Student withdrawals

[downer]

I'm teaching a course that started out with 44 students at the start of the semester. I'm teaching it the same way that I taught it previously. But this semester 15 students have dropped or withdrawn in the first 4 weeks. There are also a few students who stopped doing any work in the first week but have not got around to withdrawing. 

I'm not complaining. I still get paid the same. It is not a pattern I have seen in any of my other classes. It is too small a sample to draw any conclusions about, though I suspect that it is the COVID generation of high school students who, now in college, when faced with regular tasks like reading and understanding a text are totally stumped.

I'd be interested in hearing other stories about unusually large withdrawal numbers.

[Hegemony]

I have an unusual number of students having personal crises. Some of them mentioned that they had family deaths during the height of the pandemic. Some just seem burnt out. I sympathize as I am burnt out as well. But I have several who confess that they have not left their rooms in a certain number of days, or who have Zoom appointments with me and start crying as I'm talking to them, and things like that. The last 2-3 years have been rough. Of course I am connecting these students with our counseling service (most of them are already in counseling), and supporting them within the parameters of my remit.

Some others do just seem disconnected. I was astonished to find that several have commitments that interfere with coming to class. They knew it was an in-person class, but they actually have a job during that time, or — this one really got me — they live 40+ miles from campus and rarely come in! The fact that the course reading and assignments are up on the LMS means that they think "No need to come to class! Hurray!" I've started handing out valuable information only in hard copy in class. That's how I found out about the students who have regular alternate commitments during class time.

Strangely, being graded on attendance doesn't appear to make a difference to whether they come or not. I suppose if they were failed outright if they missed a certain number of classes, that would at least mean that the no-shows would leave the class. But I don't want to impose such a draconian penalty, because students really do get sick, and I don't want them coming sick to class, and I don't want them spreading flu/Covid/what-have-you to the rest of us. So, what the answer is, I dunno. I have a feeling the whole shape of a college education will be changing over the next few years.

[Mobius]

Did these students show up? I had a third of the class add my class the day before the semester started. Most of those have stopped going. They are still enrolled because they showed up at least once, but they'll lost most of their financial aid once final grades are in and put the last date of attendance into the system.

[downer]

I think all but one showed up at least once.

Did these students show up? I had a third of the class add my class the day before the semester started. Most of those have stopped going. They are still enrolled because they showed up at least once, but they'll lost most of their financial aid once final grades are in and put the last date of attendance into the system.

[sinenomine]

I'm teaching a senior capstone course that's offered once a year, and one of my students — who is an officer in the student government association — has been absent for four classes and late for four others. The class has met nine times so far, so that's a pretty stunning lack of engagement. I checked his stats on the LMS today and saw that he's been logged in less than three minutes total.

[clean]

I work at a Full Service University.
We have a grade for everybody.
Some are passing grades, but others are not.

Better,
I dont GIVE grades, I simply report the results of the students' performance.  Unfortunately, some students fail to perform.

[Caracal]

I have an unusual number of students having personal crises. Some of them mentioned that they had family deaths during the height of the pandemic. Some just seem burnt out. I sympathize as I am burnt out as well. But I have several who confess that they have not left their rooms in a certain number of days, or who have Zoom appointments with me and start crying as I'm talking to them, and things like that. The last 2-3 years have been rough. Of course I am connecting these students with our counseling service (most of them are already in counseling), and supporting them within the parameters of my remit.

Some others do just seem disconnected. I was astonished to find that several have commitments that interfere with coming to class. They knew it was an in-person class, but they actually have a job during that time, or — this one really got me — they live 40+ miles from campus and rarely come in! The fact that the course reading and assignments are up on the LMS means that they think "No need to come to class! Hurray!" I've started handing out valuable information only in hard copy in class. That's how I found out about the students who have regular alternate commitments during class time.

Strangely, being graded on attendance doesn't appear to make a difference to whether they come or not. I suppose if they were failed outright if they missed a certain number of classes, that would at least mean that the no-shows would leave the class. But I don't want to impose such a draconian penalty, because students really do get sick, and I don't want them coming sick to class, and I don't want them spreading flu/Covid/what-have-you to the rest of us. So, what the answer is, I dunno. I have a feeling the whole shape of a college education will be changing over the next few years.

Can't say I've noticed anything that dramatic or alarming.

[the_geneticist]

I have an unusual number of students having personal crises. Some of them mentioned that they had family deaths during the height of the pandemic. Some just seem burnt out. I sympathize as I am burnt out as well. But I have several who confess that they have not left their rooms in a certain number of days, or who have Zoom appointments with me and start crying as I'm talking to them, and things like that. The last 2-3 years have been rough. Of course I am connecting these students with our counseling service (most of them are already in counseling), and supporting them within the parameters of my remit.

