next »

[ttguy]

I was faced with a situation couple of times this term. It is 8:00 AM class. The first time it happened was during the middle of the term. When I arrived, there was no one in the class. I waited 15 minutes and then left with a note on the board that I left because there was no one in the class. I told them next day in the class that I am very disappointed with them and this may be reflected in my grading. However, it happened again, this time last week. I waited till 8:15 and left. But this time one student came to me after the class, he said he came 8:20 and found me not there and he was surprised. He said he thought I would be there. I asked him why he thought I should wait there, he said that is what other prof do and since it is 8:00 am class I should consider this. I asked other faculty and they said they used to have this problem sometime and suggested me wait for some few min more. It was my turn to be surprised.

I think there is no limit of waiting for them. If they can not make in 15 min, what is the guarantee that they will make in the next 5 min or next 10 min? If I wait today 20 min, next day they will come after 25 min. I do have students coming into the class even after 20 min, but I didn’t want to stop him, after all, I don’t think I have right to stop him coming to my class at any time. They are adult and they should know what they are doing.

Is this a situation common to 8:00 AM class? I know 8:00 classes are notorious for low attendance. Yes, at a given date, I may have 1/2 to 3/4 full, but a zero attendance in the first 15 min? That seems very bad. Considering that the effort someone makes to come to teach in the class by getting up early in the morning, seeing an empty classroom is a huge disappointment. Have anyone of you faced the same situation? If yes, what did you do? How long did you wait before you left? What did you tell them after that? Above all, what should I do? I am very very disappointed.

[kitmonk]

When I was an undergrad, I had a science class (lecture) at 8am M,W,F.  To ensure that people showed up on time and didn't skip class, the professor used to give pop quizzes on the previous night's reading.  He didn't do it every day, but it was frequent enough (at least once a week) that we all knew better than to skip class. 

The other trick: he gave the quiz in the first 5 minutes of class.  If you arrived after the quiz papers had already been collected, you were out of luck.

[john_proctor]

Oh sweet jebus.

I would never wait for a class of students.  If I'm in the right place and the right time and they aren't there, they would get five minutes max (which is only because I'd be wandering around checking my watch and wondering what the fk was going on for the day). 

Everyone would be marked absent for the day and we'd "discuss" it next class.

I suspect it would never happen again.

[fishbrains]

I like this student's attitude: "If I'm not there by 8:15, just wait longer!" (I think this is a paraphrase from Ace Venture: Pet Detective, but that's for another thread).

I generally don't have this problem. For early morning classes I give quizzes right after I take attendance (I know about the attendance thing, I really know; but my CC requires this) and after I BS a bit. Everyone needs about five minutes to shake out the cobwebs, including me. These quizzes are worth about 10%-15% of their final grade by the end. Even if we aren't covering major class material, I give "stupid quizzes" with questions like "What color is an orange?" so the on-time students are rewarded. They can drop one quiz grade. I don't give a quiz at every class meeting, but often enough (at least once a week) to have an impact.

Sometimes I write possible midterm/final exam questions on the board first thing and then erase them after about 15 minutes. Sometimes the early students share the information; sometimes they don't.

Sometimes I hand out graded work at the beginning of class, then put the work from non-attendees away and refuse to give it out until the next class meeting, assuming that they will arrive on time the next time. I do this when I'm a bit miffed at the late people. This tends to bite me on the butt at evaluation time though.

In short, I make it worth their while to show up on time. It's a little high-schoolish, but it works.

[dr_crankypants]

Holy cow!!  You waited fifteen minutes?  I doubt that I would have waited that long.  I would be sorely tempted to give them a pop quiz on the material that I "covered" that day.  Too bad if they can't get notes from a friend.   

I've had bad attendance in an early class, but never that bad.  How small is your class to start with?  I'd probably start with the pop quizzes, which can be taken only in the first few minutes of class.  Often I dictate the question out loud, and if they miss it, they miss it.  Class does not wait for the slackers to show up. 

[mountain_ivy]

I second fishbrain, with one minor change:   I bring to class papers to be returned only once.  After that, they go in a filing cabinet outside my office door to be retrieved by the students who weren't there.  I got tired of lugging papers back and forth.....

[fishbrains]

I second fishbrain, with one minor change:   I bring to class papers to be returned only once.  After that, they go in a filing cabinet outside my office door to be retrieved by the students who weren't there.  I got tired of lugging papers back and forth.....

