About five years ago, I came across a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Notes from a Career in Teaching.” (If you don’t have a Chronicle account, you may read the entire piece here.) In it, the author, a recently retired college professor from Indiana, offers five teaching lessons:
Teach according to your personality.- Hand out complete syllabi and course instructions the first day.
- Don’t take attendance.
- Give students lots of options for major assignments and exams.
- Get out of the way.
While all of these suggestions are valuable and ones to which I generally subscribe, #3 in particular stuck with me: don’t take attendance.
Ever since I began teaching in 1998, I’ve taken roll. I did it when it was easy, in small classes of 15 students, and I did it when it was more difficult, in large lecture-based classes of 150 or more. I’ve called names, I’ve created seating charts, and I’ve passed around sign-in sheets, the latter of which, I’ll warn you, is almost always ineffectual since some students will inevitably sign in for their absent friends.
Then, after I took attendance, successfully or otherwise, I transferred all of those marks to the grade roster. Again, this is not a huge chore for small writing classes, but for larger ones, it can be. In any event, the entire process always seemed more laborious than necessary, but I never really thought not to take attendance. My mindset was always, “Professors are supposed to do this, aren’t they? This is how we get students to come to class, to participate, to submit their assignments on time, isn’t it?” No, it’s not. And looking back, those are terrible reasons to keep up with who’s there and who’s not.
Needless to say, when I saw the Chronicle contributor’s suggestion don’t take attendance and his valid, logical reasons behind it, I freed myself from this task almost immediately. I heeded his words the following semester and haven’t looked back. So far, I can report that all is well; most students attend and participate, but some don’t. Such is college, whether roll-taking is involved or not. Here are the professor’s thoughts on the matter, if you will:
I’ve always assumed that universities are not high schools and that college students are adults, attending class as their choice. In my course handout, I wrote: “If you choose to use the time of the class meeting to do something else, that is your decision… You are responsible, however, for understanding the material done in class during your absence, and I will grade your work in the course under the assumption that you have mastered that material. However, if you miss class because of illness, I will help you make up the work.”
An equally important reason for my policy was that otherwise I’d have to deal with many students who, having no desire to be in the room, would shuffle papers, pop gum, snore loudly, and engage in other distracting behaviors. They changed the ambiance of the classroom, and I decided that I much preferred to teach a smaller number of volunteers than a large army of conscripts.
In addition, not requiring attendance allowed students to vote with their feet on my teaching. If attendance dwindled, I realized that I needed to rethink the section of the course where students did not come – or, on several occasions, the whole course. But if they showed up in large numbers, I knew that I was doing a good job.
Your thoughts? How do you handle class attendance?
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While I've only taught for a single year (and only then as a GTA, so I followed someone else's syllabus and policies), I don't particularly care for attendance policies either, for exactly the reasons the professor you quote above outlines.
That said, if you're in a department that dictates that you must have an attendance policy, I prefer one that rewards rather than punishes. A professor I had twice in undergrad had an attendance policy policy (for both small and large classes) wherein he took attendance and awarded 1/3 or 1/4 of a point (I can't remember which) for each day you were in class.
Those points would comprise the "attendance/participation" portion of the grade, but it also built in extra credit this way as well. Students got extra credit for showing up, and it would stop him from having to hear any requests for extra credit assignments.
I'm not really worried about attendance when I'm teaching content courses. But for composition, I feel like participation is a huge part of the learning experience, and in many cases (like a workshop, most notably), you can't participate without attending. In those courses, I make my rationale clear to students at greater length than I will here.
Our teaching structure in New Zealand may be a little different, so I'll outline that before I go into how it is dealt with here.
On a standard undergrad course (I'm teaching on a 2nd/3rd year TV paper), there is 1 2hr class (lecture) per week, which all 150-200 students attend, and then they also have to attend a 1 hour tutorial (more of a seminar style) per week. These tutorials are in groups of about 20, and are usually taken by the GTAs (me) rather than the lecturer.
There is no thought given to ever taking an attendance at the lecture. The lectures are more mono-directional, although not exclusively, and whether the student attends is their business. The tutorials, on the other hand, we do take attendance. It's university policy that no grade can ever be given for "attendance", but what our dept has recently instigated is a "participation" grade, 10% of the overall course. This involves turning up, having done a set preparation task (which ensures that the student has actually done the reading/prepared some ideas), and then actually actively participating in the group discussion, which is guided by the GTA.
I have to say, this final step, tying some marks to that preparation, has made a significant positive difference in the quality of the discussion in those hours, and I believe has really benefited the students that have stuck to the programme. Of course, there are still some students who choose to blow of the tutes – "it's only 10%" – but again, it's their prerogative.
Which is a long way of saying, I do take attendance, kinda.
