignments.htm This site, from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning,  provides a brief overview of effective assignment design, with a focus on determining and communicating goals and expectations.

Gardner, T.  (2005, June 12). Ten Tips for Designing Writing Assignments. Traci's Lists of Ten. http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/034.shtml This is a brief yet useful list of tips for assignment design, prepared by a writing teacher and curriculum developer for the National Council of Teachers of English .  The website will also link you to several other lists of “ten tips” related to literacy pedagogy.

“How to Create Effective Assignments for College Students.”  http:// tilt.colostate.edu/retreat/2011/zimmerman.pdf     This PDF is a simplified bulleted list, prepared by Dr. Toni Zimmerman from Colorado State University, offering some helpful ideas for coming up with creative assignments.

“Learner-Centered Assessment” http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/learner_centered_assessment.html From the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo, this is a short list of suggestions for the process of designing an assessment with your students' interests in mind. “Matching Learning Goals to Assignment Types.” http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/design_assignments/assignments_learning_goals.html This is a great page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons, providing a chart that helps instructors match assignments with learning goals.

Additional References Bean, J.C. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fitzpatrick, R. (1989). Research and writing assignments that reduce fear lead to better papers and more confident students. Writing Across the Curriculum , 3.2, pp. 15 – 24.

Flaxman, R. (2005). Creating meaningful writing assignments. The Teaching Exchange .  Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008 from http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/pubs/teachingExchange/jan2005/01_flaxman.pdf

Hass, M. & Osborn, J. (2007, August 13). An emic view of student writing and the writing process. Across the Disciplines, 4. 

Hedengren, B.F. (2004). A TA's guide to teaching writing in all disciplines . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Hudd, S. S. (2003, April). Syllabus under construction: Involving students in the creation of class assignments.  Teaching Sociology , 31, pp. 195 – 202.

Leahy, R. (2002). Conducting writing assignments. College Teaching , 50.2, pp. 50 – 54.

Miller, H. (2007). Designing effective writing assignments.  Teaching with writing .  University of Minnesota Center for Writing. Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008, from http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/designing.html

MIT Online Writing and Communication Center (1999). Creating Writing Assignments. Retrieved January 9, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html .

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A Few Ideas for Dealing with Late Work

August 4, 2019

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Most of my 9-week grading periods ended the same way: Me and one or two students, sitting in my quiet, empty classroom together, with me sitting at the computer, the students nearby in desks, methodically working through piles of make-up assignments. They would be focused, more focused than I’d seen them in months, and the speed with which they got through the piles was stunning. 

As they finished each assignment I took it, checked it for accuracy, then entered their scores—taking 50 percent off for being late—into my grading program. With every entry, I’d watch as their class grade went up and up: from a 37 percent to a 41, then to 45, then to 51, and eventually to something in the 60s or even low 70s, a number that constituted passing, at which point the process would end and we’d part ways, full of resolve that next marking period would be different.

And the whole time I thought to myself, This is pointless . They aren’t learning anything at all. But I wasn’t sure what else to do.

For as long as teachers have assigned tasks in exchange for grades, late work has been a problem. What do we do when a student turns in work late? Do we give some kind of consequence or accept assignments at any time with no penalty? Do we set up some kind of system that keeps students motivated while still holding them accountable? Is there a way to manage all of this without driving ourselves crazy?

To find answers, I went to Twitter and asked teachers to share what works for them. What follows is a summary of their responses. I wish I could give individual credit to each person who offered ideas, but that would take way too long, and I really want you to get these suggestions now! If you’ve been unsatisfied with your own approach to late work, you should find some fresh ideas here.

First, a Few Questions About Your Grades

Before we get into the ways teachers manage late work, let’s back up a bit and consider whether your overall program of assignments and grading is in a healthy place. Here are some questions to think about:  

• What do your grades represent? How much of your grades are truly based on academic growth, and how much are based mostly on compliance? If they lean more toward compliance, then what you’re doing when you try to manage late work is basically a lot of administrative paper pushing, rather than teaching your content. Although it’s important for kids to learn how to manage deadlines, do you really want an A in your course to primarily reflect the ability to follow instructions? If your grades are too compliance-based, consider how you might shift things so they more accurately represent learning. (For a deeper discussion of this issue, read How Accurate Are Your Grades? )
• Are you grading too many things? If you spend a lot of time chasing down missing assignments in order to get more scores in your gradebook, it could be that you’re grading too much. Some teachers only enter grades for major, summative tasks, like projects, major writing assignments, or exams. Everything else is considered formative and is either ungraded or given a very low point value for completion, not graded for accuracy; it’s practice . For teachers who are used to collecting lots of grades over a marking period, this will be a big shift, and if you work in a school where you’re expected to enter grades into your system frequently, that shift will be even more difficult. Convincing your students that ungraded practice is worthwhile because it will help their performance on the big things will be another hurdle. With all of that said, reducing the number of scored items will make your grades more meaningful and cut way down on the time you spend grading and managing late work.
• What assumptions do you make when students don’t turn in work? I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first started teaching, I assumed most students with missing work were just unmotivated. Although this might be true for a small portion of students, I no longer see this as the most likely reason. Students may have issues with executive function and could use some help developing systems for managing their time and responsibilities. They may struggle with anxiety. Or they may not have the resources—like time, space, and technology—to consistently complete work at home. More attention has been paid lately to the fact that homework is an equity issue , and our policies around homework should reflect an understanding that all students don’t have access to the same resources once they leave school for the day. Punitive policies that are meant to “motivate” students don’t take any of these other issues into consideration, so if your late work penalties don’t seem to be working, it’s likely that the root cause is something other than a lack of motivation.
• What kind of grading system is realistic for you ? Any system you put in place requires YOU to stay on top of grading. It would be much harder to assign penalties, send home reminders, or track lateness if you are behind on marking papers by a week, two weeks, even a month. So whatever you do, create a plan that you can actually keep up with.

Possible Solutions

1. penalties.

Many teachers give some sort of penalty to students for late work. The thinking behind this is that without some sort of negative consequence, too many students would wait until the end of the marking period to turn work in, or in some cases, not turn it in at all. When work is turned in weeks or even months late, it can lose its value as a learning opportunity because it is no longer aligned with what’s happening in class. On top of that, teachers can end up with massive piles of assignments to grade in the last few days of a marking period. This not only places a heavy burden on teachers, it is far from an ideal condition for giving students the good quality feedback they should be getting on these assignments.

Several types of penalties are most common:

Point Deductions In many cases, teachers simply reduce the grade as a result of the lateness. Some teachers will take off a certain number of points per day until they reach a cutoff date after which the work will no longer be accepted. One teacher who responded said he takes off 10 percent for up to three days late, then 30 percent for work submitted up to a week late; he says most students turn their work in before the first three days are over. Others have a standard amount that comes off for any late work (like 10 percent), regardless of when it is turned in. This policy still rewards students for on-time work without completely de-motivating those who are late, builds in some accountability for lateness, and prevents the teacher from having to do a lot of mathematical juggling with a more complex system. 

Parent Contact Some teachers keep track of late work and contact parents if it is not turned in. This treats the late work as more of a conduct issue; the parent contact may be in addition to or instead of taking points away. 

No Feedback, No Re-Dos The real value of homework and other smaller assignments should be the opportunity for feedback: Students do an assignment, they get timely teacher feedback, and they use that feedback to improve. In many cases, teachers allow students to re-do and resubmit assignments based on that feedback. So a logical consequence of late work could be the loss of that opportunity: Several teachers mentioned that their policy is to accept late work for full credit, but only students who submit work on time will receive feedback or the chance to re-do it for a higher grade. Those who hand in late work must accept whatever score they get the first time around. 

2. A Separate Work Habits Grade

In a lot of schools, especially those that use standards-based grading, a student’s grade on an assignment is a pure representation of their academic mastery; it does not reflect compliance in any way. So in these classrooms, if a student turns in good work, it’s going to get a good grade even if it’s handed in a month late. 

But students still need to learn how to manage their time. For that reason, many schools assign a separate grade for work habits. This might measure factors like adherence to deadlines, neatness, and following non-academic guidelines like font sizes or using the correct heading on a paper. 

• Although most teachers whose schools use this type of system will admit that students and parents don’t take the work habits grade as seriously as the academic grade, they report being satisfied that student grades only reflect mastery of the content.
• One school calls their work habits grade a “behavior” grade, and although it doesn’t impact GPA, students who don’t have a certain behavior grade can’t make honor roll, despite their actual GPA.
• Several teachers mentioned looking for patterns and using the separate grade as a basis for conferences with parents, counselors, or other stakeholders. For most students, there’s probably a strong correlation between work habits and academic achievement, so separating the two could help students see that connection.
• Some learning management systems will flag assignments as late without necessarily taking points off. Although this does not automatically translate to a work habits grade, it indicates the lateness to students and parents without misrepresenting the academic achievement.

3. Homework Passes

Because things happen in real life that can throw anyone off course every now and then, some teachers offer passes students can use to replace a missed assignment.

• Most teachers only offer these passes to replace low-point assignments, not major ones, and they generally only offer 1 to 3 passes per marking period. Homework passes can usually only recover 5 to 10 percent of a student’s overall course grade. 
• Other teachers have a policy of allowing students to drop one or two of their lowest scores in the gradebook. Again, this is typically done for smaller assignments and has the same net effect as a homework pass by allowing everyone to have a bad day or two.
• One teacher gives “Next Class Passes” which allow students one extra day to turn in work. At the end of every marking period she gives extra credit points to students who still have unused passes. She says that since she started doing this, she has had the lowest rate ever of late work. 

4. Extension Requests

Quite a few teachers require students to submit a written request for a deadline extension rather than taking points off. With a system like this, every student turns something in on the due date, whether it’s the assignment itself or an extension request.

• Most extension requests ask students to explain why they were unable to complete the assignment on time. This not only gives the students a chance to reflect on their habits, it also invites the teacher to help students solve larger problems that might be getting in the way of their academic success. 
• Having students submit their requests via Google Forms reduces the need for paper and routes all requests to a single spreadsheet, which makes it easier for teachers to keep track of work that is late or needs to be regraded.  
• Other teachers use a similar system for times when students want to resubmit work for a new grade. 

5. Floating Deadlines

Rather than choosing a single deadline for an assignment, some teachers assign a range of dates for students to submit work. This flexibility allows students to plan their work around other life activities and responsibilities.

• Some teachers offer an incentive to turn in work in the early part of the time frame, such as extra credit or faster feedback, and this helps to spread out the submissions more evenly. 
• Another variation on this approach is to assign a batch of work for a whole week and ask students to get it in by Friday. This way, students get to manage when they get it done. 
• Other names mentioned for this strategy were flexible deadlines , soft deadlines , and due windows .

6. Let Students Submit Work in Progress

Some digital platforms, like Google Classroom, allow students to “submit” assignments while they are still working on them. This allows teachers to see how far the student has gotten and address any problems that might be coming up. If your classroom is mostly paper-based, it’s certainly possible to do this kind of thing with paper as well, letting students turn in partially completed work to demonstrate that an effort has been made and show you where they might be stuck.

7. Give Late Work Full Credit

Some teachers accept all late work with no penalty. Most of them agree that if the work is important, and if we want students to do it, we should let them hand it in whenever they get it done. 

• Some teachers fear this approach will cause more students to stop doing the work or delay submission until the end of a marking period, but teachers who like this approach say they were surprised by how little things changed when they stopped giving penalties: Most students continued to turn work in more or less on time, and the same ones who were late under the old system were still late under the new one. The big difference was that the teacher no longer had to spend time calculating deductions or determining whether students had valid excuses; the work was simply graded for mastery.
• To give students an incentive to actually turn the work in before the marking period is over, some teachers will put a temporary zero in the gradebook as a placeholder until the assignment is turned in, at which point the zero is replaced with a grade.
• Here’s a twist on the “no penalty” option: Some teachers don’t take points off for late work, but they limit the time frame when students can turn it in. Some will not accept late work after they have graded and returned an assignment; at that point it would be too easy for students to copy off of the returned papers. Others will only accept late work up until the assessment for the unit, because the work leading up to that is meant to prepare for that assessment. 

8. Other Preventative Measures

These strategies aren’t necessarily a way to manage late work as much as they are meant to prevent it in the first place.

• Include students in setting deadlines. When it comes to major assignments, have students help you determine due dates. They may have a better idea than you do about other big events that are happening and assignments that have been given in other classes.
• Stop assigning homework. Some teachers have stopped assigning homework entirely, recognizing that disparities at home make it an unfair measurement of academic mastery. Instead, all meaningful work is done in class, where the teacher can monitor progress and give feedback as needed. Long-term projects are done in class as well, so the teacher is aware of which students need more time and why. 
• Make homework optional or self-selected. Not all students need the same amount of practice. You may be able to get your students to assess their own need for additional practice and assign that practice to themselves. Although this may sound far-fetched, in some classes, like this self-paced classroom , it actually works, because students know they will be graded on a final assessment, they get good at determining when they need extra practice.

