Helicopter Mama Whines

[BlsdMama]

Yeah, that's me.  Sigh.

 

So it looks like DD will miss Dean's list by 0.33.  So what, right?  :(

 

The 0.33 is the difference between her B- and a B on her computing course.  (She's so not a computer girl.)

 

Oh and the kicker?  She got an 80% for attendance.

 

The attendance regs for the class?

 

Attend 95% of the classes - 100%

Attend 90% of the classes - 90%

Attend 80% of the classes - 80%

 

She got an 80%.  

 

She attended 93% of the ACTUAL classes - 30/32.

 

Unfortunately the prof. randomly takes attendance. She took attendance for 13 classes.  In a sad twist, two of those were the ones DD missed.

 

(Oh, and I know it's factual as i saw the policy and DD lives at home.  She doesn't skip classes unless absolutely necessary.) 

 

She is actually truly upset right now.  On the other hand I know this will make her push harder.  But I'm sad and frustrated for her.

 

BTW - She did email an appeal.  The answer was no.  Such is life.

 

And here is her mama:

 

Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.  (Who needs to get a grip on the fact that a B- is not the end of the world.)

[AmyontheFarm]

Hugs!  I'd offer you some homemade cheese but I ate it all.  When things like this happen I remind myself that my child won't remember this on their honeymoon night.

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

 

Why random attendance?  Is it a really large class?

[wapiti]

Whine away :)

 

If it makes you feel any better, while GPA can matter down the road, AFAIK the "dean's list" designation has no bearing on anything; it's like "honor roll."

[OneStepAtATime]

FWIW, my favorite teacher in college told us on the first day that he did not take attendance.  If we came, great.  If not, it was our loss.  He would not baby us or force us to come.  Grades were based on the quality of our papers and our test grades.  He felt that by at least Sophomore year we should have our heads on straight for where priorities should be.   :)

 

Just to clarify, he was my favorite teacher because his class was so darn funny and I learned a TON, not because he didn't take attendance.   :)  But I was truly shocked at the no attendance policy.  I wasn't used to it.  It honestly made me reassess myself and my goals.  I realized that passing his class would be entirely on the merit of my work, no attendance grade to soften the blow if I messed up.  I also realized that I was now an adult and needed to act like one.  My teacher was no longer my babysitter.  I always tried hard, but that was sort of a weird wake up call as I moved into the world of adulthood and personal responsibility.

 

And yes, whine away.  It hurts when your child is hurting.  Hugs Mom.  

[BlsdMama]

FWIW, my favorite teacher in college told us on the first day that he did not take attendance.  If we came, great.  If not, it was our loss.  He would not baby us or force us to come.  Grades were based on the quality of our papers and our test grades.  He felt that by at least Sophomore year we should have our heads on straight for where priorities should be.   :)

 

Just to clarify, he was my favorite teacher because his class was so darn funny and I learned a TON, not because he didn't take attendance.   :)  But I was truly shocked at the no attendance policy.  I wasn't used to it.  It honestly made me reassess myself and my goals.  I realized that passing his class would be entirely on the merit of my work, no attendance grade to soften the blow if I messed up.  I also realized that I was now an adult and needed to act like one.  My teacher was no longer my babysitter.  I always tried hard, but that was sort of a weird wake up call as I moved into the world of adulthood and personal responsibility.

 

And yes, whine away.  It hurts when your child is hurting.  Hugs Mom.  

Loved this.

 

Thank you everyone.

 

We talked about it and honestly I think it bruises her a bit to see the 80% on attendance more than anything because she knows it isn't accurate and the injustice of it is insulting.

 

I admit her attendance is a beautiful thing - she comes home and says, "I don't know how kids do okay in classes they skip all the time. "  They don't Ana, they just don't.  (Says the kid who skipped an awful lot of classes.)  But I love that she realizes it's important. :)  We know a young man's mother who asked her the other day what advice she'd give and she said, "Tell him to go to class."  ;)

[Teachin'Mine]

I thoroughly understand her sense of injustice.  Some professors distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.  In the future, if she knows she'll need to miss class for a legitimate reason, she might want to talk with or email her professor ahead of time.  This may have not changed her attendance grade for this particular class though.  I've read that some professors check attendance randomly to encourage students to attend all the time since they won't know if or when attendance will be taken. 

