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| Science & Technology |
| Northern AZ University To Institute Nannyism |
| 2010-04-27 |
| Northern Arizona University will install an electronic system that detects when each student with an ID card walks through the door to some large classrooms. The system will produce an attendance report for the instructor. NAU President John Haeger said that, along with the card readers, he will "strongly encourage" faculty to require students to attend their freshman- and sophomore-level courses. Although the university isn't planning to implement a mandatory-attendance policy, the new technology and Haeger's prodding likely will prompt more faculty to use attendance or class participation as part of a student's final grade. The goal is to reduce the number of students who miss class, fall behind and drop out of school. A growing body of research suggests that attendance is a key factor in class success and that good grades can motivate students to remain in school. Students who make it through the first year of college are less likely to drop out later. For faculty to tell a student "it's up to you" to attend class isn't enough, especially when research supports the value of class attendance, Haeger said. "We all have to be committed to student success," he said. But the proposal is already generating debate among students, some of whom say the university is going too far by introducing a "Big Brother" system to record attendance. Like most universities, NAU allows faculty members to decide whether to take attendance or factor it in to their grading. In recent years, more faculty are making attendance part of their grades, influenced by research that links attendance and classroom success, some NAU professors said. One of NAU's larger courses, Psychology 101, started factoring class participation into 10 percent of the final grade in fall 2007. One of Haeger's goals is to increase NAU's retention rate. At NAU, seven out of 10 freshmen return the next year. That's slightly above the national average for four-year public universities, but Haeger would like to boost that to between eight and nine. The prospect of more professors factoring attendance into final grades worries some students. A new Facebook group, "NAU Against Proximity Cards," has sprung up and has more than 1,300 members. Rachel Brackett, 19, an NAU sophomore who started the Facebook group, said her chief objection is that the change will rob students of a valuable life lesson. "My biggest problem is we are here at college to learn to become adults," she said. "I don't think we're all there maturitywise, but choosing to go to class is a stepping stone in maturity." She also objects to the university handing out points just for being there, as it suggests that NAU is less rigorous than some other schools. The majority of Brackett's professors do not record attendance or use it as part of the grade. Even so, she said she rarely misses class. Students will just find a way around any attendance system, she said. University officials say that although a student could carry another person's ID card, IDs also are keys to residence halls and are used to pay for meals. "(It) might not be worth asking someone to take your card," Bousquet said. In one fell swoop, it penalizes smarter students who now have to sit through incessant leftist drivel in mandatory stupid classes, dumb students who might pass a class though never graduate--costing them more tuition debt, and good teachers who would far rather just teach those motivated enough to want to attend class. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #14 Reminds me that in one of my University finals exams, the invigalator who also taught the course wanted to know who I was, because he had never seen me before. I passed the course and graduated with honours. Even 40 years ago attending lectures was mostly a waste of time. These days, my daughters lectures are all recorded and online. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-04-27 21:52 |
| #13 I passed the State registration first time without studying...student participation in engineering lecture? Oh please.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-04-27 21:33 |
| #12 In my experience, both as a student and as faculty, how much attendance matters depends in part on the nature of the course and the size of the enrollment. Most courses have some degree of student participation in sessions. Having the best students missing a lot of the time definitely impacts the quality of participation. But it also impacts those students in more subtle ways. Some of the best learning moments I've seen happen for bright capable students came when they were forced to go beyond their intuition and find effective ways to articulate insights to others. Regular assignments as metrics depend both on honesty (did the student do the work him/herself?) but also on the degree to which the assignments are integrative. And while the prof can do some amount of commenting on written assignments it's incredibly time consuming to try to teach indirectly, through the comments made while grading, and that isn't all that effective - interactive feedback really is needed if teaching is the real goal. But then I didn't teach huge lecture courses in a state university. So YMMV. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-04-27 21:19 |
| #11 I did OK on tests before :-) I moved out of the fraternity and into a rented house with three other bro's... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-04-27 19:53 |
| #10 At what? Attendance or tests? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-04-27 19:37 |
| #9 as a young man in engineering school and living in a fraternity house, I had an ...er... "issue" with attendance, although rarely on tests. Attendance is a vanity for many profs, because, if students can do well on tests without the glowing periodic presence of Professor Chalkboard, it paints a bad picture of their teaching skills. BTW: I got better |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-04-27 19:13 |
| #8 It's been a while (!!) but during my almost ten years in the academic world very few profs penalized for non-attendence. Most took attendence, and many gave 'extra credit' for good attendence, but if you did the work and aced the tests without showing up, that was ok. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-04-27 19:11 |
| #7 One thing that has annoyed me about the trailing daughters' university is how many professors will choose to fail a student for attendance issues, regardless how the student does on assignments and tests. So a student who got above 95% cumulative points for doing and mastering the material can still fail the course. This is perhaps a minor factor in the number of students dropping out of college -- inability to function at that level by students who never should have been admitted is still the major factor, and for those students steady attendance plus tutoring is their only hope -- but how much does the institution lose by driving out the Bill Gates types? It seems to me there ought to be a more nuanced approached, separating out those struggling from those who don't need to catch every pearl that drops from the instructor's lips. The way to do that is by grading frequent assignments/tests, and giving a pass to those who score in the top 10% of the class. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-04-27 18:30 |
| #6 A thumb-tack through the transponder will stop that. |
| Posted by: mojo 2010-04-27 17:47 |
| #5 I've noticed that most "Learning Institutions" enroll as many "Live Bodies" that they can, KNOWING they won't graduate, but WILL pay tuition, it's a huge profit maker when some dolt drops out without any chance of refunding the tuition. Money,Money, Money rules all. Teching comes a good third. Just remember how many "Student loans" are paid for years later, the colleges don't really give a shit if you learn, only if you PAY. And the higher the tuition, the better. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-04-27 15:55 |
| #4 Twobyfour identifies why so few workable ideas for life in the real world originate in colleges... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2010-04-27 15:31 |
| #3 "How much you said it was, Bob? Ten bucks? OK, here is my ID card and ten. See ya after the lecture." Bob plugs in earphones, plugs them in the ipod and gets his $40/hr while enjoying his faved band. Who would the prof believe, his lying eyes or the computer record? |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2010-04-27 15:28 |
| #2 Common sense is racist... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2010-04-27 11:26 |
| #1 One of Haeger's goals is to increase NAU's retention rate. Never consider raising entrance standards to eliminate those who do not possess the academic and motivation abilities that an institute of 'higher learning' should demand. Your drop out rates are also an indication that not everyone should be going to the university in the first place. However, that line of thought is not supportive of more instructors, more departments, more grants, mo'money. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-04-27 10:10 |