Yesterday, rather innocuously, I took attendance in my class. Halfway through, a sort of muttering began in the back. Two students had decided that this process was too stupid for words. They were almost harumphing.When I finished I spied them staring up at me with a combination of disdain and annoyance
."What is it?" I finally said.
One of them spoke, "What are you doing taking attendance
? Why do you care if we're here or not? Either we do the work and pass, or we don't. Why are you treating us like 8th graders?"And I was flummoxed for a moment. Honestly I'd never thought it through before. I almost blurted out, "EUREKA!" But instead, all I managed was, "Policy...."
Q: Is there any reason to take attendance?
Eureka. Definitely Eureka.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Eureka, although some folks likely teach at schools where it is policy.
ReplyDeleteAttendance, for me at least, has always only supported what I've already been able to tell by people's grades. Students who show up do better than those who don't.
I'd be happy to hear there's something I'm missing.
I do like saying cool sounding student names out loud, though, things like: "Prince Jeremiah Waffle!"
Take attendance on the first day. That way you know if you have any extra seats in the course, in case someone dropped and the Registrar didn't process it yet. You can also avoid headaches if someone thinks they registered but didn't.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, Eureka, to hell with attendance. But keep an eye out -- negative changes in attendance can signal Problems like actual mental health issues, etc. Of course, if you're in a barn with 200 kids, then never mind.
When I submit my grades at the end of semester, and a student earned an "F," I have to enter Last Day of Attendance. This means I have to know which day was their last for each student. This is one reason to take attendance. I tell them that I never know if you are going to flunk or not!
ReplyDeleteEducation folks have told me that there is a correlation, not necessarily causation, between attendance and good grades. That's good enough for me. I realize it treats them like eighth graders. For some, that's actually over estimating their abilities.
ReplyDelete@ Beaker
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
Our school usually takes attendance. I keep track of attendance in my small classes without bothering to formally "take attendance," but in my larger classes I tell 'em, "in-class work cannot be made up" and "I don't take attendance except by what you hand in."
ReplyDeleteWhen I submit my grades at the end of semester, and a student earned an "F," I have to enter Last Day of Attendance.
ReplyDeleteMake a Scientific Wild-Ass Guess.
@ introvert
ReplyDeletePick a day after the financial aid deadline.
@ introvert
ReplyDeletePick a day after the financial aid deadline.
I just have an in-class thingie they hand in every day. No thingie, no points. A few have the gall to stay till the thingie, then stomp out in a huff. I haven't figured out what to do with this particular act of adolescent hostility.
ReplyDeleteLike this questions, so I consulted the Bible. This post is not mine, but it's angsty as all get out, and that's how I feel about it, too:
ReplyDeleteYears ago I stopped taking attendance. It never made any sense to me. Students who appeared in class regularly and took part did well on essays, tests, and projects. Those that didn't, well, didn't.
I tell my students this. I tell them that they're on their own as far as coming to class, but that material is discussed in class that they can ONLY get here. They run the risk of missing important details of the class if they choose not to come.
And for the most part it's worked out.
But this past year or so it's gotten out of hand. I'm running my classes about 50% full most days. Students drop in on the Tuesday but not the Thursday, or skip a whole week and come back happily with, "So, what happened last week?" Now, I'm not giving in, or making it easier on them. They just simply don't come and are suffering lower scores on tests and projects. I don't get it. They don't even seem particularly perturbed by it.
Yesterday, with the biggest essay of the semester due in a week, I had scheduled a special day where an English professor colleague was going to come to our class and talk about ways to organize these papers. I had 6 out of 20 students, even though I'd stressed how essential this info would be for us.
It's truly information that can't be replicated for them, because I'm not asking my pal to come back again for those folks who don't come to class.
Nobody's complaining. Nobody in class even seems to give a shit, but I know they're missing crucial stuff, and don't know what else to do. Should I keep attendance? I don't want to. I think it's stupid. I don't want to feel like a babysitter. Yet, it's bugging me that my students aren't getting the experience they could be. Am I supposed to save them from themselves?
I have done it both ways, and have found that when I do track attendance, shuts down a lot if BS when someone bitches about failing. I also really do want to know their names. I pass a roll sheet in large classes. I hand students an index card on the first day and ask them to return it with a small photo and contact info so I can try to learn their names.
