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I also disagree with the whole "the students paid for the class so they have a right to....etc., etc."
I don't, in general, agree with the whole students as consumers thing.
I do recognize that they paid for the class, but that doesn't mean the class or the teacher or the experience is something they own. They also haven't paid for ownership of an A. Or a B. Or a C. Or any grade.
They've paid for the right to participate in the class. They've paid for the right to be in the class. They've paid for the right to try. They've paid for the opportunity to earn credit for the course (operative word: earn). That opportunity can be squandered or not. Just depends on the performance of the student.
In contrast, students who don't pay for the class do not have the opportunity to earn credit.
Students in college aren't consumers. They're products. They're a work in progress. They come in uneducated (presumably). And the schools/teachers (with the cooperation of the student) are trying to produce an educated and/or vocationally trained individual for society's use.
During the regular semester, in a 3-hour class they are allowed two absences with no penalty. The third absence means they can only get a C, at best, in the course, even if their actual grades are As and Bs. If they are absent a 4th time, they get an F or are dropped from the course.
Why? They are all adults.
When I went to college - yes, back in the stone ages - I did not have a single class that counted attendance. The only classes I knew of that counted attendance was Freshman English, which I tested out of. My grades were decided on X number of exams and X number of papers. Labs did in the sense that if you didn't attend you couldn't do the lab reports, but otherwise, no. Of course, if you missed exams or quizzes you were SOL. But I never missed. Why? Because I didn't want to fail the exams, which made up in many cases 100% of my grade. Whatever happened to personal responsibility and internal accountability? This is all part of the dumbing down of colleges.
When I went to college - yes, back in the stone ages - I did not have a single class that counted attendance. The only classes I knew of that counted attendance was Freshman English, which I tested out of. My grades were decided on X number of exams and X number of papers. Labs did in the sense that if you didn't attend you couldn't do the lab reports, but otherwise, no. Of course, if you missed exams or quizzes you were SOL. But I never missed. Why? Because I didn't want to fail the exams, which made up in many cases 100% of my grade. Whatever happened to personal responsibility and internal accountability? This is all part of the dumbing down of colleges.
I'd say that if most of the demographic of students I taught were like you, then I'd just naturally not have an attendance policy. But they aren't. They don't just naturally "want" to do well, nor do they have "personal responsibility" and "internal accountability."
Believe me, I was a student like you myself. I was *scared* to miss a day of class, because I didn't want to miss anything and I never trusted classmates' notes or that they would remember to tell me everything, or even enough.
So yeah, community college teachers today really just have to create rules around attendance. Believe me, many students would only show up about 1/2 the time if they could get away with it.
I mean, to put it in perspective, one of my community college teacher friends has no attendance policy (well, his is very lenient, I should say) and he constantly tells me, when talking about a student, "she/he never comes to class."
And it's not all on the teachers to "make the class exciting enough that students 'want' to come to class." You don't go to class because it's entertaining and super-wonderfully-taught. You just need to go to class. It's part of being a student. I think my own class is neither the most exciting, nor the most boring. But students should be going to class even if they find it boring, in any case. I never missed classes when I was an undergrad; it didn't matter how "boring" I thought the class. I was there for the information, the announcements, the discussion, the note-taking, etc.
offer them something for going to class. That's what I did and I had excellent attendance despite not taking attendance ( I taught at a university, but it was at satellite campuses in the evening).
Every class I put two questions from the upcoming exam in my PPT deck. It was two questions on the topic we had covered in the class. If you attended all of the classes you had the answers to 10-14 of the 50 questions. I offered them something they probably would have taken away from the class just from showing up, but because it was in concrete terms "two questions from the upcoming exam" it motivated them to attend more. They saw a direct relationship between attendance and performance.
Earlier this year I started a part time evening job at a local Community College where I teach as an Adjunct Instructor in Business Management. It has been quite an experience.
