2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Teaching students about deadlines and maturing in their first-year engineering technology course is a constant battle. Finding the line between discipline and nurture in the classroom is a balancing act. The balancing act is most commonly first encountered when creating the deadline policies. In a first-year engineering technology introduction course the due date policy has been manipulated to help control the work flow for the instructor while accounting for student feedback. A hard due date was chosen due to the necessity of helping students learn time management and while allowing the instructor to stay on track and post solutions. However, soft due date promotional periods have been experimented along with redemption opportunities before the final withdrawal date. Due dates and times were changed to account for student feedback and the instructor’s work life balance. There are endless due date policies and this work presents a few ideas and student feedback. This work is a starting point to open a discussion for how deadlines can be strategically planned to help students succeed and mature while trying to limit the additional load of the instructor.