With so many different approaches to late work, what’s clear is that there are a lot of different schools of thought on grading and assessment, so it’s not a surprise that we don’t always land on the best solution on the first try. Experiment with different systems, talk to your colleagues, and be willing to try something new until you find something that works for you. 

Further Reading

20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half This free e-book is full of ideas that can help with grading in general.

On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting Thomas R. Guskey This book came highly recommended by a number of teachers.

Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School Starr Sackstein

Come back for more. Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You’ll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half , the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined—come on in.

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Categories: Classroom Management , Instruction , Podcast

Tags: assessment , organization

51 Comments

I teach high school science (mine is a course that does not have an “end of course” test so the stakes are not as high) and I teach mostly juniors and seniors. Last year I decided not to accept any late work whatsoever unless a student is absent the day it is assigned or due (or if they have an accomodation in a 504 or IEP – and I may have had one or two students with real/documented emergencies that I let turn in late.) This makes it so much easier on me because I don’t have to keep up with how many days/points to deduct – that’s a nightmare. It also forces them to be more responsible. They usually have had time to do it in class so there’s no reason for it to be late. Also, I was very frustrated with homework not being completed and I hated having to grade it and keep up with absent work. So I don’t “require” homework (and rarely assign it any more) but if students do ALL (no partial credit) of it they get a 100% (small point value grade), if they are absent or they don’t do it they are exempt. So it ends up being a sort of extra credit grade but it does not really penalize students who don’t do it. When students ask me for extra credit (which I don’t usually give), the first thing I ask is if they’ve done all the homework assigned. That usually shuts down any further discussion. I’ve decided I’m not going to spend tons of time chasing and calculating grades on small point values that do not make a big difference in an overall grade. 🙂

Do I understand correctly….

Homework is not required. If a student fully completes the HW, they will earn full points. If the student is absent or doesn’t do it, they are excused. Students who do complete the HW will benefit a little bit in their overall grade, but students who don’t compete the work will not be penalized. Did I understand it correctly?

Do you stipulate that a student must earn a certain % on the assignment to get the full points? What about a student who completed an assignment but completes the entire thing incorrectly? Still full credit? Or an opportunity to re-do?

Thank you in advance.

From reading this blog post I was thinking the same thing. When not penalizing students for homework do you have students who do turn it in getting extra points in class?

From what I have seen, if there is a benefit for turning in homework and students see this benefit more will try to accomplish what the homework is asking. So avoid penalization is okay, but make sure the ones turning it in are getting rewarded in some way.

The other question regarding what to do with students who may not be completing the assignments correctly, you could use this almost as a formative assessment. You could still give them the credit but use this as a time for you to focus on that student a little more and see where he/she isn’t understanding the content.

Our school has a system called Catch Up Cafe. Students with missing work report to a specific teacher during the first 15 minutes of lunch to work on missing work. Students upgrade to a Wednesday after school time if they have accumulated 4 or more missing assignments on any Monday. They do not have to serve if they can clear ALL missing work by the end of the day Wednesday. Since work is not dragging out for a long period of time, most teachers do not take off points.

How do you manage the logistics of who has missing and how many assignments are needed to be completed-to make sure they are attending the Catch up Cafe or Wednesday after school? How do you manage the communication with parents?

When a student has missing work it can be very difficult to see what he/she is missing. I always keep a running record of all of their assignments that quarter and if they miss that assigement I keep it blank to remind myself there was never a submission. Once I know that this student is missing this assignment I give them their own copy and write at the top late. So once they do turn it in I know that it’s late and makes grading it easier.

There are a lot of different programs that schools use but I’ve always kept a paper copy so I have a back-up.

I find that the worst part of tracking make-up work is keeping tabs on who was absent for a school activity, illness or other excused absence, and who just didn’t turn in the assignment. I obviously have to accept work turned in “late” due to an excused absence, but I can handle the truly late work however I wish. Any advice on simplifying tracking for this?

I tell my students to simply write “Absent (day/s)” at the top of the paper. I remind them of this fairly regularly. That way, if they were absent, it’s their responsibility to notify me, and it’s all together. If you create your own worksheets, etc., you could add a line to the top as an additional reminder.

It might be worth checking out Evernote .

In order to keep track of what type of missing assignments, I put a 0 in as a grade so students and parents know an assignment was never submitted. If a student was here on the due date and day assignment was given then it is a 0 in the grade book. If a student was absent the day the assignment was given or when it was due, I put a 00 in the grade book. This way I know if it was because of an absence or actual no work completed.

This is exactly what I do. Homework can only count 10% in our district. Claims that kids fail due to zeros for homework are specious.

This is SUCH a difficult issue and I have tried a few of the suggested ways in years past. My questions is… how do we properly prepare kids for college while still being mindful of the inequities at home? We need to be sure that we are giving kids opportunity, resources, and support, but at the same time if we don’t introduce them to some of the challenges they will be faced with in college (hours of studying and research and writing regardless of the hours you might have to spend working to pay that tuition), are we truly preparing them? I get the idea of mastery of content without penalty for late work and honestly that is typically what I go with, but I constantly struggle with this and now that I will be moving from middle to high school, I worry even more about the right way to handle late work and homework. I don’t want to hold students back in my class by being too much of a stickler about seemingly little things, but I don’t want to send them to college unprepared to experience a slap in the face, either. I don’t want to provide extra hurdles, but how do I best help them learn how to push through the hurdles and rigor if they aren’t held accountable? I always provide extra time after school, at lunch, etc., and have also experienced that end of term box checking of assignments in place of a true learning experience, but how do we teach them the importance of using resources, asking for help, allowing for mistakes while holding them to standards and learning work habits that will be helpful to them when they will be on their own? I just don’t know where the line is between helping students learn the value of good work habits and keeping them from experiencing certain challenges they need to understand in order to truly get ahead.

Thanks for sharing – I can tell how much you care for your students, wanting them to be confident independent learners. What I think I’m hearing is perhaps the struggle between that fine line of enabling and supporting. When supporting kids, whether academically or behaviorally, we’re doing something that assists or facilitates their growth. So, for example, a student that has anxiety or who doesn’t have the resources at home to complete an assignment, we can assist by giving that student extra time or an alternative place to complete the assignment. This doesn’t lower expectations, it just offers support to help them succeed.

Enabling on the other hand, puts systems in place that don’t involve consequences, which in turn allow the behaviors to continue. It involves excuses and solving problems for others. It may be about lowering expectations and letting people get by with patterns of behavior.

Late work is tricky. The article does mention the importance of time management, which is why separating academic grades from work habits is something a lot of schools are doing. Sometimes real life happens and kids need a “pass.” If whatever you’re doing seems to be helping to support a student rather than enabling patterns, then that might help you distinguish between that fine line. Hope this helps!

Thank you again for such a great post. Always high-quality, relevant, and helpful. I so appreciate you and the work you do!

So glad to hear you enjoyed the post, Liz! I’ll make sure Jenn sees this.

I thought that these points brought up about receiving late work were extremely helpful and I hope that every classroom understands how beneficial these strategies could be.

When reading the penalties section under point deductions it brought up the idea of taking points off slowly as time goes by. Currently in my classroom the only point deduction I take off is 30% of the total grade after it is received late. No matter how much time has gone by in that grading period it will have 30% off the total.

I’m curious if changing this technique to something that would increase the percentage off as time goes by will make students turn in their work on time.

My question to everyone is which grading technique would be more beneficial for the students? Do you believe that just taking off 30% for late work would help students more when turning in their work or do you think that as time goes by penalizing their final score will have students turn in their work more?

If anyone has any answers it would be extremely beneficial.

Thank you, Kirby

When I was in school my school did 1/3 of a grade each day it was like. So 1 day late A >A-. Two days late: A->>B+ so on and so forth. This worked really well for me because I knew that I could still receive a good grade if I worked hard on an assignment, even if it was a day or two late.

I dread it when I have missing work or unsubmitted work. I would try to get a last-minute effort to chase those needed pieces of work which could be done from those students housed in dorms on campus. It is better than not failing them for lacking to turn in graded submissions or taking scheduled quizzes. I dread this not for the students, sadly, but for likely call to explain why I did not keep physical evidence of students’ supposed learning. In my part of the globe, we have a yearly “quality assurance” audit by the country’s educational authorities or their representatives.

I am a pre-service teacher and I am in the process of developing my personal philosophies in education, including the topic of late work. I will be certified as a secondary social studies teacher and would like to teach in a high school. Your post brought my attention to some important insights about the subject. For example, before this post I had not thought to use feedback as a way to incentivize homework submission on time. This action coupled with the ability to re-do assignments is a great way to emphasize the importance of turning work in on time. I do have a follow-up question, how do you adequately manage grading re-do’s and feedback on all assignments? What kinds of organizational and time-management strategies do you use as a teacher? Further, how much homework do you assign when providing this as an option?

Additionally, have you administered or seen the no penalty and homework acceptance time limit in practice (for example, all homework must be turned in by the unit test)? I was curious if providing a deadline to accept all homework until the unit test may result in an access of papers I need to grade. From your experience, what practice(s) have you seen work well in the classroom?

My goal is to prepare students for life beyond high school and to support their intellectual, social, and emotional development during their high school learning experience. Similar to a previous commenter (Kate), I am also trying to define a balance between holding students accountable in order to best prepare them for their future lives and providing opportunities to raise their grade if they are willing to do the work.

Hey Jessica, you have some great questions. I’d recommend checking out the following blog posts from Jenn that will help you learn more about keeping track of assessments, differentiation, and other aspects of grading: Kiddom: Standards-based Grading Made Wonderful , Could You Teach Without Grades , Boost Your Assessment Power with GradeCam , and Four Research-Based Strategies Every Teacher Should be Using . I hope this helps you find answers to your questions!

Overall I found this article extremely helpful and it actually reinforced many ideas I already had about homework and deadlines. One of my favorite teachers I had in high school was always asking for our input on when we felt assignments should be due based on what extra curricular activities were taking place in a given time period. We were all extremely grateful for his consideration and worked that much harder on the given assignments.

While it is important to think about our own well-being when grading papers, I think it is just as important (if not more) to be conscious of how much work students might have in other classes or what students schedules are like outside of school. If we really want students to do their best work, we need to give them enough time to do the work. This will in turn, help them care more about the subject matter and help them dive deeper. Obviously there still needs to be deadlines, but it does not hurt to give students some autonomy and say in the classroom.

Thanks for your comment Zach. I appreciate your point about considering students’ involvement in extracurricular activities and other responsibilities they may have outside the school day. It’s definitely an important consideration. The only homework my son seemed to have in 8th grade was for his history class. I agree that there’s a need for teachers to maintain more of a balance across classes when it comes to the amount of homework they give to students.

Thank you for an important, thought-provoking post! As a veteran teacher of 20+ years, I have some strong opinions about this topic. I have always questioned the model of ‘taking points off’ for late work. I do not see how this presents an accurate picture of what the student knows or can do. Shouldn’t he be able to prove his knowledge regardless of WHEN? Why does WHEN he shows you what he knows determine WHAT he knows?

Putting kids up against a common calendar with due dates and timelines, regardless of their ability to learn the material at the same rate is perhaps not fair. There are so many different situations facing our students – some students have challenges and difficulty with deadlines for a plethora of potential reasons, and some have nothing but support, structure, and time. When it comes to deadlines – Some students need more time. Other students may need less time. Shouldn’t all students have a chance to learn at a pace that is right for them? Shouldn’t we measure student success by demonstrations of learning instead of how much time it takes to turn in work? Shouldn’t students feel comfortable when it is time to show me what they’ve learned, and when they can demonstrate they’ve learned it, I want their grade to reflect that.

Of course we want to teach students how to manage their time. I am not advocating for a lax wishy-washy system that allows for students to ‘get to it when they get to it’. I do believe in promoting work-study habits, and using a separate system to assign a grade for responsibility, respect, management, etc is a potential solution. I understand that when introducing this type of system, it may be tough to get buy-in from parents and older students who have traditionally only looked at an academic grade because it is the only piece of the puzzle that impacts GPA. Adopting a separate work-study grading system would involve encouraging the entire school community – starting at the youngest level – to see its value. It would be crucial for the school to promote the importance of high level work-study habits right along side academic grades.

I teach a specials course to inner city middle schoolers at a charter school. All students have to take my class since it is one of the core pillars of the school’s culture and mission. Therefore it is a double edge sword. Some students and parents think it is irrelevant like an art or music class but will get upset to find out it isn’t just an easy A class. Other students and parents love it because they come to our charter school just to be in this class that isn’t offered anywhere else in the state, except at the college level.

