A Note Pinned to Your Underpants Suffice?

In the past month I've had the experience of students not turning in project work and having the excuse that they weren't here the day it was assigned. "I wasn't here the day you gave the assignment."  I think this is akin to a toddler who closes his eyes and thinks you can't see him. Invisibility by experience."I see nothing, ergo nothing sees me."

"How could you miss it?" I state in the course syllabus that "students are responsible for missed classes," parroting the school's policy on the matter.  And a project assignment is given at least one week advance notice. These students were in class since "that day." It's an honors class for the college bound senior.

Furthermore to defend my amazement let me say that I distribute all project assignments in writing, mark the deadline on a dry erase board in the classroom, post the same on our class wiki, provide handouts on the class website, and add reminders on Twitter. So I'm a bit snarky in responding to "I wasn't there the day you assigned this."

What about some individual responsibility?  How do you cope? How do we serve students without enabling poor behaviors?

Image: "I See Nothing, Nothing Sees Me." By Lindasslund. 17 Nov. 2008. Flickr. Used by permission of Creative Commons License.