Attendance is always a topic that generates discussion among instructors. What role do instructors play in requiring students attend class?
And someone is always quick to point out that attendance isn’t really what we mean. A student can attend a class without really attending a class (there in body but not spirit).
OK, so participation then. Students are expected to participate in class. Sometimes that participation is active listening. Other times, participation might be writing or reading or discussing with other students, the instructor or the entire class.
Special Holiday Schedules
The Friday before Thanksgiving, I heard on the news about a college student traveling home for Thanksgiving break was killed in a car accident. After my initial reaction to hearing such sad news, I couldn’t help but wonder about the timing.
Did the school the student attended break early for Thanksgiving? Or was the student, who was traveling from another state, forced to skip Thanksgiving week classes in order to make it home for the holiday? I checked and found that Dennison University breaks for Thanksgiving the Friday before the holiday giving students a full week away from classes.
Thanksgiving week always makes me rethink my views on attendance.
Ferris State University officially breaks for the holiday at noon on Wednesday, which is pretty late to be breaking for a holiday that takes place the very next day. It limits options for traveling home. How far do students have to travel to return home for the holiday? It makes me wonder about attendance on those Wednesday mornings. What is the absentee rate? Do teachers enforce the attendance? Or do they make the day more flexible? With the increase in web-enhanced courses, are teachers offering an online alternative to that turkey-week class session?
I also wonder about how my own policies impact other classes. If I make my Tuesday class options more flexible, will students be less likely to attend Wednesday morning classes?
This year, I had class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and the rate of absent students was a bit higher than normal even though I was handing out a new assignment (and students did know this before hand). Not a single student that was absent asked for information from me before Tuesday’s class. I received only a handful of emails after Tuesday’s class.
This meant many of those absent students arrived to class the Tuesday after Thanksgiving unprepared.
The week before, I had students complete an online assignment, which meant they didn’t have to meet in person. If I had put off the assignment for one more week, I could have eliminated the need for students to attend my class in person during turkey week. Should I consider doing that in the future?
Day to Day Attendance
I teach writing, so I don’t have a lot of lectures in my class. Students write or give feedback or revise during class. Most often it requires students to interact with each other, which means it isn’t something that can be duplicated outside of the class if a student happens to miss.
My attendance policy clearly states that attendance is expected. There isn’t such a thing as an “excused” absence. This means if a student doesn’t attend, the work completed that day cannot be made up.
At the same time, I don’t want to spend a portion of my time taking attendance. I am of the mind that there is a reason Ben Stein sounds so bored in that scene from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. He was taking attendance. OK, so he also goes on to ask questions that students don’t care about enough to answer.
Note to self: The YouTube video has a scrolling feed. You could do something like this to emphasize attendance and what isn’t attendance even if the body is present with the Ferris Beuller video in the background. Note over.
The point is, taking attendance can take up a big part of class. And if all I do is put a mark somewhere in a grade book, the student could actually end up disputing whether he or she were absent or not.
My solution? I have students sign in. I created a form in Microsoft Word. It lists the class, the time and space to write in the date. The rest of the page is a table of 3 columns and lots of rows. The first column is small and blank. The next column is the student’s name. The third column is where the student signs in.
Every semester, I create one of these for each class I teach face to face. The students are listed alphabetically. The student finds his or her name and signs in. It is also a place where I can jot notes and record things. If a student is late or not working, I jot it on the paper. I leave it to the students to take the initiative and sign in every class. I warn them that they can be marked absent if they fail to do so.
The first couple weeks of a semester, I do double check the number of signatures to the number of bodies in the room. That way, I know no one is signing in for an absent neighbor. I also make it a point to learn names quickly, so students know that I know when they are absent. The attendance sheet helps me learn student names as well.
Why Take Attendance?
Some instructors don’t take attendance. The students are adults, and it is up to the student to decide whether to attend class or not.
I agree. It is up to the student but taking attendance doesn’t take that decision out of student’s hands. It just gives the student an incentive to attend in the first place.
There have been studies that show students who attend class do better on exams.
I tend to teach freshmen students, who are new to college. I feel that by requiring students attend, I am helping my freshmen students develop good habits.
I am also helping myself. Students who attend class ask the questions when I am talking about the subject. I don’t have to try to do what I need to do plus go over such and such again with so and so who wasn’t here. Students who attend class turn in assignments on time, so I don’t have to try and track down when and where the absent student decided to turn things in.
Plus, there is a financial aid concern. Students receive financial aid to attend college, but if a student isn’t attending class, the money is being wasted.
My policy states attendance is expected. Students sign in daily, and I know students’ names. When a student is absent, I notice. I think that right there is a big deterrent to students missing class. It is easier to skip a class if the teacher won’t notice.
I keep track of the number of absences students have had using a master list. When students have missed 3 classes (10 percent of a class that meets twice a week), I fill out a “student absent report” and turn it into the dean’s office. This report generates a letter to the student (a scare letter) as well as lets me know if the student is still enrolled or has dropped the class.
I tell students that missing 5 classes means their ability to pass is in serious jeopardy. While a motivated student could recover, it is going to have an impact on their grade. It is up to the student to decide what to do from there not me. I didn’t miss the classes.
Excused or Unexcused?
When I first started teaching, I would get all kinds of notes from students who missed class. Most often those notes were about things that I didn’t want to know and had no business knowing: medical issues, jail or arrest records, court appearances, child custody or welfare issues, and of course the death of family members.
At first, I would attempt to verify the information from another source. I think that was the journalist in me. Is this student really related to Esther Prinn who died at the exact moment essay #3 was due? How do I find out? Is this a real doctor’s excuse or was it something created online? Do I really want to know my student was being treated for X? Or arrested for Y?
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to have to verify. I don’t want to have to judge whether the excuse I am being given is truthful or not.
This led me to having a “no excused or unexcused” policy. A student is absent or a student is present. A student is participating or a student is napping. It is pretty clear to tell the difference. It saves me time, and it keeps me from having a headache.
The only exception I make: I do make allowances for students attending a school-related function such as a sports event where they are a player or where a class takes a field trip or sponsors an event. In those cases, the student provides me with a school-generated note and a list of all students impacted. This pretty much has to happen, but even with this type of absence, there are some things that the student misses that I will not recreate (like quizzes and feedback).
Incentives and Deterrents
My policy to fill out the excessive absence form after three absences could be considered punishment. The letter generated by the form sometimes goes to the student’s home, which gets mom and dad contacting the student.
What I am currently missing in my policy is an incentive. I give points for participation, but some teachers increase grades (like from a B- to a B) if a student has no more than one absence in a class. This would also encourage students to attend rather than reading my policy and thinking “OK, I can miss 3,” which they sometimes do.
Still Thinking
I have more thoughts about attendance and how to handle it. I tend to get good ideas from other instructors. I believe it was Dr. Sandra Balkema that mentioned she has students sign in, and I adopted that practice soon after. A conversation with Carol Deurloo made me realize an incentive to attend would be beneficial as well.
And while most of my thoughts about this issue have to do with freshman, how would my policies change dealing with upper classmen? Would they?
Plus, there is the whole idea of online versus face to face. What does attendance mean when students can “attend virturally”?