ReplyDeleteAs an undergrad I took a class with a proffie who walked in on the first day and said "you are all nothing more than your student numbers to me. You are kidding yourself if you think I will know or care about knowing your names." It felt demeaning, and when I started to teach I remembered that experience and I never want a student to have that feeling from one of my classes.
Unless they ask if spelling counts.
I take roll three times per class period--at the beginning, middle, and end. And if the student is present, then I will stick a gold star next to hir name. If the student is not present, then I will usually put a big red "X" next to hir name and announce into my little iPhone note-taking app, "Prince Jeremiah Waffle is not present at 9:15am on September 1, 2011."
ReplyDeleteIt's good to have a paper trail and a digital trail. With three-hour classes, I take attendance five times. Sometimes six.
The flakes are so nimble and swift that I don't even notice them sneaking out to go to the restroom, to drive to their grandparents' funerals, to take bong hits, and so on. It's a constant battle.
What really frustrates me is the flakes who sneak in right after I've taken roll, and then sneak out just seconds before I take roll again. Next time I sense that happening, I'm going to shout, "Hey, motherfucker! Stop it! You're not allowed to learn unless you're officially present and accounted for!"
It really just breaks my heart when they learn stuff without me knowing exactly where they are.
I'm seriously thinking that maybe next semester I 'll start requiring my students to call me on Sunday mornings to report where they are--along with details of exactly what they're doing (and with whom).
I go to a small liberal arts school where the majority of classes are discussion based and cap at about 20 students, with many of them holding ten or fewer students. Since class discussion is such a major part of these courses, participation grades tend to be important, and since students can't participate if they aren't in class, most of my professors in the past have had attendance policies. Though I do have one class this semester with 60 students, little to no discussion, and no required attendance.
ReplyDeleteThe other teachers at new!school seem to all really like to take attendance, and have very harsh policies--fifth absence is a fail no matter what!
ReplyDeleteI'll pass around a sign in book so I can answer to who was there and not if they fail or financial aid comes calling, but the honest to god truth is I don't care and I think it's a giant freaking waste of my time to look at attendance and tardies and subtract certain percentages of points from certain assignments based on those. I don't want to have to write down how many minutes a student was late so I know how many points to deduct (or, I suppose, how many they left early).
Maybe it's snowflake-ish for me to say, but I have better things to do with my time than keep track of the minutiae of attendance with the sort of detail that seems popular right now. ugh.
It's not just institutional policy in the UK, it's government policy to a certain extent - under current visa regulations, institutions have to log attendance by international students on Tier 4 visas and the visa will be revoked if the student falls between a certain attendance level.
ReplyDeleteParticipation grades seem rarer in the UK than North America although I wonder why we don't use them more often. The student who, regular as clockwork, attended every *other* class of my module last year particularly sticks out...
I take attendance to do them a favor--some days that may be all that motivates them to show up. I don't call it "attendance" anymore though, the column label they see is "Work Ethic".
ReplyDeleteI teach mostly international students. The school likes to have records of their seat time, in the event we'd like to boot them out of the class and/or country. After we've collected their money, of course.
ReplyDeleteMy attendance sheet - required - I write entirely from memory on the day I turn grades in.
ReplyDeleteWe are required to report to Records who has shown up during the first week and who hasn't. It also helps me to see how many seats I have available to fill (or not).
ReplyDeleteStudents are funny. :o)
Because of the abundance of data showing a correlation between showing up and actually learning something, I figure I'm doing them a favour if I encourage attendance. On the other hand, they're adults, notionally, they're paying for the class (notionally), and it's their business if they show up.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't take attendance, but I do things like having a one-question daily quizzes on the readings, or weekly quizzes and assignments that must be handed in in class, etc, in any class with fewer than 70 students. They mark each other's, so all I have to do is record the grades. This has turned out to be surprisingly helpful for class discussion too.
I did use i-Clickers for a couple of years in my huge Elementary Basket-Weaving course and it wasn't successful; both times I had to spend a week at the end of term (not exaggerating) fighting with the technology which had (for example) decided not to record anyone's clicks on February 2 because the 02/02/10 date apparently confused it. Or didn't register the clicks of anyone who had bought a new i-clicker because it wasn't compatible with the old software. Or or or. A week, and 300 students sending me anxious emails, and finally having to just award extra participation grades to everyone because the software was unreliable Now my feeling is, for big classes, show up if you want, skive off if you want, I don't care, you paid for it.