 

Another thought which may help in the future, and which she may have done already, is to go to office hours and get to know the professor.  When they see a student regularly, they're more inclined to think favorably of them and to give them the benefit of the doubt when requesting an absence.  If she felt that she knew this professor, she might have discussed her attendance grade in person before grades were submitted.

[TechWife]

I surprised at a college prof taking attendance into consideration for a college course at all. Participation in discussion, yes, but not attendance. 

[Annie G]

I surprised at a college prof taking attendance into consideration for a college course at all. Participation in discussion, yes, but not attendance. 

 

I've seen it- grade inflation tactic. One of my kids had a prof who gave each kid three hall passes per term and if they didn't use them all they were worth a grade boost.  Seriously, these are college students. How often do they REALLY need to leave a 50 minute class to use the bathroom or get a drink? 

And I've seen more than one syllabus that includes points for attendance.  

 

It's super annoying that some kid who happened to show up every time the prof took attendance got a grade boost- a C student could really benefit from that.  And the OP's kid, who is a good student, is dinged for being sick but still doing excellent work. 

I surprised at a college prof taking attendance into consideration for a college course at all. Participation in discussion, yes, but not attendance. 

 

It has, ahem, been a while, but I don't remember any of my college classes taking attendance.

[Starr]

Ds is only allowed a certain number of unexcused absences from his classes. 

[Guest2]

Sorry that happened! When I attended university, it depended on which college the classes were offered for attendence to matter with grading. I was a liberal arts major, and no attendence was required, but in the buisness school they actually had a head count. I just thought it was weird, and still do.

[Catherine]

I don't recall anyone ever taking attendance in my college classes.  But IMO your daughter really had an injustice.  It sounds like the high school teachers who give a significant amount of credit for *doing* the homework, without ever grading it.  Dumb dumb dumb.  It infantilizes students IMO.  

[elegantlion]

That bites. So far, I've only had one professor that doesn't actually count attendance. Ironically, his class is the only one without an attendance policy and he diligently takes attendance each class period. They don't directly give points for coming to class, but each class was different in how it mattered. If a professor is giving a grade for attendance, the onus should be on them to actually do it for each class period. That would drive me insane. 

 

I've had two frustrating experiences so far. One ended up with my first B ever. I'm pretty miffed still, mostly at myself. 

[JoJosMom]

It has, ahem, been a while, but I don't remember any of my college classes taking attendance.

 

:iagree:

 

We all got the freshman lecture, "Welcome to university.  No one cares whether you go to class or not, except perhaps your parents who are paying for it."

 

:grouphug:  OP.  And I don't think that hating to see your child hurting makes you a "helicopter" mama; just a good one.

[BlsdMama]

I feel thoroughly patted, reassured, and snuggled. I love you people.

[Penguin]

My son's college is tiny. Class sizes are very small, and they are discussion-heavy. There is an attendance policy; I think the whole model would fall apart if people didn't attend.

 

And OP, the quirk of the random attendance thing would surely hurt. Hugs.

[TranquilMind]

Yeah, that's me.  Sigh.

 

So it looks like DD will miss Dean's list by 0.33.  So what, right?   :(

 

The 0.33 is the difference between her B- and a B on her computing course.  (She's so not a computer girl.)

 

Oh and the kicker?  She got an 80% for attendance.

 

The attendance regs for the class?

 

Attend 95% of the classes - 100%

Attend 90% of the classes - 90%

Attend 80% of the classes - 80%

 

She got an 80%.  

 

She attended 93% of the ACTUAL classes - 30/32.

 

Unfortunately the prof. randomly takes attendance. She took attendance for 13 classes.  In a sad twist, two of those were the ones DD missed.

 

(Oh, and I know it's factual as i saw the policy and DD lives at home.  She doesn't skip classes unless absolutely necessary.) 