Thanks, all, for sharing your experiences. I appreciate it!
For what it's worth, I also give weekly participation points; perhaps I'll write a follow-up post that discusses this in more detail. In the meantime, this is how they're explained on my syllabi:
Participation: Participation points may be earned via any or all of the following in-class exercises. Participation assignments will be graded as follows: 5 points, superior; 4 points, good; 3 points, adequate; 2 points, deficient; 1 point, failing. NOTE: None of these exercises may be made-up.
– Reading/Screening Quizzes: answer five short questions about the assigned readings or screenings.
– Five-Minute Findings: in 5m, respond to a question or statement based on a reading, screening, or lecture.
– Daily Reports: “What points are most clear to you?” and “What do you still not understand?”
– Q&As: submit an exam question and answer based on the day’s reading, screenings, or lecture.
Depending on the class, these points are worth between 15% and 25% of the students' overall grade. So those who are fine earning a B- or C sometimes blow off these points; those who strive for As and Bs take them pretty seriously. Again, such is college, whether points or attendance grades are involved or not.. =)
I do it as my mentor did it at the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, one of the top institutions for what I do: 5 points off the final grade percentage (e.g. 95 in the class goes to a 90) for every class missed (minus excused absences cleared AHEAD of time; there is no excuse accepted post-class). The door is locked at the exact start of class and if I choose to open the door if you are late, you are let in. Anything past 5 minutes and you are absent.
My attendance in class has been near perfect.
The students do what you demand of them. Life is hard. School should not be treated as a choice. My feeling: if you don't want to teach, go do something else. Otherwise, it is not our job to let students do as they may. It's our job to train, teach and mold them.
Hi, Brad — thanks for commenting.
I have also tried a "closed-door policy," even going so far as to post signs on the door with clear instructions, e.g., "If the door is closed, you are late. Please enter from the back of the classroom…" That method was completely unsuccessful for me, and although these "rules" were spelled out in the syllabus, covered multiple times in class, and written in large type on the classroom door, several of my students consistently "did not do what I demanded of them."
I think much of this boils down to where you're teaching, what kind of students you have (traditional, non-traditional, etc.), and how many students are in your classroom at one time (130+ in the above example). I certainly didn't mean to suggest the "don't take attendance" policy is for everyone; clearly, it's not. I just felt like explaining why I have chosen to do what I do. =)
Well, I LOCK the door so there is no way for them to get in unless I let them
I will say with non-traditional students there are different expectations. But that isn't how you framed the argument above so I didn't parse it out in that way.
I do believe the "what kind of students you're teaching" is a cop-out. I had the same policy at Northern Kentucky (a commuter, Appalachian school) as I did at the University of Texas (the largest university in the country). The students respond to the expectations of the teacher, but it is difficult to maintain those expectations through actions.
Of course, that's why it's a job and not a hobby
(Also: I skipped ridiculous numbers of classes as an undergraduate student…so, you know, irony and all that.)
This is very interesting stuff. I like your participation policy a lot and will probably steal it for my own use.
Re attendance, I agree with you in general and with Devan about comp. I don't take attendance in upper-division lit classes, but I constantly question this because I do have attendance problems even though I make missing class punitive. I believe in treating my students like adults (as your original post notes) because, legally, they are adults and college isn't high school. But some of them aren't ready to be adults (and I'm not being judgmental–I was one of those students for a year or so when I started college), and it's always difficult to know what to do with them.
But in the end, I guess taking time to call out roll at the beginning of every class isn't going to magically make mediocre students good students.
I have to admit that I understood Kelli's "what kind of students you are teaching a little differently", and I don't think any of us are suggesting that we would be making our jobs easier by not rigorously enforcing attendance (in fact, from my personal experience, it actually creates more work).
But I think it also depends on the expectations of the institution. The institution I am at (ranked as one of the top 50 research universities in the world) seems to believe very strongly that it is a student's prerogative whether or not they choose to attend lectures, and that any punitive damage to grades will automatically be applied due to the information they fail to receive by not attending.
In New Zealand, at least, there is a very clearly defined step between High School (where attendance is mandatory) and University (college in the US system) where students are treated as adults, are not coddled, and are left free to choose if and when they attend classes. From my experience, I've noticed approximately a 10% dropout rate on 2nd/3rd year courses from enrolled numbers, but that may be students simply transferring to another course, but apart from that, I would see usually roughly 90% attendance. Give someone enough responsibility for their own actions, and the great majority step up and appreciate that responsibility.
Well, I'm not a teacher, but I'm going to jump in here anyway …
It's my opinion that tying any of the grade to attendance is misguided. As Kelli implies, nothing about showing up automatically equates to knowledge. So awarding points for just walking in the door is to suggest that showing up is a significant portion of the job and a significant portion of what a teacher has to teach.
