Supporting Disappearing Students

The flaw in most techniques or guides for supporting student learning is that they are predicated on the student being present and engaged in our classes. However, every semester there are a number of students who receive failing grades not because they performed poorly on assessments, but because they stopped attending class and submitting assignments, or because they never attended. How do we reach these disappearing and missing students?

Attendance Policies

The first way you can encourage student attendance in class is with your attendance policy. While implementing a graded attendance policy does seem to increase attendance, it also decreases students’ sense of autonomy (Chenneville & Jordan, 2012), so such policies must be implemented with care. Find ways to balance being supportive against authoritative or parental approaches.

In some cases, overly punitive attendance policies can discourage students from attending if they have had to miss several classes. The policy creates a sense of defeat and students may assume it isn’t worth trying to complete the course.

Establish the Importance of Attendance

• Introduce your attendance policy from a positive perspective (e.g., attendance is correlated with student learning) rather than from a punitive one (e.g., deficit minded statements that you know they won’t attend unless you force them)
• Be clear about the rationale for your attendance policy, so students understand the benefits and your positive intentions
• Connect your attendance policy with other goals, such as promoting professional behavior, being accountable to the classroom community or group members, and engaging in active learning activities
• Provide students with choice or input into the attendance policy, promoting autonomy and informed decision-making. Students will often choose to impose a system that holds them accountable (Gerald & Brady, 2019)
• Reflect on your attendance policy:
  • How does your attendance policy impact your relationship with students by focusing on policing or enforcement?
  • What in your classes makes them worth attending? 
  • How can you help students recognize the value of attending?  
  • How can you motivate students to attend through engagement and meaning making? 
  • What options could you provide students to “make up” for missed classes? 

Equitable Approaches to Attendance

In any policy, it is important to consider the difference between fairness and equity. While it may seem that refusing exceptions is necessary to ensure that the policy is implemented fairly, this can have a negative impact on students who genuinely need assistance navigating an illness, family emergency, or personal crisis.

• Balance the importance of attendance with healthy behavior, so that students who are ill do not feel pressured to come to class when they may be contagious to others
• Requiring documentation of illness or medical care introduces inequity based on students’ ability to afford medical treatment and impinges on student privacy
• Documentation of a death in the family is not always readily available and the logistical burden of obtaining it negatively impacts emotional and mental health
• In order to respect the diverse religious beliefs of our students, attendance policies should not be punitive for those who are practicing their religions. See the Religious Observances policy in the academic catalogs (undergraduate and graduate catalogs include the same policy)

Make Taking Attendance a Meaningful Part of Class

While sign-in sheets and seating charts are easy and efficient, they are not connected to other instructional efforts. There are other ways to take attendance that are more meaningful and can promote active engagement in class.

• Use Classroom Assessment Techniques: Have students submit a quick assessment at the end of class, like a short writing activity reflecting on a concept from class or questions about something that they didn’t quite understand
• Quizzes: Give quick quizzes at a random time during class, like a pre-class reading check or a post-lecture comprehension check. These can be self-graded and turned in for attendance only instead of being graded for achievement
• Student Response Systems: Use “clickers” or other technology to have students respond to questions during class. NIU’s official system is Turning Point, but TopHat is also available. Microsoft Forms can also be used to quickly collect and display answers to questions during a lecture (and can record the student’s name and ID)

Faculty-Student Connections

Instructor immediacy, in the form of both nonverbal and verbal behaviors, can increase the likelihood that students will stay engaged in their courses (Cooper, Haney, Krieg, & Brownell, 2017), particularly for students from under-represented minority groups (Lundberg, Kim, Andrade, & Bahner, 2018).

Interact with Students by Name  

Learning your students' names demonstrates that you seem them as individuals and care about them. In reality, you may only need students to perceive that you know student names for this to be effective (Cooper et al., 2017). You can begin using names on the first day of class and interact with students by name throughout the semester. Here are some methods for how to learn and use students’ names:

• Use name cards or table tents in class 
• Send personal, pre-class welcome messages 
• Require a get-to-know-you quiz or assignment 
• Conduct introductions for the first 3+ class periods 
• Create and use calling cards or a seating chart 
• Ask students to complete their profile in Blackboard with a photo (of themselves or something that represents them) and their name pronunciation. Make sure that your profile is complete, as well!

Check In Regularly  

It will be easier for students to reconnect and catch up if you check in with them frequently. Pay attention to student behavior and track student progress. Frequent, formative assessments with low stakes provides an easy way for you and students to notice when they are disengaging or struggling with content. Practice empathy and provide support when a student struggles. 

• Early in the semester, reach out to students who have not attended. In some cases, they may not realize they were registered for the course, or they may expect that they will be dropped if they don’t attend (this is a routine practice at community colleges)
• Incorporate regular classroom assessment techniques  
• Use polls to check understanding of key concepts 
• Send personalized check-in messages to students who did not submit an assignment
• Put a cognitive wrapper around assignments/exams 
• Use a reflection assignment or mid-semester course survey to ask about students' class experience thus far (sample reflection questions)

Schedule One-on-One Meetings  

While this may seem daunting with large sections, scheduling one-on-one meetings at the beginning of the semester or throughout will help students feel more connected to you and more comfortable asking for help when they need it.

• Require that students stop into your office hours in the first few weeks for a few minutes, to introduce themselves (great for larger classes where scheduling meetings would be logistically challenging)
• Require meetings as a project milestone, potentially by creating dedicated working sessions during class time
• Structure meetings with pre-set lists of questions and ask students to bring one question 
• Hold a few office hours somewhere other than your office 

Practice Paradox  

Students may find it easier to stay engaged when your course structure and expectations are clear. This may decrease the number of students who stop attending or submitting assessments.

• Increase transparency of assignments using TILT (Transparency in Learning and Teaching)
• Implement a rubric or checklist for a major assignment 
• Create a detailed class calendar as part of your syllabus, or help students develop their own weekly action plan
• Create a graphic organizer or concept map for your course or course units 
• Use an advance organizer at the start of each class 

Communicating with Students

Timely communication is essential to helping students succeed. Send personalized messages to students who are falling behind or who have been absent. Aim to reach students when they have a week or fewer of absences because waiting until students have excessive absences discourages them from re-engaging.  

When you notice that students are falling behind or not attending, you can use NIU’s Navigate system to contact them and, after several attempts to contact the student yourself, to issue an alert that goes to the student’s advising team. Learn more about using Navigate in this tutorial.

You can also use Navigate to contact students via text message. Text messaging students is more effective than emailing for students prone to avoidance (I.e., the “disappearing students” in our classes). Try sending proactive text messages to each student at the beginning of the semester and at key moments during the course.