I didn’t say it always was-but still, if one isn’t going to attend…
No, most teachers don’t care about the ones who don’t give any effort-which is why they-the students-fail. If you aren’t going to do what is REQUIRED of you, you don’t deserve a C.
It’s to discourage memorization-it’s too encourage LEARNING.
Class isn’t just about the material-it’s also how well you do and work. Again-if you’re not there, tough.
Universities are in an interesting position – students are both their customers and their product. If they don’t turn out good product, then the school’s rating goes down, and they attract less customers. So, it’s a balancing test.
However, that doesn’t affect the interests of the students as customers. They are paying a ludicrous amount of money for the education the university requires. So long as the students meet the requirements the university sets out (so they can claim to create good products), why is it the university’s, or the professor’s concern how the students meet those requirements?
And that’s your method of learning. Fine - it’s also mine. But what has that to do with those students who absorb knowledge better visually rather than aurally?
And if the student learns the material better through independent study, the consequence should be failure because they don’t meet the professor’s desired method for learning said material?
But the student is paying for the class, not getting paid for attending the class. You EARN your grade by absorbing the material. Why should the professor care, other than ego, how you learn the material?
Sua
GUIN - a final point.
If professors considered class participation, you may have a point. But if attendance is the only requirement for grades, it’s silly. Are you learning more if you attend every class, then immediately fall asleep upon arrival? But attendance requirement only consider whether your body is there, not your mind.
Sua
Maybe s/he is and maybe not. I never paid for a class. My parents paid for the first four years and fellowships paid for the next four.
My daughters actually paid half their tuition out of money that had been given to them. (That is, my wife and I set it up that way.) Interestingly, my older daughter once figured out how much tuition was being paid for each class hour. IIRC it was around $200. That figure motivated her not to cut.
Back to the OP. Given that the parents are normally paying for the class, perhaps they are the real customers. What sort of attendance poilicy would they want? I’d guess that most of them would want their kids to go to class. My wife and I sure did.
Fine. I restate it as saying, “the student’s participation is being paid for”. If the parent of the payor was demanding that the student attend classes, you may have a point, but if they are not, it doesn’t change the fact that the student is the customer.
Sua
Since I teach at the collegiate level, I’d thought I’d weigh in with my take on the issue.
First, I tend to agree with the OP that grading a student based largely upon required class attendence is problamatic. If the student knows the material and does the worked required for the course, then the student’s overall grade should be based on the mastery of the material, not whether they’ve attended as required.
However, since colleges generally (but not always) allow professors to dictate their classroom policies, it would have been better for one to change to a professor that didn’t have such a strict attendence policy.
Where I teach, instructors are REQUIRED to keep attendence - whether it’s an integral part of a student’s grade is left to the discretion of the instructor. We are required to keep attendence because out institution wants the instructors making sure that students are attending class ( important primarily for students receiving financial aid).
I myself do not like to keep attendence. If a student thinks he/she can learn the material and complete the assignments as required, then I don’t care if they show up or not. However, since I’m required to keep class attendence (or at least something that tracks who shows up and who doesn’t from time to time), I state in my class up-front that if a student DOESN’T show up, then they will not do well in my course. My classes are structured so that students need to be in my class most of the time to do well.
Attendence isn’t mandatory for my classes (and it isn’t part of my grading criteria); however, students are required to turn all assignments to me in class. If they don’t, points are deducted. I assign homework/projects in class and if a student isn’t there to receive them, then no credit for that assignment and no chance for making it up. Miss an exam? No problem - makeups are all essay. Miss the final? no problem - oral comprehensive exam.
My post has since been translated (not pretty, but more or less correct, btw), but since you took the time to answer my post, I wanted to answer yours:
A language is not something you can “study at home” (ask me - I know). You learn it by speaking it. As it is to be assumed that you weren’t spending the time you would have been in class chatting German with your friends, I really don’t think it was unreasonable of your teacher to require that you be present in class.
I’ve been to university in the US and in Austria. Totally different systems. Here in Austria, no one cares if you show up for a lecture – how could they? There are sometimes 600 people in the auditorium! But you don’t pay much for it, either. (In fact, when I was studying, university was still free here; even now it only costs a fraction of what it costs to study in the US.) And a great number of students pay their own way (at least in part), i.e. they live on their own and support themselves while studying. Considering what it costs to even go to college in the US and who is usually paying for it, I’ve always felt it should be held in much higher regard. It isn’t always convenient to go to class, but while you are studying, I think it’s your job – literally! Someone is paying for you to be there. If you are paying your own way, you have to know for yourself what you want out of it.
What I do find ridiculous in the US, however, is that you are required to take courses outside of your major. High school is supposed to give you general knowledge, IMO. That’s where you should have to learn another language (it really can’t hurt, you know). Once you get to college, you should be relatively certain of the direction you want to go. And you should spend the full four years working towards that.
If you can pass the final with out going to class, doing homework or anything, why are you taking the class?
At the University of California, you could challenge a class (essentially pass the final) and not have to take it.
My four years of Chinese language study was filled with ringers and sometimes even native Chinese speakers to get an easy A and boost their grade point. It was a real bitch having to compete against these people.
You can avoid having your grade reduced for poor attendence by simply going to class. It’s not that difficult. You were aware that classes would be a part of college, were you not? Or perhaps you expected college to be like in the movies, where you get to have fun all the time and never go to class at all?
What about the other students in your German class? In most foreign language classes, the students spend a significant percentage of class time conversing with each other or working on group projects. For this reason, it’s not fair to your classmates if you don’t show up.
The same is true of most discussion-based classes – students learn from each other, so you have a responsibility to come to class and share your perspective on the course material.
Lecture classes on factual material are another story, and as far as I’m concerned, if a student can study at home and learn enough to pass the exam, more power to him or her.
Sua, you are correct. I seem to be living in the past. At one time college students were considered to be children. College would help them become adults (as well as educating them, of course.) The institutions were in loco parentis. (I think that’s Latin for, “my parents are nuts” ;)).
Today, the students are deemed to already be adults when they enter college. We parents are not expected to get any say in our kids’ education. Neither of my daughters’ colleges ever asked me and my wife whether we would like class attendance to be optional or mandatory.
Even high school seniors expect to pick their own college. Their parents are expected to pay the freight, but without any say in the choice. (At least that was the case with my kids.)
The caption to this post was some good advice I followed when my daughter got married. Today it seems to apply to the Father of the Student as well as Father of the Bride.
“Kids!! What the devil’s wrong with kids these days?
Kids!! Who can understand anything they say?
Why can’t they dance like we did,
What’s wrong with Danny Kaye?
What’s the matter with kids these days?!!” 
december, I would have no objection if (a) the person actually paying the freight told the school that they wanted attendance to be mandatory for the student, or (b) the school upfront said mandatory attendance is part of the requirement. It may or may not be a necessary precondition to an education, but in instance (a) it is a negotiated term, and in condition (b) the student can decide to go elsewhere if attendance is a huge problem for him/her. It is when individual professors attempt to change the terms of the contract that I have a problem.
Sua
Thanks, horhay - ditto for me, only not specifically required. It was a course I needed to add a secondary degree in Mathematics after my name - seemed important at the time, doesn’t now.
Didn’t care about the grade that much, then or now. Just needed to pass it, thought the Professor was a dickhead.
When I went into the class, I truly thought I would learn something - that it would be different from the Physics side. The Professor hadn’t upgraded his class plan in the 20 years he had been teaching the course, or so it appeared.