Reply to Rigor and Absences: New Harvard Policy

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm curious how they're even going to track this unless they just mean section attendance. Plenty of popular undergrad classes have lectures of 400+ students. Traditionally, there is no attendance taken. Attendance and participation is only tracked at sections (1-2x/week per class with a TA) and typically there are already steep penalties for absence and non-participation.[/quote]
There’s so many online systems they could take up. We haven’t needed a headcount for attendance in decades.[/quote]

Those online systems can be -- and 
are -- gamed.  Students smart or connected enough to get into Harvard aren't going to be tripped up by some attendance log in. For large classes, unless you have a several attendance monitors, you'll have students log is as 'present' from a different location.  Even if the QR code changes every 5 seconds. . . . [/quote]
QR code changes that track your phone. They existed back when I did required colloquium for my undergrad like 15 years ago. The type of student who is technically capable enough to bypass that isn’t who you’re looking for- they want the mediocre students who actually need class time to get their butts in class[/quote]

If the professors care at all about attendance, they want ALL the students to come to class, not just the the middle of the road students (and I think you are underestimating the ingenuity of mediocre students at top schools to get around regulations they don't like).  They want students in class not just to learn from the professor but to learn from each other, to create a shared experience that will spark conversation and ideas, to pick up on social clues. Certainly top students can jump through exam hoops without formal classes. But few people are -- or want to be -- genuine autodidacts.[/quote]
Look, I get it, it seems like the Ivy kids are some crazy bar of achievement, but no, they really aren’t that good at getting out of rules- many got to their place because they do nothing but follow rules. This isn’t about professors; it’s an institutional policy, and anything you do will end up with some students finding ways to leak through.

People had these same quarrels back when my college moved to an honor code where take home tests were normalized. The professors and students liked the honor code system a lot more and the average student followed the rules and took the test truthfully- students whose grades on exams didn’t match in class performance were questioned and often caught. Sure, there’s the very small percent of students who know how to accurately score to their performance, but there’s also the small percent of students who cheat during in person exams- doesn’t mean we throw out the exams.

Universities have gotten too lax and restructured their image as social, professional spaces not academic ones, and the repercussions are finally biting at them. You have to work to change the culture or nothing gets solved.[/quote]

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