@techmom99: “When i was in college, there were no attendance requirements and generally only a midterm and final and, in some classes, a paper or two. If I had had hw every day, there is no way I could have routinely taken between 17 and 21 credits and still worked 30 hours a week. I feel badly for the kids who have all this hw now. I think there should be two types of classes to choose from - one where hw counts and one that assesses only on tests and/or papers”
Those schools exist though they are more prevalent outside the US. In fact, outside the US, that is what uni education typically is like (attend lectures, then take tests/write papers at the end of the year showing what you have learned). Though if you don’t attend tutorials (and do the work that the tutors assign) at Oxbridge, for instance, the odds that you would do well in year-end papers/tests are rather small (unless you are a genius or already know the material well, like being PhD-level in math reading undergraduate Maths).
However, if someone truly wants that type of education, they could sign up for University of London International programs. All distance and everything comes down to year-end tests/projects/papers. They’re really cheap degrees too.
A professor is actually giving their students a gift when they count attendance…the professor is saying…if you show up to every class then this portion of your grade will be 100%. Let’s say that the total points for a class add up to 100 for simplicity, and 10 of those points can be earned just by showing up. This can be the boost a kid needs when they are on the edge of a better grade. Because a professor has already given this gift, I understand why they don’t want to give a higher grade to folks who can’t even bother to show up.
BTW, there are college classes that take attendance?
I can see that for seminars and case-based classes where class discussion is part of the education.
Otherwise, I would think that it would just come down to a student’s best interests.
Taking attendance is very common now at US colleges. I believe the research is fairly robust that courses which require attendance tend to have higher grades, even amongst those students who think they can just read the book/watch the lectures online. And higher grades mean better course evaluations.
I guess it is a little infantilizing, and students certainly don’t like it: “I’m an adult, I should be able to choose whether to attend class.” The comeback then is, “sure, you are free to take the course with another professor or another university where attendance is not required.”
I do not take attendance directly, but I do have small reading-comprehension or other exercises at the start of most class meetings. They count a small amount towards the grade, but students have to be present to take them. I find it a fairer alternative to participation grading.
For us, it’s not about course evaluations (actually the program I work in monitors our grading and I’d get questioned if my grades seemed too high compared to program standards).
However, COLLEGES are evaluated for things like students making standards of progress, and especially timely graduation rates. If my classes had no attendance requirement, more students would fail. I have no doubt about it. The school needs them to move along, thus it makes sense to have a requirement to make them show up. The requirement doesn’t come from the University as a whole, but the really smart people running the comp program know that the students need to be there, both because it’s a discussion-based class and because their writing will suffer if they don’t.
(Side note: my students consistently said all semester long that this was their favorite class to attend…even if at the end some were a little techy about grades.)
There was another trick I used to use but have abandoned as too harsh. I used to offer students an optional paper early in the semester. Not for extra credit, but it could substitute for their lowest “regular” grade. Also of course a good opportunity for them to practice their skills in the course.
Predictably, only a few students would do it, and not those who would later complain about their grades. Those who at the end of the semester would talk about how important their grade is to them would struggle to explain why they hadn’t taken the opportunity to do the optional paper.
But as I say, too harsh. It just made them feel too bad about themselves.
My son had two interesting things happen on this topic this fall semester.
In one class, he was doing ok, probably a B, which was where he should have been. Then he totally, utterly tanked on one test. Based on syllabus, it was so bad that it put the entire class in jeopardy. He went to the professor (middle of the semester) and she immediately saw that there was a topic that he had completely misunderstood and wasn’t getting (he didn’t miss class or homework), so she arranged two meetings with him to fix the problem. He got back to his Bs for the rest of the semester. His grade should have been a D based on points, but she bumped him to a C- (which still stinks) for having come to her and spent several hours out of class doing extra work to fix the problem. We appreciated that.
The second issue wasn’t his, but involved a very small class, so he saw it played out. In this one, I think the teacher was unfair and wrong. The final for the class was a group project, and all of the grades throughout the semester were for meeting benchmarks toward the final project. In the syllabus, the teacher stated clearly and unequivocally that he would not become involved in group matters. Fine. One group (not my son’s) had a member who didn’t participate at all, didn’t do his tasks, didn’t attend meetings, nothing. The group attempted to discuss this with the professor and get guidance from the very beginning of the semester. The professor wouldn’t get involved. The group didn’t have the option to kick out the student (from the syllabus), and attendance at meetings counted for the entire group’s grade. This kid did nothing, so his tasks were not done timely or at all, and when his attendance was reported honestly, it knocked 20% off the attendance grades for everyone else. He didn’t present appropriately at the final presentation. The entire group lived and died together, and that group barely passed the class because of all the dings received by the one kid. I actually don’t think other students should be responsible for figuring out how to deal with such a problem. I think the professor should have stepped in. Not for bickering or silly stuff, but this kid wasn’t present in any meaningful sense for the entire semester.
