Oh, but don’t you know you’re supposed to ACCOMMODATE me? CATER to me?
Everyone else always has!
I’m sorry; as I wrote in the syllabus, any disability accommodations need to go through the proper office (the phone number is also on the syllabus) and you must give me a copy of your accommodation documentation in the first two weeks of class.
But don’t you know that the rules don’t apply to ME? And besides, it was only a couple of mnutes late; what’s the big deal?
(Yes, I’ve heard both of these at one time or another, the first only in tone, of course. And now I know that I’m old, because every time I hear stuff like this, I think “Back when I was a student…”).
But, but… I’m paying your salary! You can’t do that to me!
Yes, I got that earlier in the week in this form:
At the water fountain, a hit-and-run by student
Feckless Student: Hey, I missed the sign-in sheet when it went around.
Dr. S: There wasn’t a sign-in sheet at my class.
FS: Well, people put their names down.
Dr. S: Yes, I asked students who were there on time to write down their names for a bonus point.
FS: I was only 5 minutes late!
Dr. S: If you weren’t there on time, you aren’t eligible for the bonus point.
FS: I was at the [insert medical practitioner here]! I could bring a note.
Dr. S: You don’t have to bring a note. I’m glad you came to class. However, you weren’t there in time to get the bonus point. By the time you got there, we were already underway.
FS: [Piercing Stare of Death]
A. That’s not how it works (at least not where I work);
and B. I am not working in customer service.
I’m enjoying this thread. We could go on all day like this.
Back when I was a student the first time, nearly every class was graded with maybe four components:
1 - Always a final (although occationally only a final paper)
2 - Usually a midterm
3 - Usually a paper or project
4 - Sometimes an additional smaller paper (or two)
I’d say a good half my classes had just two components - final and paper or final and midterm. This was a big university - so a 400 person class wasn’t unheard of. At least 10% had one paper, that was it.
My classes now - fifteen years after leaving the first time - apparently something has changed with financial aid and people are expected to be in class. That means almost every class I take has a grade component based on attendance. Some have autofail policies if you miss three classes. As a working adult, going to a school that specializes in working adults, this bugs me. I TRAVEL for work - I’m not going to make it to every class. I hate having 10% or more of my grade tied to “butt in seat” - more if there are quizzes you can’t make up or make other arrangements for. (I make it to the majority of classes - but I miss at least one class a semester due to travel).
I long for the days where your grade was based on “what level of competence did you achieve” not “were you here on the Tuesday I gave a pop quiz.”
On the plus side, I can now do a lot of classes online - which puts the attendance thing aside. The teaching is very uneven online (often non-existant and seldom good - I’ve had independant study teachers that have done more teaching than some of my online instructors), but the ability to “attend” from half way across the country is really nice.
Dangerosa,
It may not be financial aid. It may be whatever body accredits the college. At least, that’s the case with the career college I was an adjunct instructor for. In order to be/stay accreditted they needed proof that students are getting their contact hours.
In principle this shouldn’t bug me, I’m the sort who always went to class, even when it wasn’t a requirement. In practice, it kind of did irk me when teachers had particularly strict policies–I’m a big girl, if I do the work, and show up most of the time, should I be penalized for not showing up on occassion (I think I missed one session of oneclass this last go round at grad school).
In practice as an instructor, the system of sign-in sheets made for a serious dollop of irritation. Especially when people were supposed to sign in for class held after the grades had to be turned in. Silly administration, I hope they’ve changed that policy.
None of my classes put much value on attendance. Some of them will make attendance like, 20% of your discussion section grade. Discussion grade is 25% of your overall grade or something like that, so its only 5% of your total grade. Even then they only care about attending your discussions or labs, not lectures.
Please please please - tell me she used the bubble gum line.
“Did you bring enough for everyone?”
Regards,
Shodan
It could also have something to do with the type of classes you’re taking now. I remember there were certain classes, like lit and writing classes, where attendence was a big thing, because there was lots of material-related discussions in the lit classes, and in the writing classes, we critiqued each other’s work during class. So because participation was a big thing in those discussion-oriented classes, attendence was important.
Whereas, other classes, as long as the instructor could tell you’d learned the material (by tests and papers), attendence was less important. I had a psych class once where the official policy was 2 tests per unit, the higher test grade was kept, the lower one thrown out. If you were happy with the grade on the first test (halfway through the unit) you could skip class (and not take the 2nd test) for the rest of the unit with no penalty.
My university usually has one mandatory attendace - the first day of every class every semester. If you miss that one, you can usually contact either the instructor or the faculty office and say “I missed the mandatory day, I still want to attend”, and that’s fine.
The reason?
It seems quite a lot of student sign up for more classes then neccesary, then don’t quit the ones they don’t want when they are accepted to other ones. The mandatory day is so you can weed out these folks, and give their place to the next person in line.
