Attendance in Fall F2F given COVID-19

[Caracal]

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

I also like dropping the lowest few scores, and I think this works well when students have minor things come up. I'm a little confused about the last part here, though. I might be misunderstanding about the excellent student bit, but I try not to have my subjective judgment influence how I enforce course policies. Student A might seem more trustworthy to me than Student B, and that could be based on actual trustworthiness, but it could also be based on my own biases or on the fact that I've developed less rapport with Student B for whatever reason and so don't have a good sense of how trustworthy they are or my own misinterpretation of the behavior of either student. For sure I work with students who have documented reasons to be accommodated, but I wouldn't base my decisions on that on my own sense of what kind of person the student is.

I think Puget is just saying that their need for documentation and suspicion of students is dependent on their previous performance in the class. They aren't saying they are just randomly deciding which students to trust. To take an example, I have regular reading quizzes. The point of these quizzes is to get students to do the reading before class, so normally I just drop two of them, and don't allow students to do them late. I do make exceptions in cases where students are in the hospital or managing the death of a family member or something like that. Those students almost always do have a note about the circumstances from the dean of students, but I can't say I really "require" such a note. Generally, if you have been in contact with me and come to class when you're able, I'm just going to assume you aren't lying about having cancer.

On the other hand, I sometimes have students who have been missing all semester, or have done no quizzes all semester who suddenly have some weird excuse about a medical or technical problem at the end of the semester that I haven't heard anything about before. I usually do, nicely, ask if they could get a note from the dean of students. I rarely hear back from them, or ever get this note.

[Puget]

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

I also like dropping the lowest few scores, and I think this works well when students have minor things come up. I'm a little confused about the last part here, though. I might be misunderstanding about the excellent student bit, but I try not to have my subjective judgment influence how I enforce course policies. Student A might seem more trustworthy to me than Student B, and that could be based on actual trustworthiness, but it could also be based on my own biases or on the fact that I've developed less rapport with Student B for whatever reason and so don't have a good sense of how trustworthy they are or my own misinterpretation of the behavior of either student. For sure I work with students who have documented reasons to be accommodated, but I wouldn't base my decisions on that on my own sense of what kind of person the student is.

I think Puget is just saying that their need for documentation and suspicion of students is dependent on their previous performance in the class. They aren't saying they are just randomly deciding which students to trust. To take an example, I have regular reading quizzes. The point of these quizzes is to get students to do the reading before class, so normally I just drop two of them, and don't allow students to do them late. I do make exceptions in cases where students are in the hospital or managing the death of a family member or something like that. Those students almost always do have a note about the circumstances from the dean of students, but I can't say I really "require" such a note. Generally, if you have been in contact with me and come to class when you're able, I'm just going to assume you aren't lying about having cancer.

On the other hand, I sometimes have students who have been missing all semester, or have done no quizzes all semester who suddenly have some weird excuse about a medical or technical problem at the end of the semester that I haven't heard anything about before. I usually do, nicely, ask if they could get a note from the dean of students. I rarely hear back from them, or ever get this note.

Yes, Caracal's interpretation is correct-- I'm a psychologist, we're used to making inferences based on data, in this case past performance and behavior of a student. If I have a student who has been conscientiously turning in all assignments on time all semester, and then contacts me to say they are sick or have a family emergency, I'm going to trust them and not request documentation of that. If a student has been missing assignments off and on all semester and then tells me they missed another one because they are sick or had a family emergency, I'm going to want to hear from their advisor that they really do need special accommodations in this case, not because I'm "punishing" them but because their past behavior has not made me confident that they are telling the truth. Equitable treatment does not always mean exactly equal treatment, anywhere in life, including the classroom. Or, to put i more simply, past behavior informs future treatment. 

[mythbuster]

   OP here. Well we had a departmental Zoom meeting yesterday about the issues of attendance and makeup assignments. Now we are being given the choice to be fully remote, even for labs, which most of us (myself included) are opting for. It was not clear if the option was new or just has not been well communicated before. Regardless, I'm going all remote for Fall. It just avoids so much chaos.
   Those who wanted F2F were told that they needed to have an online backup for any enrolled student who wanted it at any time. So essentially teaching two parallel courses a once.
   One interesting fact revealed at the meeting was that our department had sent out a survey to our majors. Those who responded basically said yes they prefer F2F, but not until it's fully safe, and things like childcare and K-12 schools are back in session.  So all those admins saying that students overwhelmingly prefer F2F? That may be a question just about the abstract, rather than the current reality.

Now I get back to recording my 10 minute or less lecture bites.

[Aster]

   Those who wanted F2F were told that they needed to have an online backup for any enrolled student who wanted it at any time. So essentially teaching two parallel courses a once.

This. This is exactly what the K-12 school systems are grappling with right now.

The schoolteachers and most teacher's unions mostly want to go remote/online for the Fall. Many/most parents are tired of babysitting their kids at home and want their kids at school. But those same parents also want fully online/remote options for their kids running simultaneously, with their kids dropping in and out of the classrooms as the whimsy suits.

No. Any given class gets either a remote class, a fully F2F class, or a highly regimented and scheduled hybrid format. You can't mix and match.

[mythbuster]

Our school system currently has some plan where K-5 students attend 5 days a week, grades 6-8 three days a week, and high school twice a week. No clue how you work a 3 day a week plan into a 5 day work week when the point to only have half the students at any one time.
   Also, I would invest now in Plexiglas if you can. It's THE hot thing for school systems.

[Caracal]

Our school system currently has some plan where K-5 students attend 5 days a week, grades 6-8 three days a week, and high school twice a week. No clue how you work a 3 day a week plan into a 5 day work week when the point to only have half the students at any one time.
   Also, I would invest now in Plexiglas if you can. It's THE hot thing for school systems.

Well, as much as a mess as that will be, it is better than fully remote for secondary school where the issues of equity are particularly extreme. At least if students are coming in twice a week, they can be given paper versions of work to do and bring in completed work. Teachers will at least get to keep track of students. I'd argue that it is much better than no in person classes.

It is also good to see the school adopting different plans for different age groups. The preliminary evidence seems to suggest that the risks of transmission and infection are higher for older kids. There's also a larger social benefit. Having high schoolers not in school three days a week isn't ideal, but the impact on working parents of young kids home all day is much larger.