As you may have already guessed, I see a lot of students who don’t do the work. So much that I no longer assign homework, which the majority would not be able to do independently anyways or may develop the wrong way of learning the material, due to the nature of the subject. So everything is done in the classroom together as a class. And then we grade together to reinforce the learning. This is why I absolutely do not accept missing work and there is no reason for late work. Absent students make up the work by staying after school upon their return or they can print it off of Google classroom at home and turn in by the end of the day of their return. Late and missing work is a big issue at our school. I’ve had whole classrooms not do the work even as I implemented the new routine. Students will sit there and mark their papers as we do it in the classroom but by the end they are not handing it in because they claim not to have anything to hand in. Or when they do it appears they were doing very little. I’d have to micromanage all 32 students every 5 minutes to make sure they were actually doing the work, which I believe core teachers do. But that sets a very bad precedent because I noticed our students expect to be handheld every minute or they claim they can’t do the work. I know this to be the case since before this class I was teaching a computer class and the students expected me to sit right next to them and give them step-by-step instructions of where to click on the screen. They simply could not follow along as I demonstrated on the Aquos board. So I do think part of the problem is the administrators’ encouraging poor work ethics. They’re too focused on meeting proficient standard to the point they want teachers to handhold students. They also want teachers to accept late and missing work all the way until the end of each quarter. Well that’s easy if you only have a few students but when you have classrooms full of them, that means trying to grade 300+ students multiplied by “x” amount of late/missing work the week before report card rolls out – to which we still have to write comments for C- or below students. Some of us teach all the grade levels 6-8th. And that has actually had negative effects because students no longer hold themselves accountable.

To be honest, I really do think this is why there is such a high turnover rate and teachers who started giving busy work only. In the inner city, administrators only care about putting out the illusion of proficiency while students and parents don’t want any accountability for their performance. As soon as a student fails because they have to actually try to learn (which is a risk for failing), the parent comes in screaming.

Yea, being an Art teacher you lost me at “ irrelevant like an art or music .”

I teach middle school in the inner city where missing and late work is a chronic issue so the suggestions and ideas above do not work. Students and parents have become complacent with failing grades so penalizing work isn’t going to motivate them to do better the next time. The secret to teaching in the inner city is to give them a way out without it becoming massive work for you. Because trust me, if you give them an inch they will always want a mile at your expense. Depending on which subject you teach, it might be easier to just do everything in class. That way it becomes an all or nothing grade. They either did or didn’t do the work. No excuses, no chasing down half the school through number of calls to disconnected phone numbers and out of date emails, no explaining to parents why Johnny has to stay after school to finish assignments when mom needs him home to babysit or because she works second shift and can’t pick him up, etc. Students have no reason for late work or for missing work when they were supposed to do it right there in class. Absent students can catch up with work when they return.

Milton, I agree with all of what you are saying and have experienced. Not to say that that is for all students I have had, but it is a slow progression as to what is happening with students and parents as years go by. I understand that there are areas outside of the classroom we cannot control and some students do not have certain necessities needed to help them but they need to start learning what can they do to help themselves. I make sure the students know they can come and talk to me if needing help or extra time, tutor after school and even a phone number to contact along with email if needing to ask questions or get help. But parents and students do not use these opportunities given until the week before school ends and are now wanting their student to pass and what can be done. It is frustrating and sad. I let students and parents know my expectation up front and if they do not take the opportunity to talk to me then the grade they earned is the result.

I am a special education resource teacher and late work/missing work happens quite a lot. After reading this article, I want to try a few different things to help minimize this issue. However, I am not the one making the grades or putting the grades in. I am just giving the work to the students in small group settings and giving them more access to the resources they need to help them be successful on these assignments based on their current IEP. I use a make-up folder, and usually I will pull these students to work on their work during a different time than when I regularly pull them. That way they do not miss the delivery of instruction they get from me and it does not punish my other students either if there is make-up work that needs to be completed. I try to give my students ample time to complete their work, so there is no excuse for them not to complete it. If they are absent, then I pull them at a time that they can make it up.

I too agree with that there’s a need for teachers to maintain more of a balance across classes when it comes to the amount of homework they give to students.

I had a few teachers who were willing to tolerate lateness in favor of getting it/understanding the material. Lastly, my favorite teacher was the one who gave me many chances to do rewrites of a ‘bad essay’ and gave me as much time as needed (of course still within like the semester or even month but I never took more than two weeks) because he wanted me to do well. I ended up with a 4 in AP exam though so that’s good.

Late work has a whole new meaning with virtual learning. I am drowning in late work (via Google Classroom). I don’t want to penalize students for late work as every home situation is different. I grade and provide feedback timely (to those who submitted on time). However, I am being penalized every weekend and evening as I try to grade and provide feedback during this time. I would love some ideas.

Hi Susan! I’m in the same place–I have students who (after numerous reminders) still haven’t submitted work due days…weeks ago, and I’m either taking time to remind them again or give feedback on “old” work over my nights and weekends. So, while it’s not specific to online learning, Jenn’s A Few Ideas for Dealing with Late Work is a post I’ve been trying to put into practice the last few days. I hope this helps!

Graded assignment flexibility is essential to the process of learning in general but especially in our new world of digital divide

It is difficult to determine who is doing the work at home. Follow up videos on seesaw help to see if the student has gained the knowledge or is being given the answers.

This is some good information. This is a difficult subject.

I love the idea of a catch-up cafe! I think I will try to implement this in my school. It’s in the same place every day, yes? And the teachers take turns monitoring? I’m just trying to get a handle on the logistics – I know those will be the first questions I get.

I really enjoyed this post. I think it provides a lot of perspective on a topic that teachers get way too strict about. I just wonder: wouldn’t it be inevitable for students to become lazy and care less about their understanding if there wasn’t any homework (or even if it was optional)? I know students don’t like it, and it can get redundant if they understand the content, but it truly is good practice.

Hi Shannon,

Glad the post helped! Homework is one of those hot educational topics, but I can’t say I’ve personally come across a situation or found any research where kids become lazy or unmotivated if not assigned homework. In fact, research indicates that homework doesn’t really have much impact on learning until high school. I just think that if homework is going to be assigned, it needs to be intentional and purposeful. (If students have already mastered a skill, I’m not sure how homework would provide them much benefit.) Here’s an article that I think is worth checking out. See what you think.

I like how you brought up how homework needs to be given with the understanding that not all kids have the same resources at home. Some kids don’t have computers or their parents won’t let them use it. There is no way of knowing this so teachers should give homework that requires barely any utensils or technology.

I think having students help determine the due dates for major assignments is a great idea. This works well with online schools too. Remote jobs are the future so helping students learn how to set their own due dates and to get homework done from home will prepare them for the future.

This year I am trying something new. After reading this article, I noticed that I have used a combination of some of these strategies to combat late work and encourage students to turn work in on time. I only record a letter grade in the grade book: A, B, C, D, F. If a student turns in an assignment late, I flag it as late, but it does not affect their “grade”.

If a student wants to redo an assignment, they must turn something in. If they miss the due date, they can still turn it in, but lose the opportunity to redo the assignment. Students will meet with me one last time before they turn it in to get final feedback.

At the end of the grading period, I conference with the student about their final grade, looking at how many times they have handed work in on-time or late. This will determine if the student has earned an A or an A+ .

I really appreciate how your post incorporates a lot of suggestions for the way that teachers can think about and grade homework. Thank you for mentioning how different students have different resources available as well. As teachers, we need to be aware of the different resources our students have and tailor our approach to homework to match. I like the idea of grading homework based on completion and accepting late work for full credit at any time (substituting a zero in the grade book until it is turned in). This is definitely a strategy that I’ll be using!

So glad the article was helpful for you! I will be sure to pass on your comments to Jenn.

I also have been teaching for a long time and I have found that providing an END OF WEEK (Friday at 11:59) due date for assignments allows students to get the work completed by that time. It helps with athletes, and others involved in extra curricular activities. I feel this is fair. I give my tests/quizzes on the days assigned and the supplemental work on Fridays.

I personally, as a special education teach, would allow my SPED students extra time to complete the work they have missed. This is in alignment with their IEP accommodations. I would work with each one independently and have remediation with the content that they are having difficulty. This setting would be in a small group and separate classroom.

I really like the idea of a work habits grade. I struggle with students who turn things in late regularly earning the same grade as those who always turn things in on time. A work habits grade could really motivate some learners.

I’ve been in education for 37 years and in all manner of positions. I share this only to also say that things have changed quite a bit. When I started teaching I only had one, maybe two students in a class of 34 elementary students that would not have homework or classwork finished. Now, I have two classes of about 15 each. One group is often half the class on a regular basis not having homework or not finishing classwork on a regular basis- so far. Additionally parents will pull students out to go to amusement parks, etc and expect all work to be made up and at full credit. I believe that the idea of homework is clearly twofold- to teach accountability and to reengage a learner. Classwork is critical to working with the content and, learning objective. We can all grade various ways; however, at some point, the learner has to step up. Learning is not passive, nor is it all on the teacher. I have been called “mean” because I make students do their work in class, refocusing them, etc. I find that is my duty. Late work should be simply dealt with consistently and with understanding to circumstance IMO. You were out or it was late because mom and dad were upset, ok versus we went to Disney for three days and I was too tired. hmm- used to be easy with excused/unexcused absences, now there is no difference. Late with no absence? That can be a problem and I reach out to home and handle it individually at my level.

Hi Jennifer! I really like your sharing about this topic! Late work is a problem that every teacher encounters. Thank you for your consideration of this issue and the many wise ideas you have provided. Your ideas also remind me to reflect on whether my overall program of assignments and grading is in a healthy place. I was inspired by the preventative measures you listed in this post. I want to try to include my students in setting deadlines, especially for some big projects. Students will feel respected by teachers and will be more willing to complete the assignments before deadlines! As you mentioned, some teachers have made homework optional or self-selected, or even stopped assigning homework. I partially agree with that opinion. I indeed try to reduce the amount of students’ homework or even stop assigning homework sometime, but doing related practice in class instead. I believe that the purpose of homework is to aid pupils in mastering the knowledge; it is not a necessary thing.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Yang. Jenn will be glad to know that you found the post inspiring!

Thanks so much for all your insights on giving assignments or homework. All are very helpful as I prepare to return to work after an extended medical leave. It is good to refresh! Anything we require of our students should be purposeful and meaningful to them, so they will give their best to meet whatever deadlines we set. I also like asking our students when is the best time they can turn work in; this is meeting them halfway. And if one strategy does not work, there are more to try; just read this post. Thanks a bunch!!

Jenn will be glad to know the post was helpful for you, Jo!

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Final Grade Calculator

This tool will determine what grade (percentage) you need on your final exam in order to get a certain grade in a class.

Your current grade is %.

You want (at least) a % in the class.

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Calculate what I need on the final

Since you’ve already taken your final exam, you can now calculate your overall grade.

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Calculate my overall grade

If your final is in the “tests” category, then your overall grade will be affected by your current test average and how many tests you’ve taken so far.

Tests are worth % of your grade.

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Your test average is %.

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If your final has multiple parts and you’ve finished some of them, then you can calculate what you need on the remaining parts. Your current grade should not include any part of your final.

You have parts to your final.

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On part 1, you got points.

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On part 7, you got points.

Calculate what I need on the rest of the final

You can calculate how much your final is worth by dividing the number of points in your final by the total number of points.

Including the final, there are points possible.

Your final is worth points.

Calculate how much my final is worth

Your overall grade depends on how low your lowest test grades are. If your final replaces your lowest test grade, then tell the calculator that your lowest 1 test is dropped and your final also counts as 1 test.

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8th lowest test was %.

Your final also counts as tests.

Your final is also worth % of your grade.

Have another question? Try one of these:

• I took the final. What’s my overall grade?
• My final counts as a test. What do I need to get?
• There are 2+ parts in my final. What do I have to get on them?
• My class has a point system. How much is the final worth?
• My lowest test grade is dropped. What do I need to get?
• I need something else (advanced mode) .

How does this work? Most class grades are made up of several categories: homework, classwork, tests/quizzes, and the final exam. Usually, each category is worth a percentage of your overall grade. But because your final exam isn't scored until the very end, it isn't included when calculating your current overall grade. Instead, all the other categories are scaled up to consume the weight reserved for the final exam. Therefore, you can calculate the minimum grade you need to score on the final exam using the formula:

Required = (Goal − Current × (100% − Final Weight)) / Final Weight

See the formula sheet for an explanation of this formula and other formulas used in this calculator. It's not rocket science, it's just math! You could, of course, do this on any calculator, but you're here on RogerHub because it's cool. (:

I need more help! Try one of the different calculator modes listed above. The advanced mode handles many different kinds of situations, such as:

• If you have more tests and homework before the final
• When your final counts as a test grade
• Dropping the lowest test grades
• Makeup assignments or test retakes
• Extra credit
• Missing assignments

Comments Check out the comments page if you have other questions or feedback about the calculator.

Tricks And Hacks For A Failed Assignment, Essay Or Exam

21 Oct 2022

Dealing with failure of any kind can be hard but experiencing failure at university can leave students feeling upset, unmotivated or doubting their abilities.

Whether you’ve failed an assignment, essay or exam, there are things you can do so don’t get yourself too down.

Carry on reading to find out reasons why students may fail at university, and the tricks and hacks to help you out if you’ve not done as well as you hoped on a piece of work!