 

She is actually truly upset right now.  On the other hand I know this will make her push harder.  But I'm sad and frustrated for her.

 

BTW - She did email an appeal.  The answer was no.  Such is life.

 

And here is her mama:

 

Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.  (Who needs to get a grip on the fact that a B- is not the end of the world.)

My daughter missed a grade by about that much.  I went to bat for her, and lost.  But this was an accelerated high school where all classes were college level courses.  He only randomly graded a few problems on some assignments and of course, picked all the (higher level math -not my kid's thing) problems that she missed.  Overall, she did not achieve that score.  Unfortunately, she did not save every single paper from the entire semester so there was nothing we could do.  I was not happy as this was an inappropriate reflection of what she had actually learned, based upon his convenience of grading only a few problems per paper. 

 

Note to self and others:  Save EVERY SINGLE PAPER until the grade is permanent. 

I'd tell her to go to bat for it.  Not just accept it.  But I'm like a pit bull that way. 

 

It isn't as if she legitimately missed all those classes. 

[MyHandsAreFull]

Goodness. Other than for lab classes, I can't think of a single college class where attendance was taken (but my undergrad was engineering so maybe we are weird). I would be really ticked if a prof used attendance as part of the grade. It's college, not daycare. There were definitely a few classes where I deliberately cut class to go to the library and study because it was higher yield than going to class and listening to the lecture.

[BlsdMama]

I need to add in here that I'm SO glad she got an A- on Russian.  :P  Isn't that awful?  But with her A- instead of an A, it means she would have missed Dean's List even with a B.  She needed a B on one and an A on the other.  Still kept her Honors status at 3.41 this semester, but at least it wasn't dependent on that B-.  :P ;)  So glad!

[G5052]

I surprised at a college prof taking attendance into consideration for a college course at all. Participation in discussion, yes, but not attendance. 

 

FWIW I'm required to take attendance because such a large percentage of students are on federal aid (it's a community college), and it's part of the federal laws.  If they stop attending and have federal grants, there are certain rules that come into play.

 

I set up an app on my course website, and I give them a password at the beginning of class that expires 15 minutes after I start class.  They can use their smart phones or the PC's in the classroom.  So it's done automatically and recorded.  I make it 3% of their grade, which is the lowest percentage that my dean will allow.  Yes, they could cheat by texting their friends the password, but they cheat with sign-in sheets and other ways too.

 

I agree that doing it randomly is unfair, but taking attendance is a pain too.  I was really sloppy about it until I went to what I do now.

[MyHandsAreFull]

FWIW I'm required to take attendance because such a large percentage of students are on federal aid (it's a community college), and it's part of the federal laws. If they stop attending and have federal grants, there are certain rules that come into play.

Required to take attendance and required to give grade points for it. Just wow.

[katilac]

I've seen it- grade inflation tactic.  

 

It's not always a grade inflation tactic; sometimes it is only used negatively. In one of dd's classes, missing 5 or more classes lowered your final grade by a significant number of points, but you didn't get positive points for attendance. 

 

I'm not against profs taking attendance, particularly in classes that are discussion-heavy or follow a collaboration model. It's not automatically a tool for grade inflation or a way to baby students - most jobs 'take attendance,' yes? Even at higher levels, you are often getting paid to not only complete your defined segment of work, but to serve as a resource and soundboard for other employees, and to pitch in as needed. 

 

There may be many jobs that don't require this, but I'd say there are many more that do. 

[katilac]

Just to clarify, I don't have an issue with the practice of taking attendance, but taking it randomly is quite bizarre!

 

As is grading random problems. I could see sometimes randomly grading a few problems from students who generally get an A - if they get an A on the selected problems, don't bother grading the rest. But randomly grading just a few problems as a matter of course? Strange and not helpful to the student. 

 

Being a college-level class isn't a reason or excuse to do that, imo. If work is not graded, how is a student supposed to understand and improve? 

[regentrude]

FWIW I'm required to take attendance because such a large percentage of students are on federal aid (it's a community college), and it's part of the federal laws.  If they stop attending and have federal grants, there are certain rules that come into play.

