Today, as part of a lesson on getting ideas for research papers, I had students do a collage about their lives. They took the assignment seriously and did quality work. Because I knew that everyone had actively participated in the assignment, I decided that there was no need to collect the collages at the end of the class period.

As students mingled out of the classroom, the following conversation took place:

Student: We don’t have to turn in our collage?

Me: No. I don’t need to collect them.

Student: But I did a good job.

The student did not actually say, “Don’t you care that I did a good job?” However, by not collecting his collage, I communicated to him that I did not care. Because I didn’t even take the time to really look at what he had done, how could this student know that I do care that he was proud of his collage?

Because of my learning style, I have never felt slighted when a professor did not collect an assignment from me. At the same time, students who spend their time and creativity on an assignment should be able to expect that their professor cares enough to take the time to actually look at the quality work they did.

While there are students with learning styles like mine who don’t really care what I think, today I denied both this student—and other students in the class like him—the opportunity to celebrate an accomplishment.

As a result of today’s conversation, will I now always collect student work? No, I will not. There are some assignments that really are not worth collecting; brainstorming notes for example. But if I ask students to spend most of a class period working on an assignment—especially an assignment like a collage that requires them to push their creativity—I really need to take the time to look at the results of their labors.