"Not my responsibility...."

Student accountability seems to be one of the biggest challenges at A3. Students do not do homework most of the time. And if you let them, they will be totally off task during class. They do this even when they have a large project due. So if they won't work on it during class, and they won't work on it out of class, then how do you get them to do it at all?

Another way that this effects the classroom is if a student is absent, they take no responsibility for finding out what they missed and making it up, or if they were late with something or haven't turned it in yet, they forget about it. I was just entering the grades in my cooperating teacher's grade book and there are several students who I had noted that they had it done, but had left it at home, or they had asked for their missing work, and I'd given it to them. But none of this work has found its way back to me.

So what are a teachers options in a situation like this? My first inclination is that it is something that needs to be addressed at the very beginning of the school year. Setting protocol and expectations for what happens when you are absent. The expectations for missing work, homework etc. I feel like perhaps those types of expectations were not very clearly set up at the begining of the year. But, barring that kind of intial set up, what are the other options? Will being a hard ass help? Can I remind students enough to actually make a difference? There is only so much that I can do to make a project interesting, I think the archetecture project that we are doing is really interesting and engaging, with lots of options for creativity, but that hasn't been enough to motivate all students. Maybe a big tracking chart for assignments would help. In the spring I will be faced with long term teaching of a group that I didn't set expectations for at the begining of the year. I won't necessarily know what kind of expectations the teacher will have set up, and it will be up to me to set a classroom situation where students are held accountable for their own assignments and missing work.