Featured image: (Pacer graphic / Darby Self)
The most important thing in college today is no longer what students learn; it is what they turn in on time.
Instead of focusing on understanding the course material, students are forced to focus on the completion of assignments to keep up with the constant deadlines.
According to a 2023 study by Inside Higher Ed, where students were asked to explain the biggest barriers to their academic success, six out of 10 students struggle with keeping up with deadlines. This same study found that 60 percent of students say they would be more academically successful if teachers were more flexible with deadlines.
With the amount of assignments given by all classes, they tend to overlap. This overlap of quizzes, tests, papers, discussion boards and projects leaves little to no time to process information or go in depth on any specific topics. By the time exams come up, much of the topics learned are fuzzy, if not gone completely.
What about learning during class time?
As a student myself, I can tell you that that is not always possible. With the stockpile of assignments to do, there are times when even class time is subjected to completing assignments.
With that being said, I wouldn’t say that the deadlines are exactly the problem. Deadlines are important for real-life situations like jobs or events. Deadlines are great for teaching time management and combating procrastination.
Where I would say the issue lies is in the amount of assignments. I know other students complain about assignments in college, but let me explain.
The biggest issue when it pertains to deadlines is that there are so many small assignments, like quizzes and discussion boards, that have the same deadline that putting heavy focus onto one will lead to missing the deadline on other assignments. So, if there were fewer assignments, there would be more time to put that focus on one assignment without missing the deadline for others.
This change does not work, however, if it is just cutting out smaller assignments. In that case, it would take away the opportunity to learn from assignments and lead to a completely different issue. The true solution is to replace the current structure with one that focuses more on the quality and meaningfulness of the assignment than the quantity of assignments.
While this is a small change, the impact would be astronomical, and it would flip our educational system to how it is supposed to be: focused on educating students while teaching deadlines as a byproduct. College should be teaching students to think, not just how to submit.
