Balancing between students who do homework and those who do not This other question is about assigning videos as homework and this one is about what to do when students do not do their homework. However, there is another question to ask which is similar, but I think different, from these two.

If you have a class of 70 students and you assign some homework on which you will base the following class, and 40% of the students do not do the homework, that subsequent class becomes quite unmanageable. If you proceed as scheduled, the 40% will be lost, they cannot contribute, and eventually become distracting for the rest of the class.

If you do not run the class as scheduled, the students who did the homework the first time will see there is little benefit of doing the home and little cost of not doing it. For this reason, in the past, I have been quite strict. Students who did not do the homework get kicked out and marked absent (too many absences and they automatically fail the module). The problem with this approach is that kicking 40% out leaves me with a very high failure rate and in the end I just end up taking time which would otherwise be free for me to do as I wish and I must dedicate that time to these students who failed (for whatever reason).

So, I find myself in a difficult situation. Kicking students out hurts them but hurts me too. The problem is that I value my time much more than they value theirs so it ends up hurting me more than them. If I don't kick them out, my schedule gets destroyed.

How can one find balance in the classroom when a large percentage of students do not do the homework? Is there a way other than simply removing large chunks and failing them? Is thee a more enlightened way?

Important Note: In my modules grades are pass/fail - I do not have the option to simply lower their grade.
If 40% of the students aren't doing their homework, and you rely upon students doing homework for your pedagogy style to work, then something is seriously wrong.

You have two options:

(1) Make homework dramatically more appealing.


Put much more effort into the homework--make it fun!  E.g. calculate strain on an iPhone screen instead of a aluminum sheet; don't have someone read a novel but rather ask key questions about it such as to list all the times some character/historical figure expressed defiance against the state.
Institute quizzes that are drawn directly from the homework.  Do them practically every day.  Staring at a blank sheet of paper and not knowing what to do is a lot more uncomfortable than hearing you babble about something incomprehensible.
Change the grading scheme so homework is most of the grade (if you're allowed).


(2) Make homework dramatically less necessary.  (Note: usually not an option for mathematics.)


Do the key problems on the board in class instead of assigning them as homework.  (Assign a similar problem as homework, possibly after you've done it in class.)  Not possible for literature review, of course.
Rely upon in-class participation instead (if you have the personality to make it work, and the homework is of the right type).
Don't make the learning environment one which requires the students to do the homework in order to understand most of the next lecture.  Lecture on the important points, review at the end of one lecture and the beginning of the next, and go on.  They might not develop their skills at doing problems, but at least they'll have some hope of following for a while.  Probably won't work with literature, but almost everything else can be quite successful.