Attendance is really bad in my classes

[Martin]

And now I have actual numbers - these are results from a surprise quiz:
http://s92104776.onlinehome.us/quiz.jpg

some clarifications:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

 

[Flammable]

It's their money they're wasting so why does it concern you?

 

[shortspanishguy]

Originally posted by: Flammable
It's their money they're wasting so why does it concern you?

Don't you think he wants his students to do well and not be dumbasses?

 

[Alienwho]

Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

 

[AbAbber2k]

Originally posted by: Alienwho
Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

The doctors didn't tell you did they? I'm sorry to have to inform you, but the accident left you without any eyes.

 

[zylander]

hahahaha, those LOSERS represent the people that did not show up, nice try tho.

 

[UncleWai]

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k

Originally posted by: Alienwho
Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

The doctors didn't tell you did they? I'm sorry to have to inform you, but the accident left you without any eyes.

You left your batteries at home.

 

[AbAbber2k]

Originally posted by: UncleWai

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k

Originally posted by: Alienwho
Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

The doctors didn't tell you did they? I'm sorry to have to inform you, but the accident left you without any eyes.

You left your batteries at home.

Shens.

 

[Flyback]

Amza, that you?

 

[bignateyk]

Who cares? If they dont want to be there, its their choice, and their money. On the other hand, maybe you arent making it worthwhile for them to show up? I didnt go to half my classes when I was in college because all the professor did was teach page for page from the book.

Dont be on of those lame teachers who knows they suck, but gives quizzes to force people to show up. How about re-evaluating your teaching style? Theres obviously a reason why half the class isnt showing up.

 

[BoomerD]

I see the same thing twice a week. In my Comp Sci class, some days, we have 3 people show up, other days, as many as 6 will actually attend the class. It's not a tough class, mostly just learning the basics behind MS Office 2003, (word, excel, access and power point), and if you are already knowledgeable in those programs, then you COULD just get the posted assignments off the "WebCT" page and submit them to get the grades, but apparently, the no-shows don't even do that.
YES, it's their money, (or most likely, their parent's money) and it's their choice to piss it away, (3 units at $20. per unit, PLUS about $140 in books that won't be used next year (going to Office 2007), but it just seems like a horrible waste, of time and resources.
I can't imagine how tough it is for an instructor to look at a nearly empty lecture hall, and try to remain enthused about teaching the subject matter for the day...

 

[Martin]

Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

 

[IAteYourMother]

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k

Originally posted by: Alienwho
Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

The doctors didn't tell you did they? I'm sorry to have to inform you, but the accident left you without any eyes.

oh, the irony

 

[TallBill]

At my brief stint at NJIT you got dropped from a class if you had 4 absences.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: Martin
Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

On the days when almost no one shows up, my instructor gives 5 points just for showing up, and almost always has some simple quiz that is worth another 5-10 points...things like "raise your left hand...raise your right hand, hold up your XYZ textbook"...If you have that text book with you, it's worth X points, if you raised the correct hand, that's worth points...stupid I agree, but it's just bonus points for attendance...

 

[Flyback]

Originally posted by: TallBill
At my brief stint at NJIT you got dropped from a class if you had 4 absences.

Sounds like grade school :laugh:

 

[PottedMeat]

This is a senior undergrad EE/CS class?

To achieve the first objective, the lectures of the course focus on areas that are important to serious engineers designing a large-scale distributed system. Examples of these areas include networking concepts and abstractions, concurrency control, transaction-processing techniques, naming services, distributed file systems and middleware systems. Coverage of these areas focuses on key design issues, tradeoffs and their current solutions, as well as example real-world systems.

I would guess going to class is important to get a good grade here? From the description it sounds like you take this class because the students are actually interested in dist. computing. I mean you don't take this on a whim.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Who cares? If they dont want to be there, its their choice, and their money. On the other hand, maybe you arent making it worthwhile for them to show up? I didnt go to half my classes when I was in college because all the professor did was teach page for page from the book.

Dont be on of those lame teachers who knows they suck, but gives quizzes to force people to show up. How about re-evaluating your teaching style? Theres obviously a reason why half the class isnt showing up.

True. A lot depend on the class. One of my teachers who was teaching senior class on data structures (a woman with PhD, with advanced degree/career) couldn't even get her PC started, always took her 10-15 minutes to fire computer and projector up. That's 10-15 minutes wasted out of 1:15 class. And she always taught by the book, no deviation, she even snatched lecture power point presentations from book's website (to give her some credit though, she did modify them somewhat). Was it worth showing up for that class? Fvsk no, I've got more important classes that I had to pay attention to. However no.... at the end when less than half of the class was showing up, she got mental and started taking attendance... WTF? It's a senior class. If people are not showing up it's either because they already know the material and don't want to waste time coming to class, or because coming to class is a straight waste of time because it's easier to read the book yourself.