In my mind, the teacher's challenge is to create tests and assignments that through their very nature compel attendance. If as a student I can learn all that I need to learn just by going through the texts, then what on earth am I paying a tuition for? Tests/papers/projects should reveal the student's understanding of the material, and good portion of that understanding should be a direct result of the lecture, or else what's the teacher for?
When I was in college, there were classes I attended faithfully and classes I almost never attended, including ones in which attendance was "required" and my grade suffered from not showing up — not because I did poorly on papers or tests but simply because my butt wasn't in the seat. Did giving me a C instead an A teach me a lesson? It taught me that I could do the teacher's work at A-level without attending the class. That's what it taught me. According to the teacher's means of evaluation, I was as knowledgable of the material as people who showed up every day.
Brad says "life is hard." True. And so if the teacher is testing/evaluating properly, the nonattending student will get a lesser grade even if attendance isn't computed into the final score. THAT will be a valuable life lesson.
(Note: Grading based on participation is different. Some classes cannot function without participation. In those classes, participation exercises are often the equivalent of tests, so of course assigning or docking points is fair game. Likewise, I'm all in favor of locking the door after class has started, because that's an issue of respect: show up on time, or don't. If the door is being locked simply to teach the student a 5-point lesson in attendance, I think the more important point is lost. But that's just me.)
(One more note: The attendance requirement presumes that no other activities, including those that come up on the fly, could be as significant to the student's development as sitting in that class. I think that's pretty arrogant, to be honest. There were numerous times in college that I ditched classes to capitalize on opportunities within my volunteer position on campus, which left me better prepared for the real world than anything I ever learned in the classroom. I didn't get grades for that work. But I got an education, and experience!)
OK, done rambling.
Jason:
2 things – I never said you get points for walking in, I said you are punished for making the choice to skip or not come. Assuming that what you learn individually is all that matters is the arrogant stance. In fact, group dynamics and relationships are oftentimes shown to be the primary driver of education. Skipping makes that impossible to happen (as only presence can make that happen).
Also: life is hard. If they don't like it, they are welcome to find another teacher. We all make choices in life and those choices have consequences. Those students that want to figure things out on their own, on their own times are welcome to do that. Just not in my class. (And make no mistake, it is my class – not the students' class.)
But – as with everything – there are others who teach differently and each, I suspect, would have anecdotal evidence to support their teaching methodology. Mine: despite my rigor, I have been ranked – by the students – in the upper region in my department. And, I know where I have helped place my most dedicated students.
Brad: I have no reason to doubt that you've helped students or that you've been evaluated well by them. I don't think I said anything that implied that teachers who require attendance must be crappy teachers. If I gave that impression, I apologize.
As to the point, however, that group learning is important: That might be true. But, again, adding or taking away points based on attendance assumes that group learning is always productive, and I think that's presumptive. If those group exercises are indeed vital, then I would think they would lead to a knowledge of the material that the nonattending student would lack, a knowledge that could be evaluated to ensure that people didn't just show up but engaged and learned from the group experience. In that way, attendance is valued, without tying points directly to it.
Anyway, I know I'm not going to convince you. Just trying to clarify my position a bit. Good debate.
Wow, thanks for the dialogue, gang! I appreciate it. It’s always interesting to hear how others teach, implement policies, etc.
Let me add a couple more thoughts here. First, even though I don’t take attendance anymore, my classes are well-attended overall. I won’t be arrogant and attribute this to my phenomenal teaching style (ha!) but to my participation exercises, which I explain a bit above. Additionally, in other classes (cinema history and film noir, for example), I have required students to submit discussion questions after film screenings as a part of their grade. This also encourages class attendance, I imagine. But more importantly, it encourages them to think critically about what they’re seeing and how it relates to the course material they’ve (hopefully!) read about the night before. See here for more, if you’re interested: http://kellimarshall.net/filmnoir/discussion-questions
Re: Brad’s comment about departmental ranking, my teaching evaluations probably average about an 80%. That’s not extremely high but not extremely low. I never expect the results — no matter how tainted they are by circumstances (e.g., hurried students trying to evaluate the class quickly so they can get out early, nervous students whose grades are borderlined, etc.) — to be consistently high. If they were, in my mind anyway, that means I’m not doing something right. After all, there will (or should?) always be SOME students who are peeved by something, whether that be my teaching style, a particular assignment, or a plagiarism encounter we’ve just had.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments!
I doubt I would take attendance if not for the powers that be. We have to report at 2 points during the semester, a practice I loathe. Even with these requirements I still often forget to take attendance and once the final reporting period is past I quit all together. Cool thoughts. Thanks for posting the article excerpts.