Common Causes of Failure At University

There are several factors that can come into play when it comes to reasons why a student may have failed an assignment, essay or exam.

It may be that they didn’t understand the subject topic of the specific piece of work, or they may have a lack of confidence in their ability.

It could even be that their quality of teaching wasn’t beneficial to their learning, or they could be an international student who is facing language challenges.

More often than not, a student’s circumstances and mental and physical health is the cause of failure at university.

Such as, they may be worried about their financial circumstances, they may be feeling anxious about being away from home or they could be feeling lonely.

Which in turn, is distracting them from focusing on their degree and their learning.

It’s no surprise that this can lead to failing elements of their course, as there are so many things to think about whilst at university.

Of course, there are other reasons why a student may fail like missing lectures or seminars, as well as a lack of preparation and revision for the assignment, essay of exam.

It could also be that they lacked motivation or interest in the piece of work, so they didn’t put any effort in.

Tricks & Hacks For Dealing With Failure At Uni

If you find yourself experiencing failure at university, there are things that can be done to prevent this from happening again, and to deal with the current situation you’re faced with.

Find out with our 8 tricks and hacks below!

1. Put Things Into Perspective

If you have failed an assignment, essay or exam try to remember to keep things in perspective.

It can be hard to stop yourself from overthinking and presuming the worst, but chances are you will be able to do something about your situation.

If you start to think that that there’s nothing that can be done to change your position or that there’s no use in trying again, try and reframe your negative thoughts into positive ones.

Yes, you may have not done as well on this piece of work, but you can learn from your mistakes and improve for the future.

At the end of the day, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be the only one to have failed a piece of work on your course, so try not to get yourself too worked up.

So, stop and consider whether it’s worth letting yourself get super upset over something that can be changed!

2. Allow Yourself To Feel Your Feelings

Whilst it is important to reframe your negative thoughts and stop yourself from getting too stressed out when dealing with failure at uni, it’s also necessary to allow yourself to feel your feelings.

When experiencing failure, most people experience a range of negative feelings such as sadness, frustration, embarrassment and shame.

Rather than bottling up your emotions, try to get everything out into the open and allow yourself to face failure head on, it’s a key to success after all!

The same goes for preventing failure, you need to allow yourself to accept any small issues that do arise.

For example, if you’re not understanding a section of your course material and you’re beginning to feel stressed, you need to be honest about what’s going on and speak up about this before the problem becomes larger.

You could do this by talking to your course leader or tutor.

3. Accept A Level Of Responsibility

If you’ve flopped on an assignment, essay or exam at uni, one vital thing that you need to do is to accept a level of responsibility and practice some self reflection.

Whilst there may be some contributing factors to why you didn’t do so well on a piece of work like as discussed earlier, you also need to learn from your mistakes.

Try to accept maybe there was things you didn’t do successfully that you can improve upon within the future.

This isn’t an opportunity to blame yourself and be harsh to yourself, but rather a way to identify what needs to change.

Such as, if you didn’t revise as much as you should have or if you stopped going to your lectures and seminars, you need to accept a level of blame for why you failed.

By doing this you will prevent yourself from making the same mistakes in the future, and it means you’ll take accountability for your actions.

4. Be Kind To Yourself

Being kind to yourself is an important step of dealing with failure.

There can be many negative impacts on your self-esteem when you fail a piece of work or fail within other aspects of life.

However, there’s no point in punishing yourself when this happens, you won’t gain anything good from doing this.

Instead, treat your failure the same way you would if a friend came to you for advice.

You wouldn’t criticise them for it, would you?

You would provide them with some non-judgmental advice and support them, so make sure you do the same for yourself.

It’s hard to stop yourself from experiencing feelings of imposter syndrome whilst at uni, you may doubt your abilities and feel like a fraud, but you’re not!

A good way to try and prevent these feelings from intensifying is to not compare yourself to others.

For example, if you’ve failed a piece of work that your friend did really well on, don’t start spiralling into self-doubt.

Instead, focus on the things you did well and the things you can improve on.

Be kind to yourself because at the end of the day, no-one succeeds at everything in life (or uni).

Failure is inevitable and it’s an essential part of growing!

5. Practice Healthy Coping Mechanisms

Hearing that you’ve failed a piece of work can be difficult to hear, however, one of the worst things you can do is go into self-destruct mode.

Whilst university and succeeding academically is an important aspect of your life, try not to practice unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with your feelings of failure.

One of the most common unhealthy coping mechanisms is avoiding the problem altogether and refusing to confront the situation.

Such as, you may avoid your failed assignment, essay or exam and think that because it’s out of sight and out of mind, it will go away.

Or you may think that there’s nothing you can do about it so you give up hope.

Another negative coping mechanism is going out and getting drunk to distract yourself from your problems.

Instead of practicing behaviours such as these, try and practice healthy coping mechanisms such as spending time with friends, watching your favourite films or TV shows, going for walks to relax or even spending time focusing on your hobbies or interests.

Everyone has different coping mechanisms which work for them, so try and find yours.

6. Explore Your Options

Most of the time if you do receive a failed mark, there are several options for you to explore and try to remember that your university do want you to succeed too!

The best thing to do is firstly speak to your module tutor or department for feedback and the best cause of action.

Such options include re-sitting an exam, assignment or essay with a second attempt, although this could be at a capped grade it’s still another chance for you to improve.

There are other options too like re-taking an entire module if it’s necessary.

Although, it’s important to remember that just because you’ve failed one piece of work, it doesn’t mean you can’t receive a good grade overall.

Grades will vary from university and courses, but most of the time you don’t have to re-sit an assignment to end up passing the module or even the year.

Such as, if your averaged course mark is 40 or above, you can pass the module overall regardless of the failed piece of work.

As we said, it’s best to speak to your specific course department about this as some do require you to pass all elements!

7. Applying For Extenuating Circumstances

If you have failed at uni because of a problem out of your control such as an illness or an unexpected passing of a family member, you could look into applying for Extenuating Circumstances at your university.

These are determined on a case-by-case basis so it’s best to speak to your university about this and make a claim.

You may need to provide proof that you’ve experienced something out of your control which has impacted your assessed studies.

If your claim is accepted, you could be given a reassessment opportunity or be able to defer a future exam, assignment or essay.

Another option you could look into if you’ve failed is to make an appeal, which is a way of asking your university to review a mark within your academic studies if you believe it was incorrect or graded unfairly.

8. Set Future Goals

Our final tip and trick to take away is to create a plan to help you move forward and smash your next assignment, essay or exam and all the future ones after that.

Have a think about what you are going to do differently next time and think very clearly about what it is you want to achieve at uni.

It could be that you set realistic goals like attending all your lectures and seminars which you previously skipped last semester.

Additionally, it could be that you dedicate more time to studying within the library or an appropriate amount of time working at home each week to ensure that you receive a good grade.

The best way to do this is to write down the things you’re aiming towards and what you’re going to put into practice, this way you can refer back to them and these tasks will seem more manageable.

We’d recommend setting goals for each term, so that you can review them and see if you’re making progress.

Doing this will assist in your overall academic performance and motivate you to keep improving on your assignments!

Failures can have a big impact on our mental health, so don’t be afraid to reach out for help and support from a professional if you’re really struggling.

You could speak to the student support services at your university about what mental health and wellbeing help is available, or make an appointment with your GP.

We hope we’ve helped you with what to do when things go wrong and ways to avoid failure with our tips and tricks.

Remember, most students fail at some point and there’s always ways to pick yourself back up. You’ve got this!

If you want to improve your sleeping pattern whilst staying in student accommodation , have a read of our guide on Tips and Tricks For Students To Get A Good Nights Sleep.

Table of Contents

Top 7 practices for stress relief during exam season.

28 Mar 2024

Matthew King

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5 tips on writing better university assignments

Lecturer in Student Learning and Communication Development, University of Sydney

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Alexandra Garcia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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University life comes with its share of challenges. One of these is writing longer assignments that require higher information, communication and critical thinking skills than what you might have been used to in high school. Here are five tips to help you get ahead.

1. Use all available sources of information

Beyond instructions and deadlines, lecturers make available an increasing number of resources. But students often overlook these.

For example, to understand how your assignment will be graded, you can examine the rubric . This is a chart indicating what you need to do to obtain a high distinction, a credit or a pass, as well as the course objectives – also known as “learning outcomes”.

Other resources include lecture recordings, reading lists, sample assignments and discussion boards. All this information is usually put together in an online platform called a learning management system (LMS). Examples include Blackboard , Moodle , Canvas and iLearn . Research shows students who use their LMS more frequently tend to obtain higher final grades.

If after scrolling through your LMS you still have questions about your assignment, you can check your lecturer’s consultation hours.

2. Take referencing seriously

Plagiarism – using somebody else’s words or ideas without attribution – is a serious offence at university. It is a form of cheating.

In many cases, though, students are unaware they have cheated. They are simply not familiar with referencing styles – such as APA , Harvard , Vancouver , Chicago , etc – or lack the skills to put the information from their sources into their own words.

To avoid making this mistake, you may approach your university’s library, which is likely to offer face-to-face workshops or online resources on referencing. Academic support units may also help with paraphrasing.

You can also use referencing management software, such as EndNote or Mendeley . You can then store your sources, retrieve citations and create reference lists with only a few clicks. For undergraduate students, Zotero has been recommended as it seems to be more user-friendly.

Using this kind of software will certainly save you time searching for and formatting references. However, you still need to become familiar with the citation style in your discipline and revise the formatting accordingly.

3. Plan before you write

If you were to build a house, you wouldn’t start by laying bricks at random. You’d start with a blueprint. Likewise, writing an academic paper requires careful planning: you need to decide the number of sections, their organisation, and the information and sources you will include in each.

Research shows students who prepare detailed outlines produce higher-quality texts. Planning will not only help you get better grades, but will also reduce the time you spend staring blankly at the screen thinking about what to write next.

During the planning stage, using programs like OneNote from Microsoft Office or Outline for Mac can make the task easier as they allow you to organise information in tabs. These bits of information can be easily rearranged for later drafting. Navigating through the tabs is also easier than scrolling through a long Word file.

4. Choose the right words

Which of these sentences is more appropriate for an assignment?

a. “This paper talks about why the planet is getting hotter”, or b. “This paper examines the causes of climate change”.

The written language used at university is more formal and technical than the language you normally use in social media or while chatting with your friends. Academic words tend to be longer and their meaning is also more precise. “Climate change” implies more than just the planet “getting hotter”.

To find the right words, you can use SkELL , which shows you the words that appear more frequently, with your search entry categorised grammatically. For example, if you enter “paper”, it will tell you it is often the subject of verbs such as “present”, “describe”, “examine” and “discuss”.

Another option is the Writefull app, which does a similar job without having to use an online browser.

5. Edit and proofread

If you’re typing the last paragraph of the assignment ten minutes before the deadline, you will be missing a very important step in the writing process: editing and proofreading your text. A 2018 study found a group of university students did significantly better in a test after incorporating the process of planning, drafting and editing in their writing.

You probably already know to check the spelling of a word if it appears underlined in red. You may even use a grammar checker such as Grammarly . However, no software to date can detect every error and it is not uncommon to be given inaccurate suggestions.

So, in addition to your choice of proofreader, you need to improve and expand your grammar knowledge. Check with the academic support services at your university if they offer any relevant courses.

Written communication is a skill that requires effort and dedication. That’s why universities are investing in support services – face-to-face workshops, individual consultations, and online courses – to help students in this process. You can also take advantage of a wide range of web-based resources such as spell checkers, vocabulary tools and referencing software – many of them free.

Improving your written communication will help you succeed at university and beyond.

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• Create assignments

Create an assignment

This article is for teachers.

When you create an assignment, you can post it immediately, save a draft, or schedule it to post at a later date. After students complete and turn in their work, you can grade and return it to the students.

Open all | Close all

Create & post assignments

When you create an assignment, you can:

• Select one or more classes

Select individual students

Add a grade category, add a grading period, change the point value, add a due date or time, add a topic, add attachments, add a rubric.

• Turn on originality reports

Go to classroom.google.com  and click Sign In.

Sign in with your Google Account. For example,  [email protected] or [email protected] .  Learn more .

• Enter the title and any instructions.

You can continue to edit and customize your assignment. Otherwise, if you’re ready, see below to post, schedule, or save your assignment .

Select additional classes

Assignments to multiple classes go to all students in those classes.

• Create an assignment (details above).

Unless you’re selecting multiple classes, you can select individual students. You can’t select more than 100 students at a time.

• Click a student's name to select them.

Use grade categories to organize assignments. With grade categories, you and your students can see the category an assignment belongs to, such as Homework or Essays . Teachers also see the categories on the Grades page.

For more information on grade categories, go to Add a grade category to posts or Set up grading .

To organize assignments and grades into your school or district’s grading structure, create grading periods, such as quarters or semesters.

• From the menu, select a grading period.

Tip: Before adding a grading period to an assignment, create a grading period for the class first. Learn how to create or edit grading periods .

