Why won't students do the reading assignments?
Students frequently fail to complete assigned readings unless they face an immediate grade penalty for doing so. This forces teachers to spend unplanned time on extra grading and creates immense classroom frustration over student disengagement.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Giving a wake-up call quiz early in the year to let students suffer consequences and motivate them to do better.Did this help you?
- 2Telling students that everything is now graded if they askDid this help you?
- 3Explaining that exercises are like practice for sports or music rather than chores for pointsDid this help you?
- 4Giving students completion or partial completion grades instead of rigorous point trackingDid this help you?
- 5Telling students to assume everything is a grade and do their best workDid this help you?
- 6Using a station-based model with a brief whole-group instruction followed by multiple learning stationsDid this help you?
- 7Forcing students who failed to watch the lectures at home to complete them at the start of classDid this help you?
- 8Giving a quick review, intro quiz, or flash review at the beginning of classDid this help you?
- 9Posting all assignments and explanation videos onlineDid this help you?
- 10Giving paper copies and forcing digital access if paper is lostDid this help you?
- 11Instructing students on study methods and providing resourcesDid this help you?
- 12Stopping homework entirely and keeping all studying and learning in classDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“One of my classes had literally 1 kid read it.”source ↗
“I was so, so upset. So angry. I didn't raise my voice a bit, but I told them I felt disgust.”source ↗
“I did so much grading today that I did not plan to do because of this exact thing”source ↗
“Most of them appear to have very limited retention and transfer of the information being taught.”source ↗
“Even when students are listening during instruction, many of them cannot recall or apply the information when they’re expected to begin classwork, and I frequently have to physically hold up the book and guide my students page by page showing them which page to turn to in which questions are expected to complete despite very specific prompting.”source ↗
“None of my kids use Google Classroom!!”source ↗
“The kids don’t *STUDY* anymore.”source ↗
“I have lots of students who fully understand that in order to pass the test they need to do the exercises, but somehow just can't make themselves do the exercises unless they're going to get a grade on it.”source ↗
“I'm trying to effectively utilize my lecture time and I keep going back and forth on this.”source ↗
“A majority of students will not engage with the online content and will instead rely on the in-class activities to teach them everything.”source ↗
“I feel stuck just wishing I had an extra 30 minutes of class time so I could introduce the content and then do an in-class activity to reenforce it.”source ↗
“I hate grade grubbing so much.”source ↗
“I watch a lot of kids just copy and paste questions into google, even when the question doesn't make sense to do that like "which of 1 of these 4 doesn't belong" and then they won't put the actually choices in with it lol”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 9Why do high schools pass and graduate students who don't do any work?
- 3Why do I fail exams despite studying for months?
- 4Why am I being forced to give minimum grades for missing work?
- 2Why do homework questions have no explanation or poor wording?
- 4Why do my child's school grades make no sense?
- 4Why can't I retain anything from McGraw Hill?