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Here's a simple solution to try that won't require too much work on your part. It's not a digital solution but should be very easy to implement, therefore easy to test and see if it will actually work before trying to make it too fancy.We're going to target the classes as a whole instead of individuals. Ideally you'll have more than 1 class so there can be a little competition but this should still work even if you just have 1 class.Figure out how many homework assignments there are total per class (number of assignments x number of students) for the rest of the year and a percentage goal you want to aim for. Ideally have a few tiers - maybe Bronze is 60% turn in rate, Silver is 75% and Gold is 90%.Create a chart for each class that tracks their progress towards these goals. It could be some sort of progress bar with the tiers marked off. The day after an assignment is due, take a minute or two during class to announce how many people turned the assignment in and adjust their progress on the chart. If there are other classes, update them on how they are doing compared to the other classes. Don't point out who didn't turn it in or make any negative type of comments. Make sure they understand it's a team effort and encourage them to help each other out.The numbers for each class might be slightly different as they don't have the same number of students, but a percentage should balance that out.The idea is that the students can try and help motivate each other, and that individuals not doing the work will not want to be the reason their class is losing or being held back. (Peer pressure is a thing in high school, right?)If you can offer some kind of class level prize at the first tier, and some improvement over the initial prize for the next tiers that would help even more. Maybe if they hit Bronze they can have a party towards the end of the school year but they have to bring everything. If they hit Silver you provide soda, if they hit Gold you provide soda and pizza. I know you're probably on a limited budget but that gives you an idea of what you can do.Initial set up for this should be the cost of a few posters and markers and a little bit of time. If it works out well you could always look to automate it since the information is available digitally but this is an easy and cheap way to test the idea out without a huge cost in time or money.Good luck.

There is much more to study in order to help educators make good decisions about how they invest their time in action research. Two areas in particular that emerged as unexpected insights from the results of my study include the importance of the duration of the change in practice and the difference in the incidence of positive impact on student achievement between elementary and secondary settings. Both of these points are worth exploring separately, because they could be of real importance in how teachers and schools make use of action research. If there are statistically significant differences in student outcomes based on the time invested in a well-designed, research-supported change in practice, educators need to be on the look-out for areas to be improved early in the year and get moving. (I, for one, have moved the action research requirement for my own teaching intern students from spring to the fall semester for this reason.) The difference in evidence of impact between elementary and secondary levels, if it holds up with more extensive study, can help explain why it has generally been more problematic to make major improvements in student achievement in secondary settings than in elementary schools.

I had detention a few times as a student. When I attended Atwater High School in the early 90s, you could earn a detention for a number of reasons. I drew detention once because I decided that getting to class on time was nowhere near as important as walking my girlfriend to class. I think my third tardy had me in the office. Mrs. Fall sentenced me to a detention. I had to spend an hour after school in Mrs. Maple’s room. If I recall correctly, you had to bring homework or something to do as you sat in detention. If you showed up late or empty-handed, a detention would be converted into “Saturday school.” Saturday school had you sitting in the cafeteria for three hours with nothing to do.Was detention effective for me? Absolutely. Almost certainly. Maybe. Well… it might have been. I don’t think I had any detentions after that point. Frankly, Mrs. Maples was something of a terror. She had no problem getting right in your face and tearing you down. Still, I can’t help but think that there must have been another way. Looking back, I wonder if it was just the fact that someone thought being late was serious enough that I found myself in the office and that I had drawn any form of discipline that made me stop being late. Truth be told, I’ve never really been a tardy person. As an adult, I can tell you that I have huge issues with tardiness, but I think that has more to do with my parents than with one hour doing some Trig homework after school. I honestly think a baleful glare and a grave-sounding, “Mr. Kaplan… tardiness is inappropriate an disrespectful” would have gotten the same result. To be fair, I’m sure Michelle would have found her class just as well without me.Detentions, suspensions, Saturday schools, and expulsions are considered disciplinary tools. They may be effective in some cases in a limited sense. They might get a student to regret or steer clear of a particular behavior such as being tardy, arguing with staff, or minor acts of vandalism like drawing on a desk. They won’t be effective with all students. Some students are harder cases. We do have some students in public school who seem like they’ve spent their formative years hanging out on an island with Piggy, Ralph and Jack. I doubt that you’ll get them to buy into a scheme where what is a completely random consequence will get them to adjust what they are about and what they do. Instead, we