Every class at the University of Arizona has a different attendance policy or philosophy on attendance. I tend to focus my teaching philosophy on our end goal: to become functional and high quality engineers. Before you move forward, what do you think an employer would want out of their employee for their attendance? Would they want employees to be on time and at work the majority of the time? If they value in person, what would this look like?
Class attendance is important for academic success, but from time to time you may need to miss a class. Sometimes it can’t be helped. Since college classes have 30 to 45 sessions in a semester (T/Th or M/W/F for a 3 credit hour class), missing one class means missing a large chunk of work. If we frame our classroom policy around the traditional work expectations, individuals get paid time off (PTO) and sick days. Each job has different amounts of PTO and sick days. To standardize this for the classroom, we will assume that 0.85 * days of in class will be the “allowed” PTO + sick days. If more days are missed, a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade of the class. There are no questions asked about missing class; you do not need to email me about missing a session (unless you want to!).
Excused absences include trips with Dean’s notes and major heath crises during the semester. Each are taken by a case-by-case basis.
Attendance Policies
In Person Classes
You are required to attend UofA in person classes every day lecture is in session. As this a requirement to students and to you as a future engineer, I do not give credit for attendance. I also run my classes as a flipped classroom. Attendance in flipped classrooms is crucial because it complements the pre-class learning activities. In a flipped classroom, students are introduced to the learning material before class, often through video lectures or reading assignments. Class time is then dedicated to deeper exploration of topics through discussions, problem-solving sessions, or hands-on activities. Regular attendance is vital as it ensures students are actively engaging with the content, applying what they’ve learned, and benefiting from collaborative learning experiences and immediate feedback from the instructor. It’s during these in-class sessions that the concepts generally become integrated and understood, making attendance a key component of the flipped classroom model’s success.
For 3 credit hour courses with 45 sessions (M/W/F), you will be allowed to have 7 days missing before punitive actions occurs. For 3 credit hour courses with 30 sessions (T/Th), you will have 5 days missing before punitive action occurs. For labs, we have 6 days of in person lab; for both the in person lab and the required lecture, this equates to 1 day you can miss of each before punitive action is taken. Under special circumstances, two days may be missed.
If you have extraneous circumstances that will habitually make you miss class, you need to let me know ASAP. We will make a plan to accommodate these situations.
What if I’m Sick? Or have significant outside factors?
If you find yourself sick or with significant outside factors before class, please do not attend class to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. It is up to you to determine if you are contagious with an illness or not (especially with allergies and sore throats being nearly ubiquitous and constant