The one thing that bugs me more than anything is students who show up late. I am talking about 30-45 minutes late on a regular basis. (These are 3 hour classes) At 10 minutes after the official class start time I shut the door thinking that would send a message to the students that they are late and the class is already under way but they walk in like they own the place and expect me to stop the class and tell them what they missed.
When I ask them why they were late they usually go mute, or just say something like: "got held up, traffic, or I had other things I had to do."
I try to lecture them about the importance of punctuality but they just look at me like I am crazy and the rest of the class students freeze up and look embarrassed. I see them thinking, "just leave him alone, what's the big thing about being late!"
Are you a college instructor or student? What do you think about students who show up late all the time?
Where my wife attended, students were not permitted to enter the class after it starts. No excuses.
When I went to college - yes, back in the stone ages - I did not have a single class that counted attendance. The only classes I knew of that counted attendance was Freshman English, which I tested out of. My grades were decided on X number of exams and X number of papers. Labs did in the sense that if you didn't attend you couldn't do the lab reports, but otherwise, no. Of course, if you missed exams or quizzes you were SOL. But I never missed. Why? Because I didn't want to fail the exams, which made up in many cases 100% of my grade. Whatever happened to personal responsibility and internal accountability? This is all part of the dumbing down of colleges.
With regard to attendance, as opposed to the thread topic of lateness alone, I have the same question.
I've taken classes at both the community college and at the university I currently attend. I have generally used rate my professor, and word of mouth reputation, to avoid instructors/professors who are anal about attendance, when possible anyway. I think it is rude to come late, I always keep my phone put away and off during class and I try to be engaged and attentive when the lecture is going on but when it comes to counting absences and penalizing students with a dropped grade, or being dropped from the class entirely, well, I try and avoid instructors that do that.
Look, I know which classes I have to attend all the time and which ones I can sacrifice attendance here and there if I need to without it falling apart. I know, personally, how much I can safely miss without falling behind, because I use the textbook, readings, and syllabus to keep on top of things. If I am able to miss class yet still pass the quiz or test and I still turn in all assigned work, why should I be punished simply for NOT being there?
I can see the usefulness of offering an incentive to those who do come to class and come on time, but in scenarios where a student loses a letter grade after X absences, I don't see how that's reasonable. If it had been the case with any classes I've taken, I can think of more than one I would have gotten a C in vs the A I ended up getting, and just because of attendance.
So I am asking, if I am able to make an A in a class on my own, whether I attend regularly or not, shouldn't that be good enough for the instructor? Giving an A-earning student a B or C due to attendance and solely based on this just seems controlling and unnecessary.
I'd say that if most of the demographic of students I taught were like you, then I'd just naturally not have an attendance policy. But they aren't. They don't just naturally "want" to do well, nor do they have "personal responsibility" and "internal accountability."
Believe me, I was a student like you myself. I was *scared* to miss a day of class, because I didn't want to miss anything and I never trusted classmates' notes or that they would remember to tell me everything, or even enough.
So yeah, community college teachers today really just have to create rules around attendance. Believe me, many students would only show up about 1/2 the time if they could get away with it.
I mean, to put it in perspective, one of my community college teacher friends has no attendance policy (well, his is very lenient, I should say) and he constantly tells me, when talking about a student, "she/he never comes to class."
And it's not all on the teachers to "make the class exciting enough that students 'want' to come to class." You don't go to class because it's entertaining and super-wonderfully-taught. You just need to go to class. It's part of being a student. I think my own class is neither the most exciting, nor the most boring. But students should be going to class even if they find it boring, in any case. I never missed classes when I was an undergrad; it didn't matter how "boring" I thought the class. I was there for the information, the announcements, the discussion, the note-taking, etc.
