Attendance Grade

This post combines the reflections discussed in the previous two posts. I also require students to earn points for class attendance, representing almost 10% of their final grade. However, I decided to try a different approach this year. In previous semesters, I simply recorded attendance grades (20 points for each class) based on a student's physical presence in the classroom. However, I noticed several problems:

• Students arrive as late as 20-30 minutes.
• Students leave class early.
• Students simply don't attend class.
  
• Students are distracted by the computer (Facebook chatting, web-surfing, clothes shopping) evidenced by busy fingers typing on the keyboard during discussions when the computer is not needed
• Students emailing me in the weeks after a class asking how to do something or needing clarification on something that was purposely and clearly explained in class.

Therefore, I changed my attendance policy to hopefully alleviate some of this problems. Students still earn 20 points per class for attendance. However, the points depend on the following three conditions:

1. A student's physical presence in the classroom for the full duration of our class.
2. A student's active participation in the lecture/discussion/demonstration (I keep a roster handy to note any students who seem to be distracted by the computer).
3. A student's completion and submission of an in-class assignment (Assignment is emailed to the instructor during the last 5 minutes of class).

The in-class assignment is something that students hopefully find interesting and useful in their everyday life. In my my class this past week, we overviewed the learning unit on Microsoft Word. During class, I presented them with the following scenario:

Text message from your mom: Every time I open Internet Explorer, the first webpage to open is always www.msn.com. I want the University of Alabama website to pop up instead. How do I do that?

Students complete a four-step pictorial manual for their moms in Microsoft Word using the Print Screen command. Most students are unfamiliar with it's capability. I help them understand the usefulness of this tool in later job or personal situations when a computer error pops on the screen. I explain that a screen shot of the error can be made and sent to the appropriate people. Additionally, this activity educates students on how to change the homepage of a web browser. They emailed me their manuals at the end of class.

So far so good on the new attendance requirements.