Attendance

Taking attendance for large classes can often be a headache.  We have a here app that might simplify some of the task.  However, you still need to create a column in Blackboard and record the attendance grades manually.  This too, can be cumbersome.

Quizzes can be used as a proxy method for taking attendance.    Alternatively, a professor can give credit for both attendance and quizzes.  Recently, Professor Bob Gregg approached us with just this scenario.  He plans to give students 50 points for attendance and 50 points for a 5-question quiz.  A student who is in class answering all questions correctly would earn 100 points during each class sessions.   To simplify the task, we advise that he could use the following method in the creation of the quizzes:

Instead of a 5-question quiz, he could have an additional, fill-in-the-blank question that is worth 50 points  And the question can be like this:

Today’s secret code is:  ____

And the secret code will be announced in class for students to fill in.   Please make sure you tell the students how you expect your secret codes to be spelled.  Do you give credit for someone who messed up the upper/lower-case issue, for instance?  Anticipate such little issues.

To prevent the secret code from being texted to other students, the professor can limit the time for taking the quiz so that it will not work in the text sender’s favor to take all the trouble while his or her own time is limited, unless, of course, the student is naturally altruistic.

Please give this method a try.  If you have any better methods for taking attendance, please let us know so that we can share it with other professors.