Hi,

For me, the best thing that worked was doing activities (experiments etc) that students will not be able to understand unless they are in the class. My test questions also came from these activities. Also, I reviewed students hw and tried to create a culture where I attend to all students ideas. That way I only had 5% of the students having problem with attendance.

Do you have an attendance policy on the course syllabus?  You indicate that the class activities are interesting and engaging but how is that info being delivered and is it relevant to the students and their learning?

I do mention it in my syllabus and talk about the nature of the activities at the first day of my class. The activities are tightly related to the course curriculum

Thanx for your responses. Adding up activities and experiments is what I usually try to do, other than the regular textbook instruction material. I use softwares for that purpose too. But very few students seem to show interest in them. For example, recently I showed students movies regarding mental illnesses (I am a clinical psychology teacher). I had thought students would show interest in that, but out of 15 students batch, only 4 came up at the time of scheduled movie watching. I don't just show movies, I discuss about various aspects of movie with them. Students who attended were very curious and interested from the beginning till end and showed active participation all the time but I have found it difficult with other students (majority of them) to get them show interest in many other different activities. Like case discussions, psychological assessments of clients etc. One important reason might be that these activities are not part of curriculum, due to which students show little interest. So that thing can be modified in next session to make sure that students find it necessary to attend such classes.

I manage attendance through surprise tests.

We have a  80% mandatory attendance as eligibility for any type of assessment. If they do not meet with this criteria the students are barred from taking the examinations. As the scores add on to the final assessment students are regular for all classes. Now we ask students to sign on the attendance sheet for every component like F2F class, practical etc that is countersigned by the faculty. As most of the teaching sessions are small group activities the teacher can monitor the class and ensure there are no proxies. In a large class It is a challenge to monitor the attendance.

We have introduced Project Based Learning and assigned roles  responsibilities to every individual child in the given project, that has created self responsibility and peer pressure and we are getting excellent response in improving attendance. 

As a psychology student, I can honestly say I showed up to classes that were not even very interesting (as did my peers) because all our classes had an attendance policy in which more than two absences led to a full letter grade drop in final grade.  There are also often participation grades linked to final grade AND surprise quizzes and/or extra credit on tests was always useful.  I know ideally teachers want students to show up for the information, but sometimes, you have to force their minds a little bit.

@Noor Hussain, your idea seems very promising. Last year I did something similar where every student had to prepare a selected topic from a chapter and present it as seminar where they had to focus on researches and explain the concept ONLY through the help of researches given in the textbook. This way they could focus on ideas beyond notes-based learning and we could encourage an environment of open broad discussions. I got very little success in this but I am looking to repeat it in next session. Project based learning is a good approach where everyone has to contribute something to accomplish the complete content.

@Ashley, this is something which I am looking to start from the next session starting from August in my college. Generally we in India have syllabus system where topics are covered independent of previous topics covered. Due to this students find it convenient to miss classes as they don't bother about what's going on in the later classes since they think they can cover the topic through notes or textbook. Teachers generally do not teach in the manner where each subsequent class is linked to every previous class. Due to which students do not find themselves at any loss by missing classes.

Recently while teaching statistics course to BSc students, one of the students missed 3 consecutive classes due to late coming, as a result of which he found himself at loss as he could not understand anything that was going on in the classes. He also found himself lagging behind in competition to other students who were able to take over the pace in classes as they attended all the classes. He thought he will be able to understand the topic with the help of other classmates but after few days he came up to me requesting me to teach the topic again. He was feeling ashamed.

In psychology and many other subjects, at least here in India, teachers do not follow a "course" based instruction. Once students would start finding themselves at loss due to missing classes, they would automatically feel the need to remain regular.

So I am thinking that once students would feel some loss, they would be motivated to make their attendance regular. Dropping them for the whole discussion of subsequent topics that follow any previous one would make them feel as if they have missed a whole topic altogether and would have to make a fresh start otherwise they would fail in it. Classroom teaching has to be considered important and should offer something that is beyond textbook or notes.

Moreover, exams need to be conducted based on classroom discussions, and not only from what students can read in textbook. Students here have a casual habit of reading notes or chapter material during exams only which helps them secure marks on many occasions. Such practices should be made difficult by the teacher.

