Improving student's attendance
A young professor wrote to me: “I have problem with student's attendance in my class. Some often come late and some skip class often. What can I do to improve their attendance? Several professors in my university told me to ignore them because my job is to teach, whether students come to class to learn or not, that is their problems, not mine. As professor I do care for my students but do not know what to do. Please help.”
Answer: Even in university where students should be responsible for their own attendance but professors should care to make sure that students achieve their goal of getting a good education. Of course, if they do not go to class, they will receive bad grade or even fail the course but all students know that so you do not need to remind them. But there are many things a professor can do to keep students from attending class regularly. I always tell students at the first day of class about my attendance policy where I define clearly how grading is done based on attendance so students know that attendance is part of their grade. I like to give unannounced quizzes, or “surprised quizzes” as students often called them, to encourage students to be prepared for each class so they always keep up with current materials. I also told them that missing quizzes means missing points that count toward their final grade since there is no make-up quizzes.
I do not like to lecture much but often ask students questions to facilitate class discussions and often put some questions on quizzes. By skipping class, students will not know which questions will be on the quizzes and cannot do well. If you do this in the first few quizzes, students will get the idea and will attend class to know what you may ask and what you may put on weekly quizzes. I also send e-mail to students who are frequently absent and encourage them to attend class by asking them the reason for not attending class.
To keep students interests in learning, I often bring current events as topic for class discussions and this always grab student's interests. For example: “What do you think about Apple iPhone 6? Why robotics is growing fast in the past few years? What do you think robotics industry will be in the next five years? I always try to connect course material with modern real-life examples that students can relate to. I class discussion, I try to create an environment where all students feel comfortable to express their opinions where each has something to contribute and where disagreement is tolerated. I always adapt my lesson plans to make sure that the subject is interesting and relevant to their learning goals.
I believe that by maintaining a high level of student attendance will benefit both students and professors. Of course, checking class attendance, give unannounced quizzes, issue extra points to students who participate in class discussions are not popular with some students but these are the techniques that I used for many years. Many students, who at the beginning do not like it and even resist it, eventually realize its value and appreciate me from doing it. Many graduates who worked in the industry wrote to me that they missed my class discussion the most because it challenge them to learn and develop their confident in speaking, expressing, presenting materials in class and these soft-skills are essential for their career development.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