As long as I'm confident that I'm doing the best job I can, I figure it's their problem, not mine, if they don't show. Carry on, and don't take it personally.
I no longer take attendance, as I also feel it's rather 'juvenile', and I believe that treating adults as adults encourages more of them to behave like adults.
ReplyDeleteI do, of course, take attendance on the first day, but always by asking students to first introduce themselves and then matching them against my own list. Some students may have legal names that they find embarrassing and would prefer that their fellow students only know them by another, preferred name. Also, it's possible that you may encounter transgender students whose school registration reflect their birth-assigned gender, not their actual gender; it would obviously be really stressful to have to publicly answer to 'Robert' if you choose to identify as 'Roberta'.
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ReplyDeleteWe're expected to take roll toward the beginning of the semester, in order to verify that everybody in the class actually is registered in advance of the add/drop deadline (which is also the "census" date which determines the amount of per capita funding we get from the state, which, even in its current diminished amount, is important). I also try to fill in those "stopped attending" dates more or less accurately. And we're required to have verifiable records to back up participation grades if we choose to give them (which I do, though it's a small percentage of the total class grade). So, although I often stop actually calling roll once I know the students' names, I do keep attendance records throughout the semester (I do forget a day here and there on occasion).
ReplyDeleteAll of my classes are small, discussion- and group-work/workshop-based classes. If I taught a large lecture class, I'd take attendance only when absolutely required to do so (but might well employ some of the techniques others have mentioned for encouraging engagement with the class material). I prefer to hold students accountable in other ways, and have, in fact, given fairly high final grades, only slightly diminished by low participation grades, to students who almost never came to class but handed in good written work. The thing is, the number of students who can actually do that is quite low, while the number who think they can is considerably higher.
I take attendance, and penalize those that don't meet up to the minimum, for several reasons. One is my courses are mostly discussion. If no one is there, no one can talk. Also, when attendance is sporadic in a smaller discussion course, the class never really "gels".
ReplyDeleteIt's been proven as well that students that come to class do better. So, I make them come to class.
Lastly, I consider it preparation for their future "real lives," where showing up on time, all the time is pretty much expected.
As others have commented, sometimes attendance-taking is required. It is at LD3C, where are we are required to report it weekly. It's a drag to be an agent of the government, because attendance at LD3C is used only for financial aid purposes, as far as I can tell.
ReplyDeleteI don't care whether they come to class or not. If they're there, they give themselves the best chance to pass. If they skip--and many of them skip lots and lots--they usually fail.
There are draconian types at LD3C that penalize students for missing class--and penalize heavily, dropping letter grades for X number of classes missed. It's college. They're responsible for their own educations. If they come, they come; if they don't, they don't. I'm not going to penalize them for not attending, nor am I going to make them feel bad after they've been absent for a while. They're usually fucked anyway, so why should I add to that?
The registrar demands it, at least until the end of add/drop.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a state requirement. We have to report last day of attendance if they drop, and we're permitted to drop for excessive absences. Also, we often have dual credit students, and our state K-12 agency requires records for them.
ReplyDelete@Darla -
ReplyDeleteYesterday, with the biggest essay of the semester due in a week...
I thought this was your first week at your new school. You have the biggest essay of the semester due during the second week of class?
I've gone back and forth on attendance. My first semester teaching I didn't take attendance. I thought (naively) that college students were quasi-grownups who could make decisions and accept consequences. Then I took it somewhat personally when I didn't get full attendance. The next semester I took attendance and had penalties for missing classes. I got deluged by excuses for missed classes that I didn't want to have to evaluate for truth.
ReplyDeleteBy my third year teaching, I added in-class quizzes to encourage attendance while avoiding the formal taking of attendance. I had figured out that students were not actually quasi-adults and that they couldn't make decisions and accept consequences. I had also noticed the difference that attendance made in grades and learning.
Now, a couple of years later still, I do in-class quizzes for 100 and 200 level classes only. To my uppper-level students I explain that there is a relationship between attending class and grades, but if they think they can teach themselves better than I can, they are free to knock themselves out. If they fail because they didn't attend class, well, I guess maybe they might, possibly, actually learn something in college after all.