I explained to my kids that you have to always do your best in the eyes of the professor (HS teacher) - and it has worked for them at times. My youngest struggles with writing – she worked hard on an essay about Hamlet (gah) and the teacher gave her (what even I considered) a ridiculously low grade. She went to him and explained she had worked hard on it and perhaps misunderstood what he was looking for in the essay and he gave her a chance to rewrite it.
My freshman in college always does her homework, comes to class and generally does well – when the end of the semester came and she needed to talk with her professors about missing 2 class days and the review for finals (she went to see her longtime boyfriend graduate from Basic Training (Army) she was given assistance – and I think it is because she presents as a responsible student doing her best,.
As both an instructor and a parent, I have always despised group projects for any sort of credit. For just the reasons discussed in zoosermom’s post above.
Fine Dr. Prof, so also please do not ASSIGN group matters! I got screwed by group projects in grade school, high school, and college. They were never meaningful learning experiences and the assessments were always extremely problematic.
In business school almost everything was a group project. Probably because in business a lot of the work is in groups. I don’t remember having no recourse if a group member wasn’t pulling her weight though. But people who couldn’t or didn’t want to do the group thing tended to drop out of the program.
Such techniques can work well in graduate business school for mature adults who usually paying for their own education. Doesn’t mean that has any applicability to teens who are stuck in classes working with unhelpful peers.
I work in engineering. The vast majority of my job and the jobs of most people at the company could be described as a really long and complex group project. in some cases taking years to complete. It’s common to work with and/or consult with other group members throughout the project. Different group members have different skill sets. Some contribute more or less than others to the final product, and may or may not get additional benefit for those contributions. The final product and corresponding rewards for the full team may suffer because one person did a certain portion of the project poorly. It’s not just independent grading based on your own work. In at least engineering, it is useful to prepare students be successful in this type of teamwork environment, rather than just studying and doing problem sets with a short and simple solution independently.
The colleges I have attended made a special effort to this effect. Students were encouraged to do problem sets in groups and study in groups, in the vast majority of engineering classes I have taken. Labs were always done in groups of at least two. It was also relatively common to have long and/or complex group projects. I’ve even had a small number of exams that permitted group assistance,
Not necessarily, data10. In high school, at least, many of these kids see themselves as competing with each other for a limited number of slots-whether that is top 10% or admission to a selective college or whatever. That competition, plus the immaturity of adolescence, skews the experiences dramatically in way which don’t mirror the adult world. I have had kids at both ends of the experience-those who had to do all the work, because, as her classmates noted, she was the only one who really cared about her grade in the class, as well as the opposite-a diligent but not excellent student whose participation was openly thwarted by her brilliant teammates afraid of the possible detrimental effect on their grades. Negative experiences for all.
I was talking about college engineering classes and being successful in employment after college. High school is a different story. There is still value in being able to work in a team and not always seeing classmates as your competition for a top rank or your competition for limited top college admissions slots, but additional rules or guidelines may be required.
I’ve seen group projects work well, but only when they are carefully structured by the teacher and the group is required to provide feedback as to what each member of the group contributed. My son’s high school did this successfully but it took a great deal of effort on the part of the teacher.
On the other hand I’ve see the dynamic roycroftmom describes. I was assigned a paired paper in college and had a partner who was way behind on his senior thesis. He didn’t show up to a single meeting or contribute a word to the paper despite my best efforts to make it easy for him. Finally when he was still MIA at 10:00 the night before the paper was due I wrote the damned thing myself and turned it in in both our names without him ever reading it. We got an A but I was so irritated that when the paper was returned I shoved it in my bag without telling my partner what grade we received.
As to the original topic, I am not a fan of grade grubbing but I have encouraged my kids to ask their teachers what they can do to improve their grades. By that I mean how they can improve their understanding of the topic, not how they can worm their way into a better grade than they deserve.