Required attendance for college courses is bullshit.
I believed that as an undergraduate. I believed that when I became a TA during my last semester as an undergraduate. I believed that throughout graduate school (where I TAed and taught several classes on my own). I believed that in my years as an Assistant Professor (before leaving for industry...long-ish story). And I most certainly believe it now.
Oh, sure, attendance is important. I always encouraged students to attend my courses. But college students are adults, and we should treat them as such. You know what? If you're hungover, or sick, or just walked away from a car crash, or exhausted, or in any other state where attending class isn't the best use of your time, then by all means, don't. You're an adult now. You can make choices and take the consequences of those choices.
And yes, I'll admit that I've had one or two students who skipped most of the lectures and did an excellent job on the quizzes, exams, and final (however, in my experience, students who could get away with that generally don't).
These issues aside, though, I didn't go to college for nine years to be a glorified hall monitor.
I did maths in Imperial College several years ago. They had a simple way of assuring attendance: no text books. Everything was recorded by hand in the lecture (before the age of digital cameras). Not one course I took had a textbook. As a largely self taught book based nerd that didn't like authoritarian structure, I took myself to a university that was somewhat more sane.
Agreed, monitoring for required attendance is BS. The stern wording re:grading is probably sufficient to weed out grade chasers. Providing valuable information beyond the textbook in lectures will (in effect) cause mandatory attendance or enforce subject mastery on exams.
I believed that as an undergraduate. I believed that when I became a TA during my last semester as an undergraduate. I believed that throughout graduate school (where I TAed and taught several classes on my own). I believed that in my years as an Assistant Professor (before leaving for industry...long-ish story). And I most certainly believe it now.
Oh, sure, attendance is important. I always encouraged students to attend my courses. But college students are adults, and we should treat them as such. You know what? If you're hungover, or sick, or just walked away from a car crash, or exhausted, or in any other state where attending class isn't the best use of your time, then by all means, don't. You're an adult now. You can make choices and take the consequences of those choices.
And yes, I'll admit that I've had one or two students who skipped most of the lectures and did an excellent job on the quizzes, exams, and final (however, in my experience, students who could get away with that generally don't).
These issues aside, though, I didn't go to college for nine years to be a glorified hall monitor.