But I knew people who didn't attend back then and, as it should be, they simply failed because they couldn't pass the exams. No mention was made of attendance, because that didn't factor in to the grade. It was a great way to weed out those without a work ethic. When a boss hired a person with a college degree in the mid-70's they knew it meant a person who was either very, very bright and/or a person who had a high level of self discipline and who understood the principle of deferred gratification. Now days you don't know that because they are being given lots of credit for just doing what should be the normal expectation; you attend classes and take ownership of your own learning. College students are supposed to be adults and should be treated as such, not treated like overgrown high school students.
So I am asking, if I am able to make an A in a class on my own, whether I attend regularly or not, shouldn't that be good enough for the instructor? Giving an A-earning student a B or C due to attendance and solely based on this just seems controlling and unnecessary.
I have the policy you're referring to, but it's actually NEVER happened that a student who would be affected by it didn't have a C or D or even worse based on grades anyway. In other words, students who exceed the absences don't tend to be A or B students in the first place.
If it did happen that I had a student who had an A or B going (and he or she seemed to be continuing on that trend), and he/she exceeded the absences, I'd likely do one of two things:
1) Bend on my policy (especially if he/she exceeds the absences only by one) and give the grade he or she earned based on written assignments (tests, essays). If I made this choice, it would very likely be because I assessed the student's overall attitude, respect level, and effort in class to be strong enough to deserve my bending.
or
2) Enforce my policy anyway, with the following rationale (that many of my colleagues have as well with regard to attendance, particularly in the face of the "If I can get an A or B on assignments and meet all the requirements, why do I HAVE to attend class?" argument):
The requirements for the class are not just the written assignments, the exams, the quizzes, or the final. Also included in what is required in order to earn credit for the course is quality and meaningful participation in class. This is a more "overall," abstract requirement, but it is no less significant.
That means that one (a student, that is) is dialoguing with other students, listening to lectures, offering his/her thoughts occasionally which may or may not help other students, participating in group work, helping peers during peer review, offering one's thoughts on readings, clarifying things for classmates who may have less understanding of a concept. (This doesn't, however, mean that shy students aren't also participating adequately in class as long as they listen and as long as they are willing to speak at least in small groups).
Now, I will grant you that in any given semester (although not necessarily every semester, by any means), there is often that one student who clearly is so advanced that there is little that the course can do to benefit him or her. He or she could phone in the work and get an A or B. Still, he or she hasn't met the requirement of the class that includes being a member of it. If a student signs up for an online class, he or she isn't so much required (at least not to the same degree) to be an active member of it. But in a traditional, in-person class, it's a part of your earning credit for the course.
I would also say that I wouldn't base my policy off the idea that "many students don't need to come to class. They can do it on their own, therefore, I must not inconvenience so many students by requiring attendance."
I've been teaching for four years and have about six or seven classes per semester. In other words, I've seen tons and tons of students and have had several dozen different classes. In general, many students overestimate their ability and underestimate how much they "need" what you're talking to them about / trying to teach them.
For instance, I'm an English/writing teacher, and I've had the occasional student say to me (not disrespectfully, but more casually in the course of general talk about college and its requirements): "I like learning, but at the same time, so much of the first two years of college is just a repeat of what we already learned in high school. It's frustrating. Even this class [he meant my class - English], I like it, but at the same time, my high school English teacher covered many of these same things."
Next I must note that this kid's writing was atrocious. He was bright. He spoke well enough for an 18/19 year old. But his writing left a lot to be desired. His reading comprehension did, too.
But this same student is exactly the type of student from whom I would expect to hear: "If I can get an A or B in the class, why should I have to come to class? I learned so much of this already in high school."
But having "heard it before" from a high school teacher has nothing to do with how well you apply it. I'm quite sure his high school English teacher and I overlap in a lot of ways in terms of how to write a strong thesis statement and how to develop critical points in an essay, but 1) the overlap is certainly not in all ways, and 2) how do we reconcile the fact that this kid who "already learned this" and "doesn't need to be in class to do the assignments" has atrocious writing and, furthermore, is hard-pressed to verbalize the overall main argument of a short, 3 page reading written at a 10th grade level?