 

This. And another reason for the requirement is making sure that internationals who have entered the US on a student visa are actually attending college.

 

There are various ways of satisfying this requirement. In our large courses, it is impractical to call roll every class period; we use quizzes, unannounced and random, in addition to the other assignments. Students who are have more than a certain number of missed assignments, i.e. absences, are dropped from the course.

The points are nominally earned for the assignment, not the attendance per se. Other courses have different policies.

[regentrude]

 

As is grading random problems. I could see sometimes randomly grading a few problems from students who generally get an A - if they get an A on the selected problems, don't bother grading the rest. But randomly grading just a few problems as a matter of course? Strange and not helpful to the student. 

 

Being a college-level class isn't a reason or excuse to do that, imo. If work is not graded, how is a student supposed to understand and improve? 

 

Unless you prefer that the school adopts a computerized homework grading system, it is not feasible to grade every problem of every student. The students in my class alone solve in one week 4,800 homework problems (multi-step, with figures, one problem possibly taking up a page)

 

It is quite the norm to select a subset of assignments for collection (appearing random to the student, the instructor has a system) and/or grade one or few selected problems (again, appearing random to the student - the instructor will have a system).

 

There are other ways students can make sure to have done the problems correctly. Problems may be discussed in class, compared to class mates, solutions might be provided, or the student can consult the instructor if she has questions.

 

ETA: Students in our large enrollment intro classes have two assignments of 4 questions each week. Homework is collected 6 times per semester, one problem of that set is graded in detail, and points for a reasonable attempt at the other problems are given. The sole goal of collecting homework at all is to give an incentive for the students to do every problem on every assignment. We provide plenty of help to students to assist them in achieving this.

 

[FloridaLisa]

It stinks. You want it for her because she wanted it. That's part of what kids have to learn in college -- how to jump through the hoops that each professor wants, how to learn from different personalities and through different methods and how to study for tests written by all kinds of diff professors. It's hard! But that in itself is part of what makes college valuable.

 

Fall semester is a fresh new start with all new classes and all new profs. Hooray! And there is no feeling like MAKING the Dean's List after working hard for it! 

 

Hugs to you and dd.

 

Lisa

 

[LaxMom]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was the speaker at my commencement two weeks ago. His speech began with "After tomorrow, your grades do not matter." And I laughed because I am positively neurotic about grades, but it is so true.

 

He also talked about your SAT scores not mattering anymore and about how he had recently gotten something from ETS in the mail and - having earned multiple advanced degrees, authored multiple books, etc - FREAKED OUT. Turned out they just wanted to use a passage from one of his books for a section of the test. Lol.

 

I feel her pain, but he's right. It won't matter after the now.

[katilac]

Unless you prefer that the school adopts a computerized homework grading system, it is not feasible to grade every problem of every student. The students in my class alone solve in one week 4,800 homework problems (multi-step, with figures, one problem possibly taking up a page)

 

It is quite the norm to select a subset of assignments for collection (appearing random to the student, the instructor has a system) and/or grade one or few selected problems (again, appearing random to the student - the instructor will have a system).

 

 

 

Because it affected the student's final grade, I was assuming this was not homework but a more important assignment. I could definitely be wrong about that. 

[regentrude]

Because it affected the student's final grade, I was assuming this was not homework but a more important assignment.

 

I am not sure the kind of assignment would matter if the course is graded on an absolute scale. Our students would miss the grade no matter whether the two missing points were lost on a test, a homework assignment, or a quiz (usually it takes losing points on all of the above to lower the grade).

 

[katilac]

I am not sure the kind of assignment would matter if the course is graded on an absolute scale. Our students would miss the grade no matter whether the two missing points were lost on a test, a homework assignment, or a quiz (usually it takes losing points on all of the above to lower the grade).

 

 

My dd has only taken one university level math class, and the homework was weighted much more lightly than quizzes and tests. So the same bad grade would mean very little if it was a homework assignment, but much more if it was a quiz or test. 

 

I did uniformly bad on all of my math assignments back in the day, so I can't remember how they were weighted. 

