Idea on How to Stop Students from Procrastinating

For many years I have taught a class to environmental engineering students who are assigned to write a descriptive paper.  Some of the topics were:

1.       Reduction of Greenhouse Gases; innovative regulatory approaches, such as incentive-based mechanisms, to achieve reductions fairly and efficiently

2.       Nanomaterials for drinking water treatment

3.       Approaches for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation

4.       Performance of innovative policy approaches, including economic incentives, and voluntary programs for reducing pollution

5.       Combined Sewer Overflows;  current conditions, regulations and plans

6.       Life cycle analysis of hybrid, battery vs. conventional vehicles

I usually give my library lecture in week 3 or 4 of the semester while the paper is not due until the very end of the term.  This gives students about 10 weeks to do the assignment which is certainly ample time.  Inevitably they will procrastinate and wait until the last minute.  When I read the papers student will likely cite more web sites than peer reviewed articles even after my lecture emphasized searching databases to find articles.

I propose that my lecture be moved to later in the semester for two reasons:

1.       A 5 week deadline may create a sense of urgency forcing the students to immediately work on their assignment and not procrastinate.

2.       If they start their assignment shortly after the library lecture they will remember to search for articles.  Otherwise they will likely revert to their old habits and Google away.

We’ll try it out next semester and see if my theory works.