I think, in general, it's true that some students could eke out a passing grade in a course (or even do pretty well) if they keep up with the assignments and turn them in on time, even if they don't attend class. But I think they always get MORE out of the class they paid for if they actually attend. Furthermore, as I said, my rationale is that participation in the class and being an active member of itis a huge part of earning credit for it.
Which side of this debate one falls on has a lot to do with what his or her philosophy of education is in general. I don't view education as an automated process of performing on tests and essays. I view education as a more dialogical, interactive process. I actually see it as happening more so in between the tests and written assignments. So when one only does the tests and written assignments, I don't believe he or she has even gotten most of what is actually education part.
Teachers who teach in-person classes and have students who signed up for in-person classes expect for the students to be in class for said in-person class, at least most of the time. Students would be pretty appalled if their teacher emailed them one day and said, "I can get all of this information to you guys via email. Other than that, just read the textbook and be ready for the test on Thursday." Why? Because they signed up for an in-person teacher who they expect to lecture/speak with intonations and inflection and the ability to clear things up for them on the spot. To provide verbal examples, written examples (on the white board) on the fly, anecdotes and explanations that help reinforce ideas, skills, concepts. To listen as they (the students) give their ideas on what they think they're learning, and let them know if they're on the right track. These are things that are all done much less efficiently when student and teacher are at a physical distance from each other.
Which side of this debate one falls on has a lot to do with what his or her philosophy of education is in general. I don't view education as an automated process of performing on tests and essays. I view education as a more dialogical, interactive process. I actually see it as happening more so in between the tests and written assignments. So when one only does the tests and written assignments, I don't believe he or she has even gotten most of what is actually education part.
I guess I'd add (for you and the other poster) that I don't know how it is in other states, but in the one I'm in, at least according to my department, it's actually the law that students be in attendance 87% of the time in order to receive college course credit. So, in the case of the example I gave, a class that meets for sixteen weeks, once a week for three hours, that equates to a student being allowed to be absent 13% of the time, which means six hours, which means two class periods.
If you don't want to go to class very much, it's very simple: take online classes, or "hybrid" classes (a mix of online/distance and in-person). As long as one signs up for an in-person class, though, I don't see the rationale for being indignant that there's an expectation that you attend at least such-and-such amount of time. I understand not liking it, but I don't get anyone who would say attendance is a completely out of line requirement in the first place.
It's true college students are adults and not the same as high school students (although in mentality, maturity, and skills-level, for a lot of them, that is arguable). As such, there are A LOT of freedoms college students have that high school students don't. (Won't bother naming them, but there are many).
Requiring a minimum amount of attendance isn't a "treatment of them as babies"; rather, it's laying down a standard for the class.
Nobody tells the college student what he or she has to do. A college student does what he or she wants to do. He/she is accountable for his/her actions and *choices*.
What the college teacher does is say: "These are the standards for the class. If you meet these standards, you will be in good shape. If you do not meet these standards, you may not receive credit for the course. It is your choice."
Earlier this year I started a part time evening job at a local Community College where I teach as an Adjunct Instructor in Business Management. It has been quite an experience.
The one thing that bugs me more than anything is students who show up late. I am talking about 30-45 minutes late on a regular basis. (These are 3 hour classes) At 10 minutes after the official class start time I shut the door thinking that would send a message to the students that they are late and the class is already under way but they walk in like they own the place and expect me to stop the class and tell them what they missed.
When I ask them why they were late they usually go mute, or just say something like: "got held up, traffic, or I had other things I had to do."
I try to lecture them about the importance of punctuality but they just look at me like I am crazy and the rest of the class students freeze up and look embarrassed. I see them thinking, "just leave him alone, what's the big thing about being late!"
Are you a college instructor or student? What do you think about students who show up late all the time?
Simple: Tell them, "From now on we'll have weekly quizzes based on the lectures. No make-ups." Then give the quizzes at the beginning of class.
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