How to Encourage Students to Turn In Quality Work

In my first year of teaching, a student submitted an essay to me that had been hastily scribbled on an inside panel of a cereal box. He admitted that he had written it on the way to school. Aside from the torn-cardboard aesthetic, the essay itself was unsurprisingly poor, lacking a coherent argument and even adherence to the rubric. At the time, I was annoyed; didn’t this student know better?

Looking back now as a veteran teacher, however, I know I hadn’t provided my students with precise expectations around work presentation, and other than advising them to develop an outline before writing, I hadn’t modeled doing so, required it, or checked it. Thus, the Othello-on-oat-flakes essay, silly as it was, could have been prevented by more clarity and instruction on my part. 

When we receive substandard work from a student, it’s easy to assume they’re just not trying. There could be shades of this—but it’s just as likely that something else might be the problem. A number of other reasons could be at play, and we’d be remiss not to consider them and how they can be circumvented.

Model Excellence

A student might not grasp what excellence looks like on an assignment. It’s our responsibility to provide clear expectations, grading criteria via rubrics, and worked examples to show students so that there’s no doubt about how to reach the highest mark bands.

Simply providing this isn’t enough, though. Live modeling what you expect—talking through your deep and rigorous thinking—and engaging students with questions about why you’re making certain choices are imperative. “Such thinking aloud provides novice learners with a way to observe ‘expert thinking’ in a way that is usually hidden from the student,” wrote Barak Rosenshine in his seminal 2012 article on the principles of instruction. Only after igniting this metacognition does it make sense to release them to produce their own work.

It’s also helpful to take high-scoring sample work and have students highlight or deconstruct it according to criteria so that they precisely understand what underpins the work’s success. For example, my students have found that taking a successful essay and then reducing it to an outline in backward fashion is a valuable exercise.

Make it Authentic

Students may not see the relevance in what’s being asked of them on a given assignment and therefore aren’t motivated to do their best. We can make gains by explaining the “why” behind the assignment, by describing what skills it will develop and how they relate to something explicit in the wider world. Knowing that polynomials are not only mathematical building blocks but also marvelous catalysts for critical thinking—which helps you in every aspect of life—makes them seem a bit more useful.

In addition to this, assigning authentic work tasks that link to real-world scenarios tends to elicit engagement. According to education author Tom Sherrington in his book Teaching WalkThrus: Five-Step Guides to Instructional Coaching, “This raises the stakes for the work, providing powerful motivation and a strong sense of achievement.” Rather than just assigning a worksheet, have students use polynomial equations to model growth rate and revenue for a local charity or business and then present their findings to the leadership of the organization. 

Scaffold to Avoid Procrastination

Faced with a seemingly onerous task, a student might not know where to start or simply feel overwhelmed. Breaking assignments into smaller, more manageable chunks with formative assessment and deadlines is much more effective than giving a hard deadline two weeks out and not providing any oversight of progress. Clear steps displayed on a graphic organizer, for example, allow you to not only monitor the development of an assignment but also identify and address misconceptions. Moreover, students can see the progress they make, which is intrinsically rewarding.

Clear scaffolding also grants colleagues, such as a learning support specialist or an English as an additional language (EAL) teacher, clear access to your expectations, which gives them the ability to better support students. The extended school community can work together to help students build the self-management skills that scaffolds reinforce.   

Maintain High Expectations

Students know when their teachers don’t have high expectations for them or won’t hold them to account for poor study habits. New teachers especially might grapple with coming off as “mean” for pointing out mediocre work, but holding students accountable for what they are capable of is an act of care. Research has shown that using the language of possibility with students enhances learning outcomes. The School of Education at American University in Washington, DC, suggests changing a statement like “Great effort—you tried as hard as you could” to “The goal isn’t to get it right immediately. The goal is to improve your understanding step by step. What can you try next?” 

If a student continues to underperform, home-to-school connections are crucial. Of course, parents and guardians should be told when their children are successful, too, but inviting collaboration to help a child be their best when their effort is lagging can’t be argued against and often pays dividends.

In a world where you can produce social media content in seconds or pressure-cook a meal in minutes, convenience reigns. Learning, however, is not a quick process. Having high expectations and requiring a considerable yet desirable amount of effort will, according to researchers Elizabeth Bjork and Robert L. Bjork, “trigger encoding and retrieval processes that support learning, comprehension, and remembering.” We have the obligation to nourish our students with opportunities to practice sustained, incremental critical thinking and creativity, as well as to help them recognize that mastery is not linear.