Some others do just seem disconnected. I was astonished to find that several have commitments that interfere with coming to class. They knew it was an in-person class, but they actually have a job during that time, or — this one really got me — they live 40+ miles from campus and rarely come in! The fact that the course reading and assignments are up on the LMS means that they think "No need to come to class! Hurray!" I've started handing out valuable information only in hard copy in class. That's how I found out about the students who have regular alternate commitments during class time.

Strangely, being graded on attendance doesn't appear to make a difference to whether they come or not. I suppose if they were failed outright if they missed a certain number of classes, that would at least mean that the no-shows would leave the class. But I don't want to impose such a draconian penalty, because students really do get sick, and I don't want them coming sick to class, and I don't want them spreading flu/Covid/what-have-you to the rest of us. So, what the answer is, I dunno. I have a feeling the whole shape of a college education will be changing over the next few years.

I also have a LOT of students that tell me they simply do not go to campus on days they don't have something that is ONLY in person (e.g. labs).  If the lecture instructor posts their slides or a recording, then these students don't go to class. 
You can give in-class participation points or quizzes, just have a policy to only count the highest N of N+2 quizzes or similar.
We're also seeing a problem with "PollEverywhere" and similar systems where a student who is not in class will still try to put in a response.  They can't see the question, but they will put in an answer! 
I don't teach lectures, but if I did, I'd use old-school paper assignments for any in-class activities.  Can't hack those.

[artalot]

I have a lot more students ghosting, which will become a problem later in the semester. I used to send ghosters nice little notes inviting them back to class; now there are simply too many, so I report them through our retention software and move on. The ones who do come talk to me often report anxiety, depression, feeling overwhelmed, especially at midterms and finals. And a lot more of my advisees want to take 12 hours a semester instead of the usual 15.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think COVID may have left us a generation of students who are emotionally and educationally behind where we'd like them to be - think of all the basic skills lost by those who couldn't attend kindergarten in person, never mind my otherwise bright students who can't write an essay, work in a group, or emotionally process a poor grade on a test. The next 10-15 years will be rough.

[RatGuy]

I've had a handful of students request a move to online only because they're having "mental health issues" — I use the quotation marks because that is the students' language, not that I think they're exaggerating. A Undergrad Studies Director told me that the university is fielding many many such requests. The university tries to fit these students into online sections where available, but as we've mostly gone back to F2F most students are out of luck. Apparently the trend locally is towards more mental Healy class — ODS also has unprecedented numbers of documentation

[kaysixteen]

I think you are right, artalot.   And the covid crisis and its subsequent consequences are, essentially, not at all the fault of these kids.   We as a country have tried to ignore or forget this problem, but we do this at our peril.   I saw, during the height of covid, a rerun of an 00s-era 'American Experience' show on the WWI-era flu pandemic, and one of the interesting points was that, before the 1920s were over, Americans had apparently essentially succumbed to a great forgetting, wrt said pandemic.

[Caracal]

I have a lot more students ghosting, which will become a problem later in the semester. I used to send ghosters nice little notes inviting them back to class; now there are simply too many, so I report them through our retention software and move on. The ones who do come talk to me often report anxiety, depression, feeling overwhelmed, especially at midterms and finals. And a lot more of my advisees want to take 12 hours a semester instead of the usual 15.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think COVID may have left us a generation of students who are emotionally and educationally behind where we'd like them to be - think of all the basic skills lost by those who couldn't attend kindergarten in person, never mind my otherwise bright students who can't write an essay, work in a group, or emotionally process a poor grade on a test. The next 10-15 years will be rough.

1. I think we always want to be careful about these kinds of anecdotal impressions, because they often reflect our own feelings and impressions, rather than reality.

2. Even if it is true that there are more students struggling at your school, or in your classes, we should be careful about particular diagnoses. All kinds of things got disrupted by covid, not just school and many of those disruptions are still around. For example, I get the impression that labor shortages are a problem for a lot of students who work-they end up being called into work more often and at unpredictable times because they are working for business that are short staffed.

3. I'm especially leery about these predictions about a "damaged generation." Kids are pretty resilient. That isn't meant to dismiss the harms of covid, but so much of these ideas are built around these very mechanistic models of learning centered around testing and scores. Humans just aren't that fragile, people adapt, they catch up, they figure things out. My kid is in kindergarten, and I think he is learning a lot, but he's also 6 and 2/3rds of the time he probably isn't paying attention because he can't sit still.