It's time to end the consensual hallucination of fall in-person classes

[Caracal]

Now I'm hearing from department chairs that some faculty have only one or two students attending class, with the rest connecting online.

I've consistently had less than 25% attending in person, and I'm teaching in person (with mask, social distance, etc.). I imagine that those faculty teaching remotely have very few, if any, students in the classroom.

Attendance has been decent for my synchronous online courses, about the same as it would be for in person. One, among many, of the reasons I didn't want to try to go back to in person teaching when presented with the option, is that I suspect it would lead to a huge drop off in attendance. Between people with minor colds, people with family responsibilities, people who are afraid of getting cover and people who might just not bother to come to class when I can't require it, I'm not sure there'd by anybody left.

[apl68]

The preachers whose worship services I usually watch preach to an empty church from a huge, beautiful pulpit, in one case, or open, live backdrop in another--and they have been since March.

The resonance complements their well-pitched voices, and the visual surroundings invoke some of the missing symbolic reminders of the life of faith and the components of visual and musical stimulation (when the organ or piano is played in that space, likewise).

As a performer, I can say that one projects differently and with a more generous awareness of the audience's presence in larger spaces, whether others are seated there or not--one of the reasons an acting company needs a theatrical space to work in, not just an auditorium, when finalizing a play's performance.

Kudos to the person involved for not ignoring the performative aspects of speaking to a group of people.

M.

Our church has gone to the trouble of upgrading the recording tech so that the pastor can move around during his messages.  He's accustomed to doing that.

[Caracal]

The preachers whose worship services I usually watch preach to an empty church from a huge, beautiful pulpit, in one case, or open, live backdrop in another--and they have been since March.

The resonance complements their well-pitched voices, and the visual surroundings invoke some of the missing symbolic reminders of the life of faith and the components of visual and musical stimulation (when the organ or piano is played in that space, likewise).

As a performer, I can say that one projects differently and with a more generous awareness of the audience's presence in larger spaces, whether others are seated there or not--one of the reasons an acting company needs a theatrical space to work in, not just an auditorium, when finalizing a play's performance.

Kudos to the person involved for not ignoring the performative aspects of speaking to a group of people.

M.

Our church has gone to the trouble of upgrading the recording tech so that the pastor can move around during his messages.  He's accustomed to doing that.

Yeah, I hate having to sit down when I'm doing a lecture. I don't think I generate the same amount of energy.

[phi-rabbit]

I'm teaching online, but my colleagues who have to do Hyflex are reporting that they are typically getting around two students per session attending in person. Occasionally they find that no one shows up at all. Apparently some faculty in other departments are saying the hell with it and just going online only, but the administration has gotten wind of it and sternly worded email has been sent out.

[spork]

I'm teaching online, but my colleagues who have to do Hyflex are reporting that they are typically getting around two students per session attending in person. Occasionally they find that no one shows up at all. Apparently some faculty in other departments are saying the hell with it and just going online only, but the administration has gotten wind of it and sternly worded email has been sent out.

Same student attendance problem here.

[marshwiggle]

I'm teaching online, but my colleagues who have to do Hyflex are reporting that they are typically getting around two students per session attending in person. Occasionally they find that no one shows up at all.

HOW SHOCKING! WHO COULD EVER HAVE FORSEEN THAT!

And, in other news, the sky is blue.

Apparently some faculty in other departments are saying the hell with it and just going online only, but the administration has gotten wind of it and sternly worded email has been sent out.

"All faculty must use their magical powers of coercion to make students take the actions that make the least sense under the circumstances, but justify our wildly optimistic predictions."

[Caracal]

I'm teaching online, but my colleagues who have to do Hyflex are reporting that they are typically getting around two students per session attending in person. Occasionally they find that no one shows up at all. Apparently some faculty in other departments are saying the hell with it and just going online only, but the administration has gotten wind of it and sternly worded email has been sent out.

Same student attendance problem here.

Attendance is mostly a function of school culture. At places where almost all students are residential, students go to class. They just assume they need to come to class because everyone else does it and if you don't, you tend to get emails from your teachers and advisors quickly. People I know who are teaching at fancy SLACS tell me students are still coming to class this semester.

If you aren't teaching at that kind of school, however, of course attendance is low for hyflex courses. If I had the option every day between teaching class and not teaching class and not teaching class wasn't going to have any ramifications down the line, I'd probably usually opt to not teach class.

[spork]

[. . .]

Attendance is mostly a function of school culture. At places where almost all students are residential, students go to class.

[. . .]

On what data do you base this generalization?

[Puget]

[. . .]

Attendance is mostly a function of school culture. At places where almost all students are residential, students go to class.

[. . .]

On what data do you base this generalization?