You can change the point value of an assignment or make the assignment ungraded. By default, assignments are set at 100 points.

• Under Points , click the value.
• Enter a new point value or select Ungraded .

By default, an assignment has no due date. To set a due date:

• Click a date on the calendar.
• To create a topic, click Create topic and enter a topic name.
• Click a topic in the list to select it.

Note : You can only add one topic to an assignment.

Learn more about how to add topics to the Classwork page .

• Create an assignment.

• Important: Google Drive files can be edited by co-teachers and are view-only to students. To change these share options, you can stop, limit, or change sharing .

• To add YouTube videos, an admin must turn on this option. Learn about access settings for your Google Workspace for Education account .
• You can add interactive questions to YouTube video attachments. Learn how to add interactive questions to YouTube video attachments .

• Tip: When you attach a practice set to an assignment, you can't edit it.

• If you see a message that you don’t have permission to attach a file, click Copy . Classroom makes a copy of the file to attach to the assignment and saves it to the class Drive folder.
• Students can view file —All students can read the file, but not edit it.
• Students can edit file —All students share the same file and can make changes to it.

Note : This option is only available before you post an assignment.

Use an add-on

For instructions, go to Use add-ons in Classroom

For instructions, go to Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment .

For instructions, go to Turn on originality reports .

You can post an assignment immediately, or schedule it to post later. If you don’t want to post it yet, you can save it as a draft. To see scheduled and drafted assignments, click Classwork .

Post an assignment

• Follow the steps above to create an assignment.
• Click Assign to immediately post the assignment.

Schedule the assignment to post later

Scheduled assignments might be delayed up to 5 minutes after the post time.

• To schedule the same assignment across multiple classes, make sure to select all classes you want to include.
• When you enter a time, Classroom defaults to PM unless you specify AM.
• (Optional) Select a due date and topic for each class.
• (Optional) To replicate your selected time and date for the first class into all subsequent classes, click Copy settings to all .
• Click Schedule . The assignment will automatically post at the scheduled date and time.

After scheduling multiple assignments at once, you can still edit assignments later by clicking into each class and changing them individually.

Save an assignment as a draft

• Follow the steps above to create an assignment

You can open and edit draft assignments on the Classwork page.

Manage assignments

Edits affect individual classes. For multi-class assignments, make edits in each class.

Note : If you change an assignment's name, the assignment's Drive folder name isn't updated. Go to Drive and rename the folder.

Edit a posted assignment

• Enter your changes and click Save .

Edit a scheduled assignment

• Enter your changes and click Schedule .

Edit a draft assignment

Changes are automatically saved.

• Assign it immediately (details above).
• Schedule it to post at a specific date and time (details above).
• Click a class.

You can only delete an assignment on the Classwork page.

If you delete an assignment, all grades and comments related to the assignment are deleted. However, any attachments or files created by you or the students are still available in Drive.

Related articles

• Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment
• Create a quiz assignment
• Create a question
• Use add-ons in Classroom
• Create, edit, delete, or share a practice set
• Learn about interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

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MISSED exam/assignment & need makeup (PROF advice)

GUIDE to talking to your professor about missing an assignment or exam

As a former professor, with over a decade of experience, I am going to share with you exactly what I would have wanted to hear from my students when they missed an exam or assignment.

And it’s probably not what you would think either.

Then I will let you know how often I would let students makeup a missing assignment or exam so you get a better understanding of your chances.

Finally, I will give you an email template of what to say to your professor when you miss an assignment or exam to help get you a second chance to complete it.

What does it mean to makeup an exam or assignment?

If a student wants to makeup an exam or assignment, this means that the student missed the exam or failed to turn in the assignment. And the student received a zero because they were not present to complete it or failed to turn it in before the deadline.

The professor would give the student an opportunity to complete the exam or assignment and turn it in after the deadline. The grade would replace the missing grade you have because you couldn’t take the exam or didn’t complete the assignment.

It is important to understand the difference between a makeup exam and retaking an exam because these are treated differently by your professors. While some professors may allow a makeup exam, they might not allow students to retake exams.

What is an excuse to makeup an exam or assignment?

If a student wants to makeup an exam or assignment, they want another chance to take it and earn a grade for the assignment. There are some excuses for missing an exam or assignment but it will vary based on the institution and the professor. Some of the excuses to MAKEUP a missed exam or assignment include :

Documented medical issues

Hospitalization

Student related activity

Religious holy days

Funeral of immediate relative

Military duty

Disability accommodations

Internet connection or technical issue (if online)

While I listed some reasons why your professor may allow you to makeup an exam or assignment, I will now tell you some reasons why your professor might NOT allow you to complete a makeup exam or assignment. Keep in mind that your professor may still allow you to complete it late regardless of your excuse.

Some of those reasons may include :

Forgot about it

Studied for another class

Busy with work

Car trouble

Wasn’t prepared

From reviewing the excuses above, you can tell that some of them are more important than others. For example, if you have a valid and documented reason to miss an assignment, then your professor is more likely to allow a makeup opportunity compared to excuses about your unprepardness.

And if you contacted them BEFORE you missed the assignment, you may get to make it up compared to students who reach out to their professors days or even weeks after the missed assignment or exam.

But if you were just unprepared and didn’t take the class seriously, they probably won’t give you another chance to do the assignment late.

One question you should ask yourself is if you didn’t complete the assignment because you were unprepared or unorganized, you may not be entitled to makeup the assignment. But if something traumatic or unavoidable happened, you may get to make it up.

Can you makeup an exam or assignment in college?

College students may be able to makeup an exam or assignment if their professor allows students to have a second chance. It will depend on the student’s excuse and if they have documentation. It will also depend on the professor’s policy.

Some professors are much more lenient when it comes to makeup assignments, while others have strict policies and won’t budge.

Usually there isn’t a university wide policy regarding missed assignments so your professor has a lot of discretion . Professors usually have the ability to let students makeup assignments. While it is not a guarantee, it is something that happens in college.

You won’t know if you can makeup the assignment if you don’t ask. And there is no harm in asking.

As a former professor, I allowed my students an opportunity to makeup an exam or assignment about 10% of the time. This would depend on my particular late policy I had that semester and the student’s excuse.

One time, there was a natural disaster and students couldn’t get online because the internet was completely down. The students really needed to access their online textbook to study. So, those students who were effected by the natural disaster were given an opportunity to complete it late.

Should you ask your professor to makeup an exam or assignment?

If you have a valid excuse, and talk to your professor early, you should ask your professor if you can makeup an assignment to replace the zero you received.

However, I think that anyone who cares about their course grade should ask their professor for a makeup opportunity. Because this zero will effect your overall grade and you never know what your professor will say.

They might allow you to make it up and you wouldn’t know because you didn’t ask. So, regardless if you have a decent excuse, you should still ask because you might be surprised by their answer.

If they say no, oh well. Nothing is lost. But if they say yes, you have a lot to gain by the second chance you’ve been given.

How to talk to your professor about missing an exam or assignment?

Do it quickly.

Go in person.

Explain your circumstances.

Bring documentation.

You don’t want to wait and talk to your professor about making up an assignment weeks after it was due. After so much time has passed, your professor isn’t going to let you complete it late.

However, if you go soon after the assignment was due or the exam date passed, your professor is more likely to give you have a second chance.

I want to mention that you aren’t required to provide medical documentation to your professor , at least not directly. I wouldn’t want to share my personal medical information with my professor. Now, if it’s just a doctor’s note excusing you from the class, that’s one thing, but if it’s your hospital discharge papers, that’s too personal.

If you have this documentation, you might need to talk to someone in the accommodation’s office to see if you can get some reasonable accommodations for your medical issues.

Just let your professor know that you are working on this process to keep them in the loop. I guess this process could be different depending on what country you live in and if you are at a private or public university.

You may want to try and get an EXTENSION on your assignment r ather than missing it and making it up. So, if you see a deadline for an assignment, and you are worried you cannot complete it, you should talk to your professor about getting an extension first.

But if you already missed the exam or assignment, that won’t help you. I will tell you what I wish my students would have said to me when they missed an assignment.

BEFORE you ask for a second chance, please review your professor’s syllabus. Sometimes students would email me about a missed assignment, but I had to explain to them that they could still complete it late for a penalty. They would have known that if they read the syllabus before sending me an email.

I think it’s important to look at your syllabus first because you might be able to turn it in or complete it late RIGHT NOW. And if you take the time to email your professor, it will cause delay. You may miss a deadline for a second chance because you are waiting on an email from your professor.

So, it’s really important to understand what your professor’s policies are in regards to late assignments or missed exams.

What to tell your professor when you miss an assignment

If you miss an exam or assignment in college, you need to talk to your professor immediately. Explain why you missed it. If you have documentation, provide it.

And then tell them that you want the opportunity to complete it late.

You can let them know you would even be willing to complete it for a late penalty.

I need to tell you that you should be honest in your communication to your professor. I don’t want you to simply copy and paste my example, but edit it to fit your needs. I am just sharing with you an example of what I would have liked to hear from my former students.

You should tell your professor the TRUTH when you are asking to makeup something in their course .

Email template to professor for missed exam

Here is an example of what I would have loved to have heard from my students when they missed an assignment.

Dear Professor, I missed our last exam because I was attending my grandfather’s funeral. I have a link to his obituary at the bottom of this email for verification. I was spending time with my family and grieving the loss of my closest grandfather when I missed our latest exam. The funeral was in another state so I had travel arrangements too. I would have sent an email earlier but I was in a frenzy. I would love the opportunity to complete the exam. If I don’t get to complete this exam, I worry that the zero I received will really hurt my overall grade in this course and this does not reflect my knowledge of the subject. By completing the exam, I will be learning the material better by studying. And the exam grade will let me know if I am on track and I can see my progress in the course. While I am concerned about the zero I received, I am more concerned about missing the opportunity to monitor my progress in this course to understand if I am missing important concepts. When I study for the exam, I will learn more of the class material. This will help me in the future. I am willing to take the exam at the most convenient time for you and with a penalty, if necessary. I would also be willing to take a modified version of the exam, if necessary. Thank you.

Look, you are really trying to let them know that the missing assignment is only half of your concern but your biggest concern is how missing the exam hurts your progress in the course.

Think about it for a second. If you don’t study and prepare for the exam, that is valuable information your will never learn. And if you want to complete an assignment late, the feedback that you get from your professor is critical to your college education.

How can you tell how well you are doing in the class if you don’t get to complete the assignments? Your professor will be glad that you are worried about this more than a grade.

But remember, if you don’t really care either way, you shouldn’t pretend. Just tell them the truth. This is just what I would have wanted to hear.

Can you makeup a final exam in college?

Since college final exams are at the end of the semester, students won’t typically be allowed an opportunity to makeup a final exam.

When I was a professor, we had to enter grades within a day or two after the final exam. This means that there was not an opportunity to allow students a chance to makeup the exam. There wouldn’t be enough time for them to take it before the college wanted grades submitted to them.

So, while you can ask if you can makeup a final exam, just know that there may be little your professor can do if they already submitted grades. Plus, a lot of professors may not even be on campus after the final exam so they won’t have the ability to let you make it up anyway.

What to do if you miss an exam or assignment in college?

If you miss an exam or assignment in college, you need to talk to your professor immediately. I recommend going to your professor in person because it makes it more personable. Let them know your circumstances, and ask them if you can makeup the assignment.

You should be prepared for them to say no. If they say no, and you are not given a second chance, you should ask them how your overall grade will be effected.

Sometimes a zero for an assignment could cause you to fail the class or make a really bad grade. You might be better off withdrawing from the course, if necessary. And if you are failing because of this grade , you should talk to your professor about failing instead.

This is something that your professor can answer for you. I wouldn’t do anything until you talk to your professor.

You will need to get back on track in the course to make up for this zero if you have a chance to pass.

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Bouncing back from a bad grade (easier than you think)

Bad grade and want redo : how to ask prof (written by one).

• 1.1 Pronunciation
• 1.2.1 Usage notes
• 1.2.2 Synonyms
• 1.2.3 Derived terms
• 1.2.4 Translations
• 1.3 Anagrams

English [ edit ]

Pronunciation [ edit ].

• ( UK ) IPA ( key ) : /pɑːs ˈʌp/

Verb [ edit ]

pass up ( third-person singular simple present passes up , present participle passing up , simple past and past participle passed up )

• 2011 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Everton 0 - 2 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport ‎ [1] : Everton were, perhaps understandably, deflated at the setback and it was no surprise when Suarez added Liverpool's second after 82 minutes. Distin and Baines were involved in a mix-up as the Uruguayan advanced into the area, and he was not about to pass up the gift to shoot low past Howard.
• 2023 October 19, Brendan I. Koerner, “Watch This Guy Work, and You’ll Finally Understand the TikTok Era”, in Wired ‎ [2] , →ISSN : But he also feared that if he passed up the opportunity, he’d never learn the skills necessary to take his clients to the next level.
• 1979 September 16, “THE TWENTY MAXIMS”, in The Straits Times ‎ [3] , page 1: Be punctual and pass up schoolwork on time.
• 2004 , Lana Yiu Lan Khong, Family Matters: The Role of Parents in the Singapore Education , page 159 : The teachers called me, she doesn't do her work, she doesn't pass up work, she'll hide her papers everywhere.
• 2015 May 11, Hafsah Ali, Shhhh!!! Can Airport Talk? : At times, when I had to pass up assignments, I did them whenever I had any free time at work.
• ( transitive ) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pass ,‎ up . Can you pass up this box to the guy on the ladder?