I have used every technique I have ever heard or read about--from experienced teachers to superiors who thought they knew better, to fight the plague of my course competing with the available games, tweets, serials, movies, and more on their pocket gadgets.  The part of giving exams is great if you have a TA to make them up and grade them.  Then, be sure to make new ones each term as cheat sheets go out the moment students leave the classroom.  My ultimate conclusion is that I am wasting my time fighting student ignorance, lack of intellectual curiosity, or even trying to assure their intellectual honesty, etc. as they make themselves  victims of the diversions.   So, I teach to those who come to class.  Those who do not come to class or miss out on assignments get lower grades.  I realize, as I write this, that in some schools students rate their teachers--and teachers who don't give good grades get poor ratings and their classes are avoided. Then the instructor gets blamed and punished.   In that case, my solution doesn't work because we all want good ratings!!!!!!!   Thus, the final conclusion is:  teach to those who want to learn and give all the others a B grade.  And stop breaking your back worrying about how much they learn.  When they get out and on the job, there will always be openings for drone workers, workers who are mediocre, and those who arrived with degrees but are "College Educated Idiots."  The latter will make up the bulk of those laid off regularly as employers replace them as soon as their mediocrity becomes apparent.  You do your best by those who come to learn and give them all of your efforts--provide them with the best experiences they can get out of your class..

@Irwin, I agree with your views and approach. I have also reached to similar conclusions many times as this is the most easy way out since it reduces much cognitive load (reduces dissonance). I have found myself doing the same with some of the students who are regular and keeping pace with the course. This is quite obvious too as such students being regular become familiar with the teacher's style of teaching. And the relationship becomes stronger naturally.

Students are coming to us with different needs and have been carrying their previous experiences of the classroom. I have seen that after a semester or two, the position of students gets fixed and a student who stands at first position will be found at similar positions after the completion of the course. A student standing 10th or 15th will be found in similar rankings. Except for the few who face a dramatic shift in their academic life due to influences from personal issues.

Most of the students, if not given attention, stay the same forever. A teacher has to wait and watch as sometimes intervening distances the child more. A student keeps watching the behavior of the teacher towards him/herself and changes him/herself over time. There are many fears in the minds of students when interacting with the teacher. So I prefer such students should be given their space and time to become comfortable with the teacher. There are students who are least motivated in the classroom despite the fact that they attend classes regularly.

Adopting the teaching style suiting the needs of all sorts of students makes it easy for different types of students to get interested and engaged in learning. That is why I prefer that activities or tasks should be designed in a manner that can target every student in the classroom.

Ultimately each student will carry the knowledge and learning according to his/her own potential.

I'm not superman.  I find it very difficult to find out what the needs are of 30 or more students in a class and I teach 3 or 4 classes per term.  It says that I am supposed to customize what I do to match their needs.  Their needs are expressed to me by what, I am sure, you see all around you all the time:  Everyone's nose is buried in his/her Ipod and doing texting, movies, etc.   They learn the names of every new entertainer who warbles into a microphone or shakes his/her body in a movie.  They've seen every new video that makes a splash on u-tube.  But even when I make them purchase a subscription to The Wall Street Journal (and they turn in receipts proving they have gotten it) and a screaming headline announces a major industrial situation, only a few students come to class the next day knowing of the story.  There is close to zero curiosity.  They go to Wikipedia for everything and use terminology on their PowerPoint slides they were too uninterested to even look up--so they stand and stare when you ask for the meaning of a word on their slide.   Yes, they are carrying knowledge and learning according to their potential.  They will, I believe, eventually wise up, but by then, they will have damaged themselves rather badly.  But right now,  beating them over the head with tests, contorting yourself and taking valuable time to tailor your lectures, is going to be of limited success with a lot of them and of zero success with those who don't come to class.  But we cannot flunk them out, because then we'd have no classes.   Then we, as professors, will get the blame for not being able to teach properly.   The latter will, of course, come from administrators sitting high up in their executive ranks and who will make pronouncements on what we do.  And blame us for the disinterested students.

Hello,

I think some things go more results than others. I have observed in my practice as a teacher, the transmissive logic seems exhausted, certainly, in a world where the ease and abundance of information is already large and easy. So we have to go for other sides to draw attention. No one (not even myself, despite my 50 years old) can sit, motionless listening to someone talk and talk and talk. This already gave wrong with me (and my colleagues, of course) as a child (but at that time the teachers imposed fear and sometimes lol punishment). In my Master's degree (2010-2013) also did not work (the transmissive logic). The logic of I talk, you listen and note does not provide many results. The best teachers I had and I tried to imitate are teachers who bring the student to attend classes. People want to talk, they want to discuss, want to build things (projects), wish to create, want to be seen, want to be the object of criticism and want to criticize. The human being was born to be the protagonist. To be inventive. That's what drives us. And nowadays, of course, many of these things involve technological resources as well. It's part of our culture. So despise such elements can influence whether or not students like our school. I speak from experience of someone who was a teacher "common" and a teacher that students wanted to attend classes. So, I do not know if it is "manage" the presence of students. The way I see it I think it comes to managing my classes. As I wrap the students? What resources do I use to motivate and make students participate in classes? How do I make my classes become attractive? I think we learn from the success of teachers is a good option. That's what I did. I tried to learn from my colleagues of success and ... become a better teacher than I was. Students looked at it and the whole thing flowed better for me and for the students.