fall back on the easiest answer. Detentions and the rest have been in the administrative armory for decades. They’re old and familiar, even if often (though not always) ineffective. To be blunt, they’re lazy tools. The right thing an administrator should do is have a real conversation with a student and figure out why the behavior is wrong and harmful as well as creating a plan to correct it in the future. On the other hand, sometimes they are compulsory, and administrators may have their hands tied because of standard operating procedures.Let’s be honest. These previously mentioned disciplinary tools are forms of punishment. They don’t instill a sense of discipline in the student. They don’t get them to do the right thing; rather they get them to fix a very limited subset of behavior. Give a kid a detention for missing the beginning of first period too many times, he’ll likely stop being tardy to first period, but that won’t stop him from being tardy to other classes. You can give a kid detention for doodling on his desk, but that won’t stop him from not doing it ever again; he’ll just stop for a while.A lot of these so-called disciplinary tools are simply clubs. You figuratively beat the student into submission by taking their time. They have nothing to do with the transgression in question. A student got into a fight? Take away five days of their education! A student was late to class? Make them sit in class for some extra time! A student doesn’t have a high enough GPA? Take away the sports or other activities which inspire them to get out of bed in the first place! Being generous, we can at least say that we aren’t literally beating them anymore! Still, I think we can do better. There are programs out there which aren’t necessarily great or realistic but are at least experimenting with getting the undesirable behavior to match the disciplinary effort.Before I go on, I should perhaps explain a few of my beliefs. Though discipline is synonymous with punishment, it shouldn’t be treated as such in a school environment. Disciplining should be about teaching students to have discipline. They shouldn’t have discipline in just one part of their lives—they should have discipline in general. They should be able to control themselves. They should find the right way to do things. We want them to be, essentially, positive contributors to the world around them.I believe that writing a referral is like flying a white flag of surrender. Sometimes it is completely warranted. On the other hand, imagine if your country (the U.S. in my case) got caught up in a war and just… gave up. Surrendered for no apparent cause because we were just too lazy to do anything else. How would the public feel? I’ll likely write a referral someday. There will, inevitably, be something I cannot handle. As an example, if two kids get into a fight, I’m obligated to write a referral. If a student loses his cool and throws a desk, I’m going to have to call security. If a student gets frustrated and cusses me out, I can’t give the rest of my students the impression that such behavior is acceptable. Still, a referral should only be a viable course of action if there is no other course of action available.Some students want an easy out. Some students really want to stay in class. No student is better served by giving them a vacation or dismissal from class. If they want to stay, offer them a way to do it. If they want to go, why would you accede to their petulant and childish whims?I also believe in making students active participants in learning discipline. I love asking students why they did something. “No… I mean why did you really do it.” As an example, a few weeks back, a student was clearly and purposely giving the wrong answer. He’s had that grin on his face which tells you that he just thinks it’s funny. It doesn’t matter that he might be confusing people. I’ll spoke to him outside at my earliest opportunity. “Why were you giving incorrect answers? You were smiling in such a way that it seemed like you were doing it on purpose.” After letting him say that he thought it was funny, I progressed. “Is it funny? I’m concerned that students who are now confused might not think so. In fact, I’d guess that if I were to ask the class, most of them don’t think it’s funny that you’ve been doing this lately. I know funny, sir. You don’t seem to know funny. Maybe something else is causing you to act out this way?” We eventually arrived together at the conclusion that he just wanted attention. For some students, any attention (even negative attention) is better than nothing.I could have just written him a referral. I could have ticked off a box for interrupting instruction, defiance, disrespect, or just “other.” He’d have been out of my room for two days. Maybe they’d have given him a detention instead. I doubt anyone in the office would have batted an eye except that I’m ten years into not writing referrals. I’ve seen teachers write referrals for students forgetting pencils or talking to each other during work time. Seriously. There is something wrong with a teacher who writes a referral because a student didn’t bring a pen. I can just see the teacher incandescent with anger, incoherent, and full of ire, pointing an accusatory and shaking finger at the offending student, saying, “But you forgot your pen WILLFULLY AND WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT! I SENTENCE YOU TO HANG FROM THE NECK UNTIL DEAD! Or you can go sit in detention after school with Mrs. Smith.”I don’t want a student to just be good for me today. I don’t want a student to just not talk in class (after all, there are lots of activities where I want them to talk to each other). I want a student to make a positive choice to do his part to be in a class where we can learn and get a return on our investment of time. It isn’t easy. It involves effort, being observant, thinking, and (that most valuable of commodities) time. On the other hand, I don’t know many teachers who took up this calling because they wanted an easy job.