Usage notes [ edit ]

Sense 2 is typically used in Singapore in educational contexts; more often in speech than writing.

Synonyms [ edit ]

Derived terms [ edit ].

• pass up like a white chip

Translations [ edit ]

Anagrams [ edit ].

• English terms with IPA pronunciation
• English terms with audio links
• English lemmas
• English verbs
• English phrasal verbs
• English phrasal verbs with particle (up)
• English multiword terms
• English idioms
• English transitive verbs
• English terms with usage examples
• English terms with quotations
• Singapore English
• Malaysian English

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April 2024 Community Newsletter

We're pleased to share the April Community Newsletter, where we highlight the latest news, product releases, upcoming events, and the amazing work of our outstanding Community members.   If you're new to the Community, please make sure to follow the latest News & Announcements and check out the Community on LinkedIn as well! It's the best way to stay up-to-date with all the news from across Microsoft Power Platform and beyond.    COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS   Check out the most active community members of the last month! These hardworking members are posting regularly, answering questions, kudos, and providing top solutions in their communities. We are so thankful for each of you--keep up the great work! If you hope to see your name here next month, follow these awesome community members to see what they do!   Power AppsPower AutomateCopilot StudioPower PagesWarrenBelzDeenujialexander2523ragavanrajanLaurensMManishSolankiMattJimisonLucas001AmikcapuanodanilostephenrobertOliverRodriguestimlAndrewJManikandanSFubarmmbr1606VishnuReddy1997theMacResolutionsVishalJhaveriVictorIvanidzejsrandhawahagrua33ikExpiscornovusFGuerrero1PowerAddictgulshankhuranaANBExpiscornovusprathyooSpongYeNived_Nambiardeeksha15795apangelesGochixgrantjenkinsvasu24Mfon   LATEST NEWS Business Applications Launch Event - On Demand In case you missed the Business Applications Launch Event, you can now catch up on all the announcements and watch the entire event on-demand inside Charles Lamanna's latest cloud blog.   This is your one stop shop for all the latest Copilot features across Power Platform and #Dynamics365, including first-hand looks at how companies such as Lenovo, Sonepar, Ford Motor Company, Omnicom and more are using these new capabilities in transformative ways. Click the image below to watch today!     Power Platform Community Conference 2024 is here! It's time to look forward to the next installment of the Power Platform Community Conference, which takes place this year on 18-20th September 2024 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas!   Come and be inspired by Microsoft senior thought leaders and the engineers behind the #PowerPlatform, with Charles Lamanna, Sangya Singh, Ryan Cunningham, Kim Manis, Nirav Shah, Omar Aftab and Leon Welicki already confirmed to speak. You'll also be able to learn from industry experts and Microsoft MVPs who are dedicated to bridging the gap between humanity and technology. These include the likes of Lisa Crosbie, Victor Dantas, Kristine Kolodziejski, David Yack, Daniel Christian, Miguel Félix, and Mats Necker, with many more to be announced over the coming weeks.   Click here to watch our brand-new sizzle reel for #PPCC24 or click the image below to find out more about registration. See you in Vegas!     Power Up Program Announces New Video-Based Learning Hear from Principal Program Manager, Dimpi Gandhi, to discover the latest enhancements to the Microsoft #PowerUpProgram. These include a new accelerated video-based curriculum crafted with the expertise of Microsoft MVPs, Rory Neary and Charlie Phipps-Bennett. If you’d like to hear what’s coming next, click the image below to find out more!     UPCOMING EVENTS Microsoft Build - Seattle and Online - 21-23rd May 2024 Taking place on 21-23rd May 2024 both online and in Seattle, this is the perfect event to learn more about low code development, creating copilots, cloud platforms, and so much more to help you unleash the power of AI.   There's a serious wealth of talent speaking across the three days, including the likes of Satya Nadella, Amanda K. Silver, Scott Guthrie, Sarah Bird, Charles Lamanna, Miti J., Kevin Scott, Asha Sharma, Rajesh Jha, Arun Ulag, Clay Wesener, and many more.   And don't worry if you can't make it to Seattle, the event will be online and totally free to join. Click the image below to register for #MSBuild today!     European Collab Summit - Germany - 14-16th May 2024 The clock is counting down to the amazing European Collaboration Summit, which takes place in Germany May 14-16, 2024. #CollabSummit2024 is designed to provide cutting-edge insights and best practices into Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Teams, Viva, and so much more. There's a whole host of experts speakers across the three-day event, including the likes of Vesa Juvonen, Laurie Pottmeyer, Dan Holme, Mark Kashman, Dona Sarkar, Gavin Barron, Emily Mancini, Martina Grom, Ahmad Najjar, Liz Sundet, Nikki Chapple, Sara Fennah, Seb Matthews, Tobias Martin, Zoe Wilson, Fabian Williams, and many more.   Click the image below to find out more about #ECS2024 and register today!   Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Conference - Seattle - 3-7th June If you're looking to turbo boost your Power Platform skills this year, why not take a look at everything TechCon365 has to offer at the Seattle Convention Center on June 3-7, 2024.   This amazing 3-day conference (with 2 optional days of workshops) offers over 130 sessions across multiple tracks, alongside 25 workshops presented by Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Viva, Azure, Copilot and AI experts. There's a great array of speakers, including the likes of Nirav Shah, Naomi Moneypenny, Jason Himmelstein, Heather Cook, Karuana Gatimu, Mark Kashman, Michelle Gilbert, Taiki Y., Kristi K., Nate Chamberlain, Julie Koesmarno, Daniel Glenn, Sarah Haase, Marc Windle, Amit Vasu, Joanne C Klein, Agnes Molnar, and many more.   Click the image below for more #Techcon365 intel and register today!   For more events, click the image below to visit the Microsoft Community Days website.    

Tuesday Tip | Update Your Community Profile Today!

It's time for another TUESDAY TIPS, your weekly connection with the most insightful tips and tricks that empower both newcomers and veterans in the Power Platform Community! Every Tuesday, we bring you a curated selection of the finest advice, distilled from the resources and tools in the Community. Whether you’re a seasoned member or just getting started, Tuesday Tips are the perfect compass guiding you across the dynamic landscape of the Power Platform Community.   We're excited to announce that updating your community profile has never been easier! Keeping your profile up to date is essential for staying connected and engaged with the community.   Check out the following Support Articles with these topics: Accessing Your Community ProfileRetrieving Your Profile URLUpdating Your Community Profile Time ZoneChanging Your Community Profile Picture (Avatar)Setting Your Date Display Preferences Click on your community link for more information: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, Copilot Studio   Thank you for being an active part of our community. Your contributions make a difference! Best Regards, The Community Management Team

Hear what's next for the Power Up Program

Hear from Principal Program Manager, Dimpi Gandhi, to discover the latest enhancements to the Microsoft #PowerUpProgram, including a new accelerated video-based curriculum crafted with the expertise of Microsoft MVPs, Rory Neary and Charlie Phipps-Bennett. If you’d like to hear what’s coming next, click the link below to sign up today! https://aka.ms/PowerUp  

Tuesday Tip: Community User Groups

It's time for another TUESDAY TIPS, your weekly connection with the most insightful tips and tricks that empower both newcomers and veterans in the Power Platform Community! Every Tuesday, we bring you a curated selection of the finest advice, distilled from the resources and tools in the Community. Whether you’re a seasoned member or just getting started, Tuesday Tips are the perfect compass guiding you across the dynamic landscape of the Power Platform Community.   As our community family expands each week, we revisit our essential tools, tips, and tricks to ensure you’re well-versed in the community’s pulse. Keep an eye on the News & Announcements for your weekly Tuesday Tips—you never know what you may learn!   Today's Tip: Community User Groups and YOU Being part of, starting, or leading a User Group can have many great benefits for our community members who want to learn, share, and connect with others who are interested in the Microsoft Power Platform and the low-code revolution.   When you are part of a User Group, you discover amazing connections, learn incredible things, and build your skills. Some User Groups work in the virtual space, but many meet in physical locations, meaning you have several options when it comes to building community with people who are learning and growing together!   Some of the benefits of our Community User Groups are: Network with like-minded peers and product experts, and get in front of potential employers and clients.Learn from industry experts and influencers and make your own solutions more successful.Access exclusive community space, resources, tools, and support from Microsoft.Collaborate on projects, share best practices, and empower each other. These are just a few of the reasons why our community members love their User Groups. Don't wait. Get involved with (or maybe even start) a User Group today--just follow the tips below to get started.For current or new User Group leaders, all the information you need is here: User Group Leader Get Started GuideOnce you've kicked off your User Group, find the resources you need:  Community User Group ExperienceHave questions about our Community User Groups? Let us know! We are here to help you!

• Conjunctions
• Prepositions

PASS UP in a Sentence Examples: 21 Ways to Use Pass Up

Are you the type of person who can never pass up a good deal? “Pass up” is a phrasal verb that means to miss an opportunity or to decline something that is being offered.

This expression is commonly used in casual conversation when referring to situations where someone decides not to take advantage of a favorable or tempting opportunity. Keep reading to learn more about how and when to use “pass up” in your daily language.

Table of Contents

7 Examples Of Pass Up Used In a Sentence For Kids

• Don’t pass up the chance to learn something new today.
• We should pass up our toys when we finish playing with them.
• It’s important to never pass up a chance to be kind to others.
• Let’s all work together and pass up the crayons to our friends.
• Don’t pass up the opportunity to explore and discover new things.
• Remember to pass up your books when it’s time for reading.
• We should always pass up our turn to speak and listen to others.

14 Sentences with Pass Up Examples

• Pass up the opportunity to attend the leadership workshop happening on campus next week.
• Don’t pass up the chance to join the debate club this semester.
• Remember to pass up any unhealthy snacks in the cafeteria and opt for a balanced meal instead.
• It’s important not to pass up networking opportunities at college events to build connections for the future.
• Make sure to pass up procrastination and start working on your assignments early.
• Don’t pass up the chance to volunteer for community service projects during the holiday break.
• It’s a good idea to pass up unnecessary expenses and save money for future emergencies.
• When it comes to career fairs, never pass up the chance to interact with potential employers.
• You should not pass up the chance to participate in extracurricular activities that interest you.
• Don’t pass up the chance to take part in the upcoming sports tournament on campus.
• Make sure to pass up negative influences and surround yourself with positive and supportive friends.
• Don’t pass up the opportunity to study abroad during your college years.
• It’s essential not to pass up the chance to attend important guest lectures by renowned scholars.
• Remember not to pass up valuable internship opportunities that can enhance your resume.

How To Use Pass Up in Sentences?

Pass Up in a sentence is used to indicate a missed opportunity or decision not to take advantage of something. When using Pass Up in a sentence, remember that the main word should be followed by the object or opportunity that was missed. For example, “I had to pass up the chance to go to the concert because I was sick.”

It’s important to note that Pass Up can also be used in a context where someone chooses not to participate in an activity or decline an offer. For instance, “She decided to pass up the job offer because it required too much traveling.”

When constructing a sentence with Pass Up , consider the context and tone of the situation. Using it in a casual or formal setting will dictate the phrasing and overall impact of the sentence.

To enhance the understanding of Pass Up in a sentence, it can be beneficial to provide examples that illustrate the object or opportunity that was not taken advantage of. This will provide clarity and help reinforce the meaning of the phrase for beginners.

In summary, when using Pass Up in a sentence, ensure clarity by following it with the specific opportunity or decision that was not taken. Remember to consider the context and tone of the sentence to effectively communicate the message.

In conclusion, the phrase “pass up” signifies the act of missing an opportunity or choosing not to take advantage of something. This could apply to various scenarios, from declining a job offer to refusing a chance to attend an event. When we pass up opportunities, it is essential to consider the potential consequences and weigh our decisions carefully. It is crucial to evaluate whether passing up on something aligns with our goals and values, as it can impact our future path.

By recognizing when to seize opportunities and when it is appropriate to pass up on certain offers, we can make informed decisions that lead to personal growth and success. Being mindful of why we choose to pass up on opportunities enables us to navigate life’s choices more effectively and ultimately helps us pursue paths that resonate with our aspirations.

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• Grade Calculators

Weighted Grade Calculator

Assignments

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Assignment 3

Assignment 4

Assignment 5

Assignment 6

Assignment 7

Assignment 8

Assignment 9

Assignment 10

Your Grade Average:

To determine what grade you need to get on your remaining assignments (or on your final exam), enter the total weight of all of your class assignments (often the total weight is 100). Then enter the desired grade you would like to get in the class.