I can only add an n of 2, but they agree with this. It also matters greatly if there is a consequence for not going to class--

I'm teaching flipped hybrid this semester, with lectures asynchronous online, and each student in synchronous discussion section once a week, either in person (masked up, spread out) or on zoom, in separate sections. Each discussion section meeting has an in class assignment you can only do in class, so there are real consequences to not attending, although each one is only worth 1% of their final grade (they don't seem to fully realize that though). 

Attendance in person has been excellent-- most students haven't missed a single session so far. Even the on campus students have a lot of their classes online, so they seem genuinely happy to be out of their rooms and talking to other humans in person. They also did very well on the first exam, with much less spread than usual.

Zoom attendance has been fairly good as well (see in class assignments), but it is a bit bimodal, as were the first exam scores-- a bunch that are doing just as well as the in person students, and then a cluster that are very disengaged and/or overwhelmed and just not putting in the work. I'm not sure how much of a change this is though actually-- I suspect these would mostly be the same students that if we were all together in a lecture hall as usual would be skipping class or sitting passively in the back playing on their phones instead of taking notes.

[marshwiggle]

I'm teaching online, but my colleagues who have to do Hyflex are reporting that they are typically getting around two students per session attending in person. Occasionally they find that no one shows up at all. Apparently some faculty in other departments are saying the hell with it and just going online only, but the administration has gotten wind of it and sternly worded email has been sent out.

Same student attendance problem here.

Attendance is mostly a function of school culture. At places where almost all students are residential, students go to class. They just assume they need to come to class because everyone else does it and if you don't, you tend to get emails from your teachers and advisors quickly. People I know who are teaching at fancy SLACS tell me students are still coming to class this semester.

Where attendance is expicitly required, people tend to show up. That's not terribly surprising. However, for most post-secondary education, that's not likely to be the case.

(If anyone has any actual stats on that, I'd be fascinated to see them. In my STEM experience, I can't think of a single class where attendance was expicitly required.)

[spork]

[. . . ]

Where attendance is expicitly required, people tend to show up. That's not terribly surprising. However, for most post-secondary education, that's not likely to be the case.

(If anyone has any actual stats on that, I'd be fascinated to see them. In my STEM experience, I can't think of a single class where attendance was expicitly required.)

My undergrad experience in STEM courses (major private R1 but with residential undergraduates) was for the most part the same. If you turned in the problem sets, did well on the exams, and completed the labs satisfactorily, lecture attendance was essentially optional.

I've been working at a small private overwhelmingly residential undergraduate institution for the last decade. Nursing students will show up to nursing classes because they suffer penalties if they don't. Other students show up to other classes mostly on their own volition, whether they are living on campus or not. With "hy-flex" delivery, a steadily increasing proportion are choosing not to physically attend class. They'd rather connect from their dorm rooms, from their cars while driving, or from wherever they are working their part-time jobs.

[Aster]

It is common for laboratory courses to have mandatory attendance, particularly the "purist" laboratory courses where hands-on-work and hands-on evaluation is a core part of the assessment model.

Three out of the four universities I've worked at had mandatory attendance requirements for many laboratory courses. Attendance was tracked by assessment; you got your grade each week by doing work and performing activities that were only evaluated (or sometimes could *only* be evaluated) within the physical laboratory space.

Inverted Classroom models also tend to favor mandatory attendance.  Come to Class Or You Won't Pass.

And to confirm what others have said, mandatory attendance policies are extremely effective at getting students to show up for class and do to their work.

But now all of my mandatory attendance classes are fully remote because of Covid, and less than half of the class is showing up to synchronous sessions now. There are shotgun holes of non-submitted work all over my gradebook.

[Caracal]

[. . .]

Attendance is mostly a function of school culture. At places where almost all students are residential, students go to class.

[. . .]

On what data do you base this generalization?

Just anecdotal, but I've taught at a bunch of different types of schools. When I taught at a selective SLAC, I didn't take attendance and everyone showed up anyway. When I started teaching at regional state schools and didn't take attendance, half the class was usually not there by the second half of the semester and it showed in grades. Seems to be borne out by the experiences of others I know.

Obviously, counting attendance as part of the grade makes a big difference, and that's what I do now. That's the point, however. At some places, you don't have to have direct incentives or penalties to keep students from missing class.

[pgher]

I'm in STEM at a residential university. In past semesters, I took attendance but my policy was very lenient (50% was good enough). I got very high attendance.

This semester, my allocated lecture time is done via a combination of in-person and Zoom. (I'm doing a flipped classroom.) I will occasionally get as many as three students in-person, out of 40. Usually 1, sometimes 2. I think typical Zoom attendance is in the 20s.

Laboratories, of course, have mandatory attendance, but lecture courses do not (up to the instructor).

[spork]

About 15% of our first-year students, residing in one of the dorms, are now in quarantine due to potential exposure. This could be the beginning of the cascade that shuts down campus.