So, no good showing up halfway through the semester and wanting to take your final - your place wil be gone. Inticating interrest a day late? No prob. And no more mandatory attendance that semester, 'cept turning in assignments.
Things are different if you need lab-work and things like that, of course.
So can anyone weigh in on the official reason for the attendance policy of most institutions? Is it the accredation thing?
This policy always bothered me, and was definitely a source of friction between me and many a professor. My point being that if I can get an A with barely showing up, while the guy next to me had to come to ever class to get the A, shouldn’t I get bonus points or something? In my mind I’m obviously learning the material just as well as him, with significantly less effort.
This assumes that the purpose of the class is to “learn material,” and that it is possible to demonstrate whether you have done so without attending classes, by taking a test or writing a paper or some such. This is more true for some college courses than it is for others. And for those for which it is true, it may be possible to gain credit without actually taking the course, by taking a CLEP test or something like that—in which case, why did you take the course in the first place if you didn’t want to attend classes?
Anyway, I can’t imagine why telling a professor, in effect, “I find your classes worthless” would be a source of friction. :dubious:
Here is the latest from my campus; I have tried to shorten it a bit:
For most classes, students should be dropped if they don’t show up for the first 30 minutes of the first class meeting.
Taking attendance is not required unless the class is a Positive Attendance* class or your class grade depends on attendance. If so, roll must be taken at each meeting and recorded.
Students must be provided with written attendance/absence policies as part of the syllabus.
Students are responsible for observing official drop dates.
Instructors may drop students for excessive absences, as defined by the instructor. Again, instructors must communicate this policy in writing, and students are responsilbe for knowing it.
Students may be dropped if the instructor determines that they are no longer actively participating in the class.
There are college-authorized absences for field trips, sports, student government conferences, and performing arts programs.
That said, instructors can also have written policies regarding absences necessitated by illness and various personal problems.
*I will look up Positive Attendance later; I’m not sure what the term means, except that it may be tied to some state requirement or financial aid or…?
Speaking of state requirements, all instructors must turn in no-show response forms by certain dates due to Title V requirements. (I don’t feel like looking that up right now either.)
Do remember that one thing you demonstrate by showing up and taking my pop quiz is that you have actually been doing your own work for the class and learning the material. You also demonstrate that you are doing the assigned readings so that I don’t need to waste your time in class going over material that was already provided to you in a different format. If that’s all I do in class, I agree: Read the book and show up for tests. However, speaking only for myself, that’s not how I teach.
Hey, sometimes professors ARE useless. One of my main complaints about higher education is that tenure makes professors just give up.
I remember one class in particular, SOC 370. It was basically a criminal justice class on ethics. I attended every single class period for the first half of the semester without fail. It was taught by a 60 year old African American who thought that the white man was the devil (I wish I’d had a tape recorder, because in a room of about half white and half african american students, there was alot of :eek: ). He would ramble on for the entire class period in a voice too quiet for those beyond the second row to hear in a really thick accent about anything that came into his head at that particular moment, rarely having to do with the class material.
At the midterm, I discovered that his tests were based entirely on the assigned reading. After some quick calculations, I realized that I could still get an A if I missed all attendance points from that day on. For the remainder of the semester, I only showed up for the teacher evaluations and the final. Received a 4.0 and am fully confident that I learned more spending that hour in the library studying than attending class.
So in conclusion, mandatory attendance is silly and some professors are terrible. Man, I really hope that was what we were talking about.
But they often are worthless - or even add negative value.
I had a class last summer with a mandatory attendance policy - Advanced Strategic Management Accounting. Each week we’d come to class and the instructor would review the powerpoint slides THAT THE TEXTBOOK PUBLISHER HAD ON THEIR WEBSITE, reading them aloud in monotone. She then proceeded to do the problems - for which we had the problems worked through also on the textbook website - facing the board, not looking at the class, talking in the same monotone, but not really explaining what she was doing and working them too fast to take notes. If someone had a question, she would answer “didn’t you read the book?” Or “I just did that problem, weren’t you paying attention.”
The few times she did go outside the text to give examples, she didn’t do great. She was fine describing what she used to do (I’ll trust her on that) - but she said something about two different companies I used to work for that I know were dead wrong. Opening a discussion her on the first one got me told I didn’t know what I was talking about, the second I didn’t bother - she was right, I was wrong, and there was no reason to think any differently.
So, basically, she wasted three hours a week of my time.
Oh, I agree. No agrument there. It just doesn’t surprise me that they’re not happy about having that fact brought to their attention.
Sometimes, yes. But there are situations where it isn’t. (These are the situations that are more likely to involve the “plain dum” studemts, which is what the thread started out being about.)
As I just mentioned a few posts ago, there are some classes with Positive Attendance requirements, leaving the profs with no choice but to take attendance. In that case, it makes no sense to complain about professors who are doing what they are required to do.