Hi all,

I'm a first time adjunct and wrapping up what I consider to be a mostly successful semester teaching ENG 101 and 102. I made some mistakes, and will certainly make some adjustments to my assignments for next time, but I wanted to ask about a particular phenomenon that I'm seeing and see if anyone shares this experience.

As the semester winds down, I am seeing a drastic drop in class attendance, even when they stand to lose points for not being there. Tonight was my second to last class period and only 6 of 18 showed.

Are they just losing interest? Am I not being hard enough on them for not showing up? I think they are looking at the syllabus, and when they see we are doing some kind of activity rather than a lecture, they just don't show. I wonder if they don't see the value in the activities or if they just don't want to get their hands dirty.

Any thoughts or advice?

It may be due to various factors. First of all, many may not belong in college anyway,i.e., they're not really interested. Going to college has become the automatic solution when graduating from high school. Another reason may be that many new students may be overcommitted schedule-wise and cannot keep up as the semester progresses. Last, I've been observing that I get good attendance and participation if there's a test, if there's some type of competition built into the assignments, or getting points/rewards. That seems to be the language that most understand. I believe that, in general, the latest generation doesn't like lectures.

I have seen this as well. I have only been teaching for 4 years so Im still new per say, but I agree with you. I structure my class (business) such that attendance is mandatory. I have no tests, instead, I have a 5-question quiz the 1st 15 minutes of every class over the previous weeks material, so that really helps w/ attendance.

This seems to be very common on the community college level. Often they stop showing up because they don't think they have earned a high grade and they don't want to "mess up" their GPA.

Toward the end of the semester, I often show a movie which I talk up for weeks to get their interest. Also, I tell the class that if attendance remains good, they might not have to take the Final.

Some semesters I have an ongoing grammar content using a grammar quiz DVD. The second to last class is the play offs for a Rolls Royce (Googloe image).

I have had this experience in the past mostly in the remedial courses -- but usually half of those classes just stop coming.
There are some things you can do for your composition courses that may help.
1. Do not accept late work or emailed work without permission. It will behoove them to show up.
2. Have in-class writing assignments that cannot be reproduced outside of class.
3. Work on relationship building. Students are more likely to show up if they know someone will misss them and ask about them.

You could simply list your Topics for a class without telling students what you or they will be doing. That way, they don't know if you'll be lecturing, writing in class, having a pop-quiz or what have you. I've known many, many professors who use this method to keep students coming to class.

I also had a professor in the past who gave a quiz at the beginning of every class -- it was the way he took attendance too.

Dr. A. Stone
Adjunct for English
Penn State U., Mont Alto