Careful, abster, this sounds like a FERPA violation of some kind.

[iomhaigh]

Wow!  I wouldn't wait more than the amount of time it took me to make sure that I had not forgotten a school holiday.

Then, I would take my most ambitious interpretation of what I might have accomplished during class, written it into a good & hard exam and then given it during the next class. 

No makeups, either. 

[anthroid]

Yipes.  Fifteen minutes?  No way.  Five, tops.  If students can't read their schedules well enough to understand that 8 a.m. in fact means in the morning, it's their own damn fault.  Test them on the material you would have covered.

Sheesh.

[harsh_critic]

How long do you expect students to stick around if you aren't there when class starts? (for me, I'd say about 10 min). Then cut this number in 2. So I'd wait 5 min.

If this happened to me, I'd give a quiz the next class meeting on the material that would have been covered in class. And make sure that material shows up on every test afterwards.

I'm not their babysitter--if they don't want to show up, fine. However they remain responsible for the material.

[arugula]

ttguy, how many students are enrolled in the class?  Is it like 3 people, or do you really have a culture where 20 people are enrolled and no one is there?

One possible solution: Start class, whether anyone is there or not.  Put notes on the board, show the powerpoint, give the lecture, do the activity to the empty room.  As students filter in and ask questions, say, "I covered that earlier today," and don't go back.  It's fun to imagine how this would play out--maybe it would make a difference.

Really, though, it's unimaginable to me--an entire class that doesn't show up? Is it local custom for profs to come late so everyone's a little loose with promptness in your institution/dept? Do profs accomodate tardy students routinely so it's clear class doesn't really start until 8:23 or whatever? Or are your studnets simply disrespectful sh%#s?

I am generally warm and fuzzy and fairly loose in my classroom management, but this would never, ever happen in my department.

Arug

[clean]

I yelled at 2 MBA students just this week.  They are foreign students, and I suppose that the culture where they are from is that you Never arrive on time.  Well, I told them this, and you can quote me,

"Better Never Than Late".

"Dont come in late and interrupt my class and the education of the others that can come on time."

It is pretty late in the term to be teaching an entire class to show up on time though.

I would suggest, as the others have, to give a quiz in the first few minutes.  I have used this with great success.

I had another student that was chronically late.  "I got stuck waiting on the train"  that goes by everyday at the same time.  Amazingly, once the quizzes started, she was able to beat the train.

To quote Gommer Pyle, "Fool me once, Shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on ME". 

You waited 15 minutes?!  And there were no students TWICE?  Shame on you!

How many students are supposed to be in this class?

What kind of class?

Good luck.  At this time of the year,  I really doubt that there is anything you can do to introduce the discipline that is needed. 

[just_dave]

Early on in my career, I was teaching an adult ed EFL class of primarily southeast-asian refugees.  One day, I seriously spaced out and didn't realize I had a class until almost an hour after the 90min. class started. 

My grandmother, who had been an elementary school prinicpal, happen to call at that time, and I told her how bad I felt about missing class.  Switching immediately into "professional" mode, she told me I needed to go to my class immediately.  You don't argue with Grandma. 

Yep.  There they ALL were.  All 45 students patiently waiting for their teacher to show up.

[johnr]

Some time ago, at the first University I ever taught at, there was a professor well past his prime who would often deliver lectures, for the entire hour, to an empty room. Sometimes he would show videos.  I won't go into the details as to why the room was chronically void of students, but it was, and he did.  I remember the first time I discovered this phenomenon. I was walking by the classroom, the door was open, and there was Dr. Wellpasthisprime talking to empty seats.  I was flabbergasted (I love it  when I get to use that word). I came to discover that this was standard operating procedure for him.  He felt contractually bound to deliver his lecture, regardless of whether anybody was there or not.  It was quite disturbing.  I would not recommend this tactic unless you want to be branded a lunatic.   

I personally would wait no more than five minutes before I left.  If there were more than five people registered for the class I would take it very personally.

[expatinuk]

I yelled at 2 MBA students just this week.  They are foreign students, and I suppose that the culture where they are from is that you Never arrive on time.  Well, I told them this, and you can quote me,

I make sure that my International Students know that we operate on BRITISH TIME. Their first few meetings are in one to one tutorials with me and if they don't arrive within 5 minutes of the scheduled time they don't get that tutorial.

It usually only takes once before they get the picture.