Enter Desired Grade

Enter Class Total Weight

Instructions

You can use the calculator above to calculate your weighted grade average. For each assignment, enter the grade you received and the weight of the assignment. If you have more than 10 assignments, use the "Add Row" button to add additional input fields. Once you have entered your data, press the "calculate" button and you will see the calculated average grade in the results area.

If you want to calculate the average grade you need on your remaining assignments (or on your final exam) in order to get a certain grade in the class, enter the desired grade you would like to get in the class. Then enter the total weight of all your class assignments. Often the total weight of all class assignments is equal to 100, but this is not always the case. Press either the “Calculate” button or the “Update” button and you will see your average grade for the class and the results will be displayed in the results area.

Video Instructions

How to calculate weighted grade average?

• First multiple the grade received by the weight of the assignment. Repeat this for each completed assignment.
• Then add each of the calculated values from step 1 together.
• Next add the weight of all the completed assignments together.
• Finally, divide the calculated value from step 2 above by the value calculated from step 3. This gives you the weighted grade average.

Weighted Grade Formula

Weighted Grade = (w 1 x g 1 + w 2 x g 2 + w 3 x g 3 + …) / (w 1 + w 2 + w 3 + …)

Example Calculation

Here is an example. Let's say you received a 90% on your first assignment and it was worth 10% of the class grade. Then let's assume you took a test and received an 80% on it. The test was worth 20% of your grade.

To calculate your average grade, follow these steps:

• Multiple each grade by its weight. In this example, you received a 90% on the first assignment and it was worth 10%. So multiply 90 x 10 = 900. You also received an 80% on the test and it was worth 20% of the class grade. So multiply 80 x 20 = 1600.
• Add the calculated values from step 1 together. We now have 900 + 1600 = 2500.
• Add the weight of all the completed assignments together. To do this, add 10% for the first assignment and 20% for the second assignment. That gives us 10 + 20 = 30.
• Finally, divide the value from step 2 by the value from step 3. That gives us 2500 / 30 = 83.33. Therefore our weighted grade average is 83.33%.

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Student resources

Higher education assessment, student rules: higher education assessment.

Assessment is a broad term that covers both assignments and examinations.

The term assignment refers to a coursework assessment such as an essay, report or practice session which has a due date and word limit and which the student completes under non-supervised conditions. The assignment is marked and returned to the student with feedback.

The term examination refers to any component that requires students to complete an assessment under supervised conditions within a time-limited period. Examinations will typically be held at the end of the term, may include multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and essay type questions, and may be open book.  

The following contains important information on higher education assessment at ACAP. Use the links to navigate to the relevant section or scroll down to view the entire document:

• Assessment Responsibilities and Obligations

Assessment Rules

Assignments, examinations, assessment appeals, the grading system, acap higher education grading categories.

• Table of Grading Categories

ANCHOR – Assessment Responsibilities and Obligations

Assessment responsibilities and obligations

The Academic Board of the college assigns responsibility for coordinating assessment duties to the colleges’ academic staff who are responsible for monitoring the practice of assessment in units and courses to ensure that fair, effective and consistent assessment practices are in place.

The responsibility for conducting assessments lies with the unit academic teachers, who are committed to using good assessment practices, and to maintaining and acquiring knowledge and expertise concerning assessment and the role of feedback in student learning.

Academic staff ensure that assessment for a unit is consistent with the aims, objectives and content of that unit.

The responsibilities of academic teachers include:

• providing constructive and timely feedback on work presented by students
• adhering to the assignment plans, including the documented assignment-submission-deadline policy of the unit
• informing students of the relationship of assessments to a unit’s aims and objectives
• informing students of the expectations of assessment, including any formal criteria and standards against which student’s performance is to be evaluated, length (words/duration), weighting and submission dates for all assessments
• reporting on the student’s progress and achievement in an honest, clear and objective manner which is based only on relevant data

The responsibilities and obligations of students include:

• being aware of the specific requirements to pass a unit, including attendance, submission of work, assessment and progress policies, and the rules of progression and requirements for an award
• being aware of mechanisms within the college for seeking assistance and advice, in particular in relation to problems in meeting assignment deadlines, absence or withdrawal from a unit and special consideration due to illness or other misadventure
• behaving in a manner that does not result in either academic disadvantage to any student or unfair advantage to any student
• acting with integrity and not engaging in academic misconduct of any kind
• ensuring that full acknowledgement is given to the use of another person’s work, thoughts and/or intellectual property, and not engaging in plagiarism
• being aware of the procedures for appeal against academic decisions

ANCHOR – Assessment Rules

Passing a unit

To pass a unit:

1. the student’s aggregate mark must equal or exceed 50%; and

Unless otherwise stated, students are not required to pass all assessments in order to receive an overall pass result for the unit, as long as their total mark is equal to or greater than 50% and all assessments have been submitted.

2. all compulsory requirements of the unit as specified in the unit manual or plan must be passed; and

For the unit Counselling Skills 2 in which there is a skills based assessment (practice session) and central to the learning outcomes of the unit, it is a requirement that the student passes the skills assessment. If the assessment also requires a critique then both the skills assessment and critique need to be passed to pass the unit Counselling Skills 2. Skills assessments and requirements will be identified in the unit manuals or unit plans and will be communicated to students by the educator. Please note that both the skills-based units and assessments may change from time to time.

3. all assessments for that unit must be submitted and any examination for that unit must be attempted; and

It is a requirement that  all assessments for a unit must be submitted in order to pass the unit . This rule applies regardless of whether a student has received marks of 50% or more without submitting one or more assessments.

4. attendance requirements must be met.

Ungraded pass and ungraded fail

Some units at the college may have ungraded results, that is, ungraded pass or ungraded fail. To be awarded a result of ungraded pass students must:

• complete all assessments for that unit; and,
• pass all compulsory components of the unit as specified in the unit manual or unit plan; and
• pass all assessment components to pass the unit where specified as a requirement in the unit manual or unit plan; and
• meet the specified attendance requirements for the unit.

ANCHOR – Assignments

Completing the assignment

Assignments may take a variety of forms as outlined on the  Student Learning Website academic guides . Refer to the information on the different types of assignment genres and what is required in terms of general formatting for all assessments. This site contains information on academic writing skills and will assist students to learn about referencing. Referencing guidelines can be found on the  ACAP Library Website .

Academic honesty

Students are expected to conduct themselves in an honest and ethical manner at all times and be aware of the official ACAP  Academic Misconduct Policy . Students must always acknowledge the source of the ideas and material used in assessments using the referencing guidelines found on the  ACAP Library Website .

Referencing

All work used in the preparation of assessments must be acknowledged according to the  official discipline referencing guide . ACAP has mainly adopted the use of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual (6th edition) [APA] style. The discipline of Criminology uses the Harvard Referencing System.

Submission of assignments

The college acknowledges the family, work and community commitments and responsibilities of students, however, all students are expected to submit their assignments by the due date and plan their time to ensure this occurs.

The timely submission of assignments or the appropriate negotiation of an extension is the responsibility of the student.

• All students are required to submit their written assignments online by the due date. The due date is midnight Sunday at the end of the week specified by the unit assignment requirements. All written assignments must be uploaded onto the online grade book in my.acap.  All written assessments must be submitted in Microsoft Word format. PDF format will not be accepted.
• Audio-visual assignments (e.g. practice sessions) can be submitted online or in hard copy on DVD. Online submission is preferred.

Audio-visual assignments can be uploaded into the online grade book in the online class space no later than midnight Sunday at the end of the week specified by the unit assignment requirements.

Submissions on DVD must be received by  5pm on the Friday  of the week specified:

a) for on-campus students at the respective campus

b) for online students by the Online Assistant at the address:

Online Assistant, ACAP, Locked Bag 11, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2012.

Students are required to retain a copy of all parts of their submitted assignments, including written and recorded materials, until graduation and to produce these if requested by the college.

Turnitin is a system which compares a text, such as an assignment, with a range of sources including the internet, electronic journals, books, databases, literature, works of art, bibliographies and any student assignments which have been submitted previously through Turnitin.

At ACAP all written assignments must be submitted through Turnitin. This is an automated process. Draft assignments are able to be checked through Turnitin and are able to be reviewed and reworked by the student prior to final submission. In this way the submission through Turnitin is envisaged as a formative and educative process.

When an assignment is submitted through Turnitin the system will colour code the sections which appear in other sources and will produce a similarity score expressed as a percentage. The similarity score indicates how much of the assignment is found in other sources. For assignments at the college, the amount of directly quoted material should be no more than 10% as a general rule. Students should submit their work through Turnitin before the due date and allow sufficient time for revision if required. It is important to note that Turnitin only compares the assignment to other sources it does not check whether correct referencing has been used. Correct referencing is the responsibility of the student and is assessed by the educator.

Client/Interviewee Consent Form

To protect the privacy of individuals who consent to participate in recorded client sessions, role-plays or interviews that involve the disclosure of private information, the college requires students to seek the informed consent of the client and/or interviewee. Students are required to engage persons 18 years of age or over for the purposes of recorded sessions, role-plays and interviews unless otherwise stated in the assignment requirements.

Where it is a requirement of the assignment to engage a person under the age of 18, it is mandatory that parental consent be sought and obtained prior to the practice session or interview taking place in addition to the consent of the person if they are of an age whereby they can make an informed decision regarding their involvement (12 years and older). Please note that if there is a need to engage a person under the age of 18 that this person cannot be a family member of the student.

Client/Interviewee Consent Form  can be found on the ACAP website.

Upon completion of the program of study at the college, the student must ensure that the recorded role-play or interview is erased or destroyed.

Late assignments

Please refer to the  Assessment Policy and Procedure  on the policies page of the website.

A late assignment is one that was not submitted by the original due date and for which the student has not been granted an extension.

Late assignments will only be accepted for marking within ten (10) calendar days of the original due date.

Late assignments will receive an academic penalty of five (5) percent per day late. For example, if a student receives 67% but was 2 days late in submitting the assignment the final mark is calculated as 67 – 10 (i.e. 2 days x 5%) = 57%.

Requesting an extension of time for an assignment

Students are notified of assessment details well in advance of due dates. All students are expected to submit their assessments by the due date. In rare circumstances a student may be granted an extension of time for the submission of an assessment.

The timely submission of assessment or the appropriate negotiation of an extension is the responsibility of the student. As students are notified of assessment details well in advance of due dates, extensions will not be granted without demonstrated serious cause.

7 Day Extensions up to Assessment Due date

EXTENSION REQUESTS  are available via Self-serve 7 day extensions in the Learning space in Moodle   and Learn How to Request an Extension . 

Extensions Greater than 7 days

ALL EXTENSION REQUESTS are made using the official ASSESSMENT EXTENSION REQUEST FORM

*Extensions are not available for all units.

The assessment policy applies to all current students of the College.

Extensions will only be granted in extenuating circumstances and will only be considered on medical, compassionate or other serious grounds. The request must be accompanied by supporting documentation. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure all relevant supporting documentation is forwarded with the extension application. Submitting a request for an extension does not automatically mean that the extension will be granted.

Types of Extensions Available and How to Apply

Extension requests are made directly to the Academic Administration Team via the online form.

The unit/subject teacher will be informed via email if the extension is granted. No requests for extension should go to the teacher directly.

Extensions will normally only be granted if the request is made 48 hours prior to the assessment due date.

The College must be satisfied that unforeseen special circumstances apply and will not give extensions on other grounds, such as, poor time management or over commitment in terms of workload.

Students can apply for:

• Seven calendar days extension from the original due date
• An additional seven calendar days extension from the re-negotiated due date, if special circumstances apply

Required Supporting Information

Supporting information will depend upon your circumstances, but may include medical certificates, reports from a treating practitioner, or a police report.

If you are requesting an extension due to religious obligations you should provide a letter from your religious leader who is an authorized leader or your local faith or spiritual community, which includes:

• Your name and student number
• Details of the religious event, including name, dates and times
• How this impacts on your studies
• Specific assessments impacted, including unit code and name, assessment number and name, and the due date
• Details of your religious leader, including name, title, location, signature and contact detail

Limitations of Extensions

• The maximum extension granted is 14 calendar days.
• Quizzes, Group Work, Thesis and Researches are eligible for extension ONLY in case of unforeseeable adverse circumstances with mandatory Support Documentation.
• No extensions can be granted beyond the end of a trimester; this may mean that the maximum extension may not be available to all students in all assessments tasks.
• Extension requests can be made up to 48 hours before the assessment due date
• No extensions are available for resubmitted assessment tasks for which a grade of RR (Resubmission Required)* has been awarded* Applicable to ACAP VET only.

Notifications of Extensions

Students, and their teacher, will be notified of the outcome of their application by email as well as a note in the online gradebook. Students who have not received a response within this time frame should email ACAP Student Central [email protected] to follow up on their application.

Unsuccessful Extension Applications

If the application for an extension is unsuccessful the Assessment Late Submission Guidelines in Attachment 3 allows a student to submit their assessment for marking up to 10 calendar days after the original due date; however, an academic penalty of 5% per day will apply.