[Sdel]

All of my college classes, community and 4 year, took attendance.  They almost all did it by a seating chart created the first day of class and essentially spent the first few minutes scanning the room and marking the missing bodies.  Most of the time there was no relation to grade, but some profs allowed students to skip the final if they met a certain attendance record.

 

Stefanie

[Mom22ns]

In dd's first CC class the teacher usually had in-class assignments for the students to do. Anyone turning it in, got 100%. Anyone not turning it in got 0. He didn't give an "attendance grade", but it was the equivalent of a random attendance grade none-the-less. Just like the OP's dd, mine couldn't believe how many people skipped a lot of classes. There was one class that he failed to get dd's grade recorded and her overall grade dropped significantly. He did fix it when she emailed him, but it did a great job of reinforcing how important attendance was in the class.

[Bootsie]

Just to clarify, I don't have an issue with the practice of taking attendance, but taking it randomly is quite bizarre!

 

As is grading random problems. I could see sometimes randomly grading a few problems from students who generally get an A - if they get an A on the selected problems, don't bother grading the rest. But randomly grading just a few problems as a matter of course? Strange and not helpful to the student. 

 

Being a college-level class isn't a reason or excuse to do that, imo. If work is not graded, how is a student supposed to understand and improve? 

I have randomly taken attendance in a number of classes that I teach, and I have many colleagues who do, also.  Sometimes it is done simply because the class is large and it is logistically difficult to do it every class.  Sometimes it is done on days when attendance is "low"--students leaving early for spring break, etc.  Sometimes it is taken on days that there is more in-class participation that makes attendance more crucial.  Sometimes it is done when there is a guest speaker.  Sometimes it is done to encourage attendance when other students are making presentations.  

 

It is often quite normal for the grade associated with attendance not to be equivalent to the percentage of classes in attendance.  For example--in a class that meets twice a week for 16 weeks, there are 32 class meetings.  A student who misses 9 classes is there 72% of the time--but that is missing 4 1/2 weeks of a course; that isn't "C" level participation for many professors.  

 

I have also taught in departments in which I was required to grade only a subset of the problems assigned (or even only a subset of the assignments turned in).  Sampling is common in many areas of life.

[BlsdMama]

I have randomly taken attendance in a number of classes that I teach, and I have many colleagues who do, also.  Sometimes it is done simply because the class is large and it is logistically difficult to do it every class.  Sometimes it is done on days when attendance is "low"--students leaving early for spring break, etc.  Sometimes it is taken on days that there is more in-class participation that makes attendance more crucial.  Sometimes it is done when there is a guest speaker.  Sometimes it is done to encourage attendance when other students are making presentations.  

 

It is often quite normal for the grade associated with attendance not to be equivalent to the percentage of classes in attendance.  For example--in a class that meets twice a week for 16 weeks, there are 32 class meetings.  A student who misses 9 classes is there 72% of the time--but that is missing 4 1/2 weeks of a course; that isn't "C" level participation for many professors.  

 

I have also taught in departments in which I was required to grade only a subset of the problems assigned (or even only a subset of the assignments turned in).  Sampling is common in many areas of life.

I understand why she does it, and you're right, this was a large class.  However, it inadvertently can punish (or reward) and not be accurate.

 

For example:  Because it was a large class, several kids signed in their friends.  It was a common occurence and those kids got an A for attendance.  Really?  That's right?

 

For example:  You're exactly right - it sometimes was for special occasions.  Ana had to attend a lecture for Latin one day and was running a few minutes late.  Normally she would have gone in because it was acceptable to the teacher.  However, this day she had a speaker in the class.  Ana felt it would have been rude to go in while he was speaking and so didn't.  This was one of her two absences.  

 

So, in this case, it punished the student who was actually attending - 30/32 classes.   However, it rewarded the kids who managed to get others to sign in for them.  Hooray for the system.  :P

 

I understand it isn't feasible to take attendance in large classrooms.  I do.  But then why make it part of the grade? The students self-punish when not attending class, or as in previous poster's experience, don't need the auditory lecture.