BTW full attendance doesn't mean teacher is good. I had a class where we had full attendance every single class, but not because she was so good, but because she was so fvsking bad. It was intermediate level class, but the book sucked and professor I think just assumed we all had at least master so 90% whatever she taught didn't make any sense.

 

[imported_Baloo]

Got to be the devil's advocate here. Where are these "actual number" you speak of? The quiz? It's one quiz! All it shows is the class did poorly on it. There are no other clear conclusions one can draw based on the results of one quiz. It could be the prof is quizzing on stuff that class has not been studying, making it deliberately difficult.

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: Martin
Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

What kind of pansy ass school do you go to? Community College? What kind of class is this? Sounds like a bunch of crap to me anyway. I never had this problem as I went to a real school where "pop" quizes, which are HS bs anyway, were never pulled. Why should you go to class if you can still get the highest grade in the class by simply showing up to the tests? Attendance should not be mandatory in college. If it is it needs to be in the syllabus.

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: Martin
Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

On the days when almost no one shows up, my instructor gives 5 points just for showing up, and almost always has some simple quiz that is worth another 5-10 points...things like "raise your left hand...raise your right hand, hold up your XYZ textbook"...If you have that text book with you, it's worth X points, if you raised the correct hand, that's worth points...stupid I agree, but it's just bonus points for attendance...

Lol.

See, everyone knew a quiz like that would come (its in the course syllabus), but its its enough to get people motivated to show up. My Software Engineering class has a 5% participation mark, and probably has an even lower attendance rate.

Of course, this being 2 weeks before the end of 4th year, most people just don't care anymore. Everybody's just anxious to get out of school now...

 

[gsethi]

I never went to one of my CS classes at my university...only went 2 times (once for the final exam, and once for mid-term exam). Ended up getting B+ b/c one of our group partner (total group of 3) for the final project didn't do anything (kept on telling us till the day before it was due that he is all done with his part) and me and this other guy had to work extra hours on the project during finals week to do as much as we could

We did tell the prof on the 3rd guy and I think he ended up failing the class (even though he showed up in all the lectures).

So going to class doesnt mean that you dont understand the material. I hate those professors who do surprise Quizzes to keep class attendance up. We had one such prof in our ECE class who said that there would be 4 surprise quizzes during the entire quarter (to keep class attendance up). I used to be so bored in that class b/c I had taken that class in my Community College (university didnt give any credit for it ) but had to go every day b/c of those stupid surprise quizzes being ~20% of the final grade.

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: Martin
Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

What kind of pansy ass school do you go to? Community College? What kind of class is this? Sounds like a bunch of crap to me anyway. I never had this problem as I went to a real school where "pop" quizes, which are HS bs anyway, were never pulled. Why should you go to class if you can still get the highest grade in the class by simply showing up to the tests? Attendance should not be mandatory in college. If it is it needs to be in the syllabus.

Were you always a pathetic, bitter, empty, hateful shell of a man, or did something traumatic happen to you bring that about? Or perhaps you just play one on the internet?

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: Martin

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: Martin
Sorry, I should have clarified some things in my OP:
-I'm a student, not the prof
-this was a surprise quiz. Everyone who was in class got 100%, everyone who wasn't got 0.
-it was worth 1% of the final grade.

What kind of pansy ass school do you go to? Community College? What kind of class is this? Sounds like a bunch of crap to me anyway. I never had this problem as I went to a real school where "pop" quizes, which are HS bs anyway, were never pulled. Why should you go to class if you can still get the highest grade in the class by simply showing up to the tests? Attendance should not be mandatory in college. If it is it needs to be in the syllabus.

Were you always a pathetic, bitter, empty, hateful shell of a man, or did something traumatic happen to you bring that about? Or perhaps you just play one on the internet?

No, I just never had a pop quiz in college. You are in COLLEGE for god's sake. I had classes I NEVER went to except to pick up the syllabus and for tests and still managed to get an A. I have to admit once I thought I had really screwed up doing this because I had a low numerical grade but after seeing the prof he informed me not to worry as I had the highest grade in the class. I just don't understand the concept of a pop quiz for attendance as it is nothing more than an "ego" ploy by the teacher. MOST of the teachers you will ever have are not that great to begin with. If you can make a good grade without ever going to class that says a lot more about the professor than the student and it is all bad. Going to class should only be necessary if it is CRITICAL to the learning process of the material presented in the class and the teacher is responsible for creating such an environment.....but most fail.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k

Originally posted by: Alienwho
Looks like all those losers who actually go to class are bombing the quizes. I guess no amount of going to class can help them compete against the gifted students who don't even have to go to class and still get A's on the quiz.

The doctors didn't tell you did they? I'm sorry to have to inform you, but the accident left you without any eyes.

Do these doctors do sarcasm meter implants?