A student may appeal a decision to refuse an extension by following the College’s  Grievances, Complaints and Appeals Policy and Procedure .

ANCHOR – Examinations

Examinations are held under supervised, timed and controlled conditions.

Students must sit for the examination at the scheduled time and place as prescribed by the Registrar unless special circumstances apply.

Conduct at examinations

Students must bring their current student identification card into the examination room and keep it displayed at all times.

Students must comply with all directions given by the examination invigilator and all instructions outlined in the examination material or displayed in the examination room.

When requested, students must permit examination invigilators to inspect any material taken into or out of an examination room.

A student’s behaviour must not disturb, distract or adversely affect any other student.

Students are not permitted to remove any examination material from the examination room at any point in time. All examination papers and materials must be left on the table or handed to an examination invigilator before leaving the examination room.

Requirements for entering or leaving

Students are not permitted to enter or leave an examination room unless instructed by, or with the permission of, an examination invigilator. Students are not permitted to leave an examination room for any reason other than an emergency:

• In the first 30 minutes of the examination working time
• In the last 10 minutes of working time so as to minimise disruption to other students

Students who arrive late but before 30 minutes of working time have elapsed will be permitted to undertake the examination. However, no additional working time will be allowed.

Students who arrive after 30 minutes of working time have elapsed will not be permitted to enter the examination room.

Conduct during the examination

Upon entry to an examination room, a student will not communicate by word or otherwise with any other person except the examination invigilator or examiner.

Material allowed to be in the possession of the student

Students are not allowed to have mobile phones or other electronic devices including smartwatches in their possession during the examination. All mobile phones must be turned off prior to entering the examination room and may be left at the front of the examination room with the invigilator.

Students are permitted to take into the examination room:

• Writing instruments needed to complete the examination such as pens and pencils, ruler and white out.
• Water in a clear container
• Any other materials approved for the examination that has been specified in writing prior to the examination.

Students who are found to have breached any of the above rules for examinations may be found to have engaged in academic misconduct and are subject to the  Academic Misconduct Policy .

Alternate Examination Sittings

If a student is unable to sit an examination at the scheduled time due to special circumstances beyond the student’s control the student may be granted an alternate examination sitting. The Registrar will prescribe an alternative examination, time and place.

Alternate examination settings will only be approved in the following circumstances:

• Medical or compassionate reasons
• Religious preclusion of attendance. These must be communicated to the Registrar who will prescribe an alternative examination, time and place.
• Work commitments which are unforeseen and beyond the student’s control
• Competitive sporting event at a state, national or international level
• Military service

Applications for special circumstances must be made to the Academic Program Coordinator and must include documentary evidence to support the case for an alternate examination sitting. Students will need to provide documentation from a doctor, counsellor, employer or independent member of the community, which states:

• The date the special circumstances began
• How the circumstances preclude the student from sitting the scheduled examination
• The date it became apparent that the student could not sit the examination at the scheduled time.

Students with disabilities are normally required to sit the examination at the scheduled time and place however reasonable adjustments will be made to address the effects of their disabilities.

ANCHOR – Assessment Appeals

Each student has the right to appeal against an assessment decision, based on the valid grounds identified by the college. The student is the only person who can lodge an appeal. In the case of an assessment appeal, the student must approach the unit educator directly and every attempt should be made to resolve the issue at this level.

Appeals must be lodged by students  within ten (10) working days  of notification of the assignment decision as it can take up to 10 working days to be processed. To lodge an appeal the student must complete the  Assessment Appeals Form  and sent it to the appropriate address on the form.

If an assessment appeal is accepted as valid, the assessment will be re-marked by another educator. The old mark will be deleted and the new mark will be recorded as the mark received for the assessment. Should the appeal mark differ substantially from the original mark, a third, independent marker may be appointed to confirm the final grade. If a student is dissatisfied with the appeal decision, they may follow the  Academic Grievance and Appeals Policy and Procedure .

Valid grounds for appeal:

• the grade was not based on assignment marking criteria as specified in the ACAP assignment outline
• the grade may be objectively considered unfair based on stated criteria and quality of work
• obvious bias affecting the assignment result – this must be supported by specific instances
• other grounds accepted for appeal by the staff member coordinating the review

Invalid grounds for appeal:

• student’s uncertainty about the objectives of the unit
• the standard required to receive particular grades in the unit
• over enrolment or over commitment to work on the part of the student
• personal and medical problems (which should normally be dealt with by an extension request or deferral of studies)
• financial implications of not passing the unit
• grades received by the student in other units
• the amount of work the student has done
• a penalty imposed for plagiarism in accordance with ACAP’s policies
• general grievances
• the need for additional marks to enable a pass or higher grade

Please note: Personal, medical and employment difficulties will not be considered as valid grounds for an assignment appeal. Students experiencing such difficulties should consider deferring their studies with special circumstances. See the enrolment section of this handbook or the ACAP website ( www.acap.edu.au ) for further information.

ANCHOR – The Grading System

Each unit generally has two or more assessments. Each assessment carries a percentage weight of the total mark. Where the assessment is an assignment it is generally accompanied by an attachment with specific guidelines to assist students in the development or presentation of an assessment. These guidelines are intended to assist students in meeting the assignment standards and learning outcomes.

Individual assessment grades : Each assessment is marked and awarded a grade of High Distinction, Distinction, Credit, Pass, Fail, Ungraded Pass and Ungraded Fail. Results Pending is recorded as a temporary grade indicating that the results are pending marking of the assessment.

Overall unit grades : For their overall academic performance in a unit students are awarded a grading of High Distinction, Distinction, Credit, Pass, Fail, Ungraded Pass and Ungraded Fail. Results Pending is recorded as a temporary grade indicating that the results are pending marking of the assessment.

Please refer to the specific unit manual or unit plan for pass requirements.

Students will be able to view their results when they are released by logging into the Student Portal .

Term results will be made available as soon as possible after the end of the relevant term once approved by the Board of Examiners.

ANCHOR – ACAP Higher Education Grading Categories

Individual assessments

Each assessment component of a unit, including coursework assignments and examinations, is assessed according to the criteria listed below. There are two categories of results:

• graded result,
• ungraded pass/fail.

Unit manuals or plans indicate the result category that applies to each assessment component.

Graded result

For units where all assessment components are graded, a final result for the unit is awarded by combining the marks for each assessment according to the weight assigned to that assessment as specified in the unit outline or plan.

To be awarded a grade of Pass or higher students must:

• achieve an overall mark of 50% or greater;
• complete all assessments for that unit;
• pass all compulsory components of the unit as specified in the unit outline;

Ungraded pass/fail

Components assessed using ungraded pass/fail receive a grade only with no mark assigned:

• ungraded pass (UP) or
• ungraded fail (UF).

Ungraded passes are used to assess acquisition of essential professional skills. For units that include components in which essential skill acquisition is assessed with ungraded pass/fail grades the final result for the unit will be UP or UF (no mark).

Ungraded pass/fail assessment grades are not included for the purpose of calculating student grade point averages.

To be awarded a grade of Ungraded Pass students must:

• complete all assessments for that unit and,
• may be required to pass all assessment components to pass the unit where specified in the unit outline;

ANCHOR – Table of Grading Categories

Table of grading categories

This table list grades used to report student academic achievement. Grades are used at both the individual assessment task and overall unit/ subject final result level except where marked with an asterisk (*) which are used only at the individual assessment task level or marked with a caret symbol (^) which are used only at the overall unit/ subject final result level or market with a footnote.

Class of Honours awarded for Bachelor (Honours) degrees:

[1] Applicable to ACAP VET only

[2] Grade is used for the individual assessment task and overall unit/ subject, final result level at ACAP and used only at overall unit/ subject final result level at HSA

[3] Applicable to HSA VET only

4  HSA: Resulting of units of competency after census will appear as WF where students have not met the requirements of assessment and attendance.  

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Help Articles

Troubleshoot quizzes & assignments, learner help center mar 8, 2024 • knowledge, article details.

This article will help you troubleshoot assessments in your course.

If you're having a problem with peer-reviewed assignments , check our  troubleshooting page for peer reviewed assignments .

Some assessments use third-party tools (these will say External Tool when you view them). If you have a technical issue with these tools, try posting in your course discussion forum or searching the third-party’s website for help (our Support Team may not be able to assist with third-party tools).

Can't start or retake assessment

There may be a few reasons why you aren’t able to start or retake an assessment.

Locked assessments

You may not be able to start an assessment if it’s locked. Locked assessments will be marked with a lock icon when you view them in your course. You can open the assessment for more information on why it’s locked.

See this section for more info about locked assessments. 

Attempt limits

Some assessments may have a maximum number of attempts. You may get more attempts after a set amount of time. You can see this info when you open the assessment.

Staff-graded assignments

In private courses (such as courses in a Degree program), some assessments may be manually graded by your course staff. Once your course staff has started grading the assessment, you won’t be able to start a new attempt. You can open the assessment to see if grading has started.

If you don’t pass the assessment, you may be able to retake it after you’ve received a grade (as long as you haven’t met your attempt limit).

Learn more about grading in private courses

Back to top

If an assessment in your course has a lock icon next to it, you can open the assessment to see why it’s locked. You can use the troubleshooting information below to help unlock your assessments.

Pay the course certificate fee

If you’re auditing a course, graded assessments will be locked. Graded assessments will also be locked if your course payment expires.

You can pay the course certificate fee to unlock graded assessments and earn a certificate in the course.

Reset your deadlines

In some courses, assessments may be locked if you fall behind your personalized deadline. You can reset your deadlines to unlock these assessments.

Resetting your deadlines won’t affect your grade, and your progress in the course will be saved.

Passing previous assessments

For some courses, certain assessments will be locked until you've completed all the previous assessments and received a passing grade. 

You can view the Grades tab in your course to check for assessments that haven’t received a grade. 

Keep in mind that  peer-graded assignments may take 7-10 days to receive a grade (starting from the due date). If you’re taking a private course that uses  staff-graded assignments , it may take a while to receive a grade from your course staff. 

Completing previous course items

In some courses, your instructor may have chosen to lock graded assessments until you’ve completed all the previous items in that module.

When you open the assessment, you’ll see a notification that you haven't completed all the items in the module. If you see this notification, you’ll need to complete all items in the module to unlock your graded assessments. This includes any videos, readings, discussion prompts, or ungraded assessments. Completed assessments will be displayed with a green checkmark on the overview page for that module. 

If you’ve completed a course item that isn’t showing up as complete, try these troubleshooting tips.

Locked by course staff

In private courses (such as courses in a Degree program), your instructor may choose to make assessments available during specific date ranges. These assessments will be locked if you try to access them before or after those dates. You can open the assessment to see when it will be unlocked. 

Can't submit assessment

If you're having trouble submitting an assignment, make sure:

• You're submitting the correct assessment in the correct session.
• You're uploading the correct type of file (check the assignment information for any file type requirements).
• The file size isn't too big (we recommend files smaller than 10MB).
• You're using a  recommended browser.
• You've added https: to any URLs.
• For peer-graded assignments, see our  troubleshooting page.

You can also try uploading your assessment from a different network configuration (home vs. work) or checking your firewall settings.

Missing assessment after submitting

If you submitted your assessment, but you don't see a confirmation that you submitted it, you may have saved it as a draft instead of submitting.

To check for a saved draft on Coursera's new platform:

• Open the course the assignment is in.
• Click Grades and open the assignment you want to check for a saved draft.
• Click My submission.
• If your assignment has been saved as a draft, you'll be able to see and edit it. If you can see your assignment, but you can't edit it, that means you submitted the assignment.
• To submit your saved draft, click Submit at the bottom of the page. If your assignment was submitted but you didn't pass, you can choose Retake .

If you don't see any record of an assignment that you're sure you submitted:

• You may have accidentally created a second Coursera account and submitted the assignment from that account. Try  checking for a second account .
• You may need to clear your cache & cookies, then reload the page, to see the update after you submit an assignment.

Missing an assessment grade

Most assessments are automatically graded, so you’ll receive a grade immediately after you submit it. You can check the  status of your assessment in the Grades tab (you may need to refresh the page).

If you’re missing a grade for a programming assignment, check the  troubleshooting steps for programming assignments .

Assessments that aren’t auto-graded

Some assessments are not graded automatically, such as  peer-graded assignments and staff-graded assignments (for private courses). Open your assessment to check if you’re waiting for a grade from your peers or course staff.

Misunderstandings or disagreement with grade

If you have a grade for an assessment that you don't understand or you think is unfair:

• Check your course syllabus for grading information and requirements.
• Try  re-submitting the assignment to be graded again.
• Ask a question in the  discussion forums for the course.
• If you got inappropriate feedback from a peer, you can  report it.
• If you think your grade is wrong because of an error in the course materials, you can  flag it.

As a heads up, our Support Team can’t explain or change your grade for an assessment, since grading is determined by your instructor. You can email your dedicated support email alias for your Degree or MasterTrack program if you have questions about your grade.

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