When it comes to attendance I believe that an attendance requirement would be a good idea to get more students to come into lecture regularly and participate. From personal experience, I find myself attending courses that have required attendance more than the ones that don't. When attendance is not required I have the mindset that I can learn the material covered in class on my own by simply reading the book and doing assignments. Also, as the year progresses I get more and more lazy and required attendance is a good incentive to get me to go to class so I don't miss on points. I understand that attending lecture and learning from a professor first-hand is much more efficient, but towards the end of the semester I get overcome by laziness. As far as bonus points, I see that as a bit ineffective. The students that attend lecture regularly are in no need of those points and the ones that are in need of those points, cannot be bothered to get up for a class with no required attendance even though it would benefit them. If a class has mandatory attendance, a student is bound to pick up on and learn some course material wether he/she likes the class or not.
With this attendance requirement I believe it would be consistent with teaching about gift exchange. A student would find himself attending lecture more and picking up on things that he otherwise would not have had he not attended lecture. The inexplicit gift that the student would receive in return would be a better overall grade in the course. The course and professor overall, would see a more diverse discussion that would benefit everyone that is in attendance more than with an emptier lecture. With the student realizing that he/she received a better grade in the course than if he had not attended, he would also get a better understanding in how gift exchange works.
I find that not being able to use portable devices causes the students that would either-wise be on them if this rule was not enforced to pay more attention on the discussion or maybe even participate in it. I think it is a good strategy to encourage more participation from students that would normally wouldn't at all. If a professor offers all the notes online, then I believe that a student has no need for electronic devices during lecture mode. He/she can simply take notes on paper and pen. This would discourage students from going on social media or other such websites during lecture. They would also benefit from this by picking up on something the professor mentions is important or crucial and what is not important.
Personally I benefit from such implemented or proposed rules stated above. One, because I am forced to pay attention and take notes on material I do not know and two, because it prevents personal distraction from other students watching videos, going on social media, or playing games on their electronic devices. Even though I try not to be distracted such things, they are bound to catch my eye's attention.
Overall I believe that like the most efficient organizations, a lecture should have a balance between strict and lenient rules that will lead to more efficient results by students as a whole. A professor can learn the balance of such rules by taking and comparing data of different rules from previous years and come up with the most efficient combination.
You represent a puzzle for me, as the preferences you indicated are outside of the preferences I considered in designing the class as I did. So, I want to dig a little deeper into your preferences and then comment a bit about your performance qua attendance.
ReplyDeleteYou talked about getting lazy. Are there other activities, aside from going to class, where that wouldn't be an issue at all? If so, can you identify features of those activities that make them trump your penchant for being lazy? In particular, are there any things you do just to satisfy your own curiosity about them? When does that happen, if it ever happens at all? The last part I would ask here is about the following question. Suppose laziness, as you described it, is a child-like response. Being a responsible adult on your own would then require that you overcome being lazy. When you enter the world of work (at some other company than your brother's) there will be an expectation that you put in an honest effort and don't slack off too much. So, you can you teach yourself to do that. You wrote that the course should provide the incentives for you, so the responsibility in that case is not on you. When might you be willing to take on that responsibility and what might you do to ready yourself for that?
Switching gears, to consider what actually happened, your attendance in class was not bad through October 5. After that you stopped coming to class. If I recall correctly, around then I sent you an email about missing class. You gave an odd response, so I followed up on that, and then you said you had an exam in another class and had to prepare for that.
So the above is factual. I will switch to speculation, because I don't know the real explanation. If, in fact, you put in significant effort until your first midterms but then didn't do well on them, that is painful, a shock to the system. After such a shock you might engage in self-protection of some sort, so your bruised ego wouldn't be damaged further. The being lazy, then, might be a kind of self-protection.
They say a kid should get right back on the horse after falling off, so the memory of the fall doesn't harden and the kid can function well again. If you did have a fall and then didn't get back on the horse, that is an issue for you. I suspect it is an issue for many students. I don't know what a full solution would be, but certainly understanding what did drive the behavior has to be done before a solution can be identified.
To be completely honest, I do not really know why this attitude happened. I agree with you that I am being irresponsible in not attending lecture and I really wish that was not the case. I understand that once I enter a real world job/career that would have to change and I am okay with that since it was bound to happen sooner than later. This is one of the main reasons why am no longer in Engineering. My laziness got the better of me. I suppose I have gotten this far in life without putting much effort in. I wonder If I could go back in time, how much different it would be if I actually applied myself and put in an honest effort?
DeleteRegardless, I know this attitude is not a good way to go about it and something needs to change soon. I am confident however that I will overcome this slump, I guess, that I am in and will become a responsible adult one day soon.
I thought it was interesting you said throughout the semester you get more and more lazy. I find this to be the opposite for myself. Throughout the semester I get more focused on staying on top of assignments and course work. I'm sure this varies per student, work load, and other commitments of students.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of being able to learn the material on your own if it is not attendance required, in other courses I think this is true. However, in this class I don't think it is because the live class discussions provided a lot of information that was not found anywhere else (in the book or course blog).
I agree with many of your points, specifically on mandatory attendance. Obviously, as has been stated in class, it is totally okay to miss a lecture if one has a really good reason and informs the professor, but otherwise it should be expected that one goes to every single lecture. This was it can be assumed that a student has seen all of the class material, which is a prerequisite for more in-depth learning. If a class has to be taught with the assumption that only 60% of the class is showing up each day, then you probably have to re-teach some of the material repeatedly, which is to the detriment of regular attendees who already know that material by heart.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some really interesting points. I think I did skip class on occasion too but usually it was to do other homework or study for an exam. However, I did try to work efficiently and ahead of time so that I wouldn't have to miss class. I think there is an opportunity cost associated with this. Further, I think the discussions were actually pretty interesting in class. I learned a lot that wasn't in the slides. Also, over the semester I got more and more worried about my grade and making sure I was able to actually learn something from the class so I was the opposite and became less lazy.
ReplyDelete