Regards,

I have a list of students to classes, students sign it and I made a copy before giving it to students in the next class to sign for the accuracy of the information. I did not sign a blank space that is not signed by the student to see the honesty of students. Students will be actively involved in the classroom for effective teaching and learning.

How about giving students a reward of few (or may be all) fixed attendance in advance and focus on providing grades based on their classroom performance only? Students would be aware that only their classroom participation would matter and not just attendance. This would provide security in going to classes and students would give more outputs as they have to focus on only learning. What do you think about a method like this? Has anyone experimented with alternatives like this?

Wherever i worked so far, there were system called "students-faculty log-books" in which the physical presence of the students are marked by the respective faculties daily / as and when they directly contact students for delivering sessions. This system might attract proxy issue, if the faculty does not concentrate on students answer to the attendance.

In some of the institutions, we were asked to notify the present / absent details in software / online teaching learning tools at the end of every day or periodically as per the system warrants. This multiple / system embedded practice helps in a lot of administrative issues starting from the preparation of monthly attendance, daily attendance, hourly attendance, faculty-based attendance, student-based attendance, subject-based attendance, etc. and find out the gaps in students attendance, relative presence / likeability to faculty / subject, chronic absentees and causes for absenteeism, etc. It also help in subject-faculty allocations and faculty-leave regulations also, as the system requires the time table / work allotment well-in-advance so that it captures the right session / time to the right faculty for marking their minutes as class proceedings such as subjects planned, subjects taught, subjects given as practical / action based sessions, alternative classes handled for leave faculty, etc.                

it is not new to that how to mange students attendance in class, there are different strategies adopted to do so. one of them is to make attendance compulsory and on each day student will get a mark, which will be added to final mark sheet. there should be questions answer session in which every student will record their opinion, compulsory for final assessment.similarly so many techniques of interest can be developed to enhance students attendance in class, apart from this if teacher present in better way every student will try to attend the class with enthusiasm .

Dear Tarun,

Why not focus on motivating students to want to reach our class because he loves our class. I have a question: what good is a student be present in body but not the "spirit"? Physical presence ensures something? Nothing. Only satisfies our ego we have spectators to our class. So, I think the lack of students is a symptom, not a cause. What is the real cause of the absence of other students are and should be investigated. Should become a problem of educational management and be resolved. I sincerely believe that if students do not want to go to class, there is something extremely wrong with class, with the teacher, with the educational model ... What is the real problem we are discussing here? There is the absence of students in class, but the lack of motivation to attend classes.

Regards,

S.

I teach a yoga course twice/year for physical education credit at a local university;  students are required to take PE if they want to graduate.  my course is pass/fail so my only criterion for passing is attendance;  if they don't or can't attend (illness, accident, family emergency, etc) they must bring me a note from their doctor, a signed note from another yoga teacher whose class they've attended, and/or write a paper on their experience in my class to make up for missed classes.

My class is challenging and they are often sore for the 3 - 6 weeks but since they can see/feel progress as well as their improved health in other areas (reduced stress and anxiety, reduction in migraines, elimination of back pain, etc) they are usually pretty motivated to attend.

We as educators should never become so cynical that we pass students or give them better grades than they've worked for - any administration that rewards that demeans their school as well as the value of the education that school should be providing.  If you don't enjoy teaching that will be apparent to the students as well and perhaps they are distracted by other things because you need to work at inspiring them.  I've seen YouTube videos of professors designing lessons using themes from pop music and other things that keep the kids engaged.

Don't be boring!

I have no problem with student attendance to my classes so far. May be, I am at the beginning of my teaching career. I teach English for researchers, medical and master students. Teaching adults can be challenging because they want to know how your classes will serve them in the future (far behind getting good grades or passing a course). You have to take that into account when you design your objectives. For instance, I have just two main objectives for my applied chemistry master students: (i) To be able to write an abstract (ii) to produce a lab safety agreement in English.  I teach them basic grammar with focus on three tenses (simple present, simple past and present perfect). More importantly, I ask them to read the class materials beforehand, divide them into groups of 4-5 students, assign to each group a part of the reading material to prepare for the entire classroom. I just summarize and clarify thereafter. They feel empowered and have fun. Except for a valid excuse, none of my students would like to miss my classes. I think using active learning and teaching techniques helps a lot.

