I teach 11-12th grade. Prior to working high school, I worked elementary so I'm used to reminding kids constantly since they're young. I caught myself doing it in high school too and it was giving me high blood pressure. I would remind them constantly to do homework, turn in missing assignments, make up their quiz or test when they're absent, etc. And it was driving me nuts because a lot of the time, it seems like I kept up with what they're missing more than they care. With elementary kids, you can kind of excuse them since they're young. But when your students are about to be of voting age and they can't even remember to make up a missed test, then why should I care? So I stopped bugging them so much. I'll tell them once or twice and if they choose not to care then I will let them fail.
I post everything on my webpage, and that helps a lot. I do make a lot of general announcements... "Anyone who missed the first test..." A kid who was absent for my test also missed 7 other classes worth of material. I can see how it might be hard to keep track sometimes, particularly if a kid was realy sick.
I hand out missing work slips every other week. I can print a report from my gradebook showing which students have missing assignments (along with which assignments are missing), so this is very easy. I just print the slips, hand them out during the warm-up activity, and call it a day. Aside from that, students have to be responsible for themselves. They are free to check the online gradebook at any time, as well.
Our online gradebook lets us print out little slips that show missing assignments and the current average. At the end of each unit, I give students these slips when I tell them their test grade.
For my sped students, I reminded them about twice a week of missing work. Our district also has a parent portal where parents can see grades/missing work for their child.
My school also uses an online grade book which I keep pretty current. Many of them don't even bother to check and some don't even know their login because walking up to the front office is too hard.
I don't remind them for missing homework more than once. If they are absent, they need to show it to me within x days. I do tend to hound them to make up tests/quizzes ASAP because I like to return assessments in a timely manner, and I can't do so until everyone takes it. I do post grades online almost daily.
I remind my little guys at the end of the day to fill out their agendas and put their homework in the backpack. If it doesn't come back the next day, they have to fill out a "pink slip" and have their parents sign it.
Very rarely. I only remind students that seem to have issues getting their work in and only then I will do it just o ce or twice. I make a huge deal out of it at the start of the year. Makeup work is their responsibility.
I also make a lot of general announcements, like "check your grade online" or "all make-ups must be done by..." In addition, I send out text reminders via Remind 101 for homework every day, and I post things online. I also tweet/facebook big reminders. I figure, no way they can say they didn't know.
Every single day I am constantly giving reminders for everything. If not, it is MY fault when students miss something. Although we preach otherwise, student responsibility is nonexistent because in the end it all falls on the teacher.
I constantly update and print their grades and put them on the wall. It's easy to see if they've missed a test / quiz, but I try to stay on top of it. The first few days after they missed it I let them know that they need to come in during lunch (which is ok, and that's the only time to really make it up), but then some of them forget, are absent, etc. I give it about a week and a few days, after that they get an F. They're classwork's grade is also on the wall, and if they're not happy with it they can make up the missed work, and some of them actually do it. I try to be reasonable and encouraging, I'm already happy that almost all the kids care about their grades, and if they want to make up some work, I will give them full credit, even though the reason they missed work was because they slept in class or got kicked out
