Death to Deadlines: A 21st Century Look at the Use of Deadlines and Late Penalties in Programming Assignments

摘要

The practice of setting hard deadlines, sometimeuds with stiff penalties for late submissionsudhas been the norm in many CS departments forudas long as most can remember. This paperudwill examine the notion of submission deadlines as applied to programming assignments,udin particular in the freshman year of audfour-year computer science program. A briefudoutline of the common practices and the effect on novice students will be presented,udfollowed by an alternative strategy that was implemented in a relatively small (i.e. 30udstudents) class in September 2005. Some initial student reactions are outlined along withudknown research from educationudwhich supports a more flexible approach such as this.udThe discussion that follows will outline the expected benefits from allowing greaterudflexibility in assignment submissions,udthe context necessary for successfuludimplementation, as well as some of theuddrawbacks and difficulties. It begins byudexamining the place of deadlines in the curriculum and the effect this often has onudstudents. Next, a highly successful approach from an unlikely source is reviewed touddiscover which elements mightudbe appropriated and appliedudin a post-secondary learningudenvironment. That unlikely source is modernudvideo games. The approach used there isudhighly relevant to work thatudinvolves setting challenges, and to experiencing andudaccepting their associated consequences. Both ofudthese conditions exist in a typical CSudprogramming assignment.