I also bring small incentives (cookies, etc...). I don't think that is meaningful at all.

Thanks

I am newer to teaching, at least as far as being the instructor of record, but I have found a few different strategies that have seemed to work so far. I am really passionate about teaching and it's very important to me that students are learning things that will be relevant to their lives or careers. So making the course lecture interesting and relevant to my student's lives is a priority and it seems to really help with attendance. So far, I've gotten great feedback on anonymous feedback tools I've had my students complete and many of them mention how taking the time to learn their names and ask questions about what they want out of the course has made a difference.

I try my best to incorporate discussion and applied activities into every class, so that it's not just lecture and therefore more intrinsically motivating for them to attend. Now, obviously this means extra prep time, and it doesn't get all students to attend, but I find that I myself enjoy the classes more when I do it this way. WIth a large class it can be tough to do activities, but I find that even with large groups, it's easy to do a partner activity or small group discussions and have members from the groups share what they've discussed. It's still possible to make a large class inviting!

Also, I have made participation a part of their grade, so those who do not come to class automatically have their grades impacted. My university uses Turning Point software and clickers, so I have incorporated those into my class and it's been great. I use the clickers to have students answer various types of questions throughout the class period. Some of them help me gauge student understanding of topics or engagement in the lecture. Other times I have used clickers to gauge the opinions of the class on controversial or opinion-related topics relevant to the lecture. This helps the class see that there are differing opinions and helps me to see where the majority of my students are in regards to these topics.

Also, myself and a colleague have used candy as an incentive to participate during the first few weeks of class. I'll bring a bag of Kit-Kats or something and toss them to those who respond to questions or are actively participating. You'd be surprised how many join in after they see this!

Lastly, and I think most successfully, is I've created a culture of respect in my class. I make it clear to them that I want them to be successful and that I will do my part. But I also make it clear that I expect them to do theirs. That if we want the class to be as good as it can be, we both need to do what's required of us. I encourage coming to my office hours, and find that students are more likely to come to me to tell me about those "student variables" when they impact their attendance if I show them I genuinely care.

Think back to classes you took in college - which ones were best? Why? Which ones were worst? I try to emulate the classes that stuck with me and avoid doing things that I hated as a student. It's a lot of work, and obviously every semester will be different with differences students, but I really believe these steps have helped and have paid off in my own enjoyment of teaching. Hope this helps at least a little!

At CUT we have electronic registers where students swipe as they enter lecture rooms to confirm attendance because we have a system in place where ,if a student fails to attend 75% of lectures the student will not be allowed to write end of semester exams.In a way this move has helped ensure that students attend lectures

I use sign up sheets and make sure no one signs for an absent student. I make it clear in the course syllabus that class attendance and participation are graded towards the final grade. Electronic registers must be more efficient.

Modibo

I use the scores from the pretest to identify students who may need my particular attention during the course. I track their performance through the first formative assessments. If I don't see much improvement, either I offer additional time to work with them (usually an hour just before the regular class hours) or I encourage them to contact me during my office hours whenever they need help. I realized that the first option works better. In my opinion, most students get low pretest scores and go on to get low grades or even fail the course before the teaching material is well above their heads. A good class attendance alone won't solve that problem because the instructor did not create the cognitive conflict. In other words, the instructor should ask students as a class about what they know on a topic before he/she decides to give detailed explanation or not. When most students in the classroom know little to nothing about a topic and the instructor fails to review the prerequisite knowledge for a better understanding of a lesson, students will be bored. For instance, I taught a 12-week English course for a research lab. From the first class, I could read facial expression of my targeted students. Fortunately, they were all disciplined and motivated enough to come one hour before the regular class hour and do an extra homework weekly. All except one got an average score on the final test (posttest).

In other settings when I did not have more flexibility depending on my students' schedule or mine, I was forced to give mid-term and final exams as take-home exams.  As you wrote, some students behave as if they are in the wrong course or programs. They just can't make it regardless of their full attendance and the instructor's effort to help them. Even in such case, I still strive to make an effort to get all my students interested to my teaching by using more innovative active teaching and learning techniques.

Give a quiz at the start of class

automated attendance systems are easy to design and hard to justify. we have about 1,500 classrooms x $X per classroom. since our team runs the technology for a hospital system and a university that includes many large 3D/VR rooms we are around IoT integration. very familiar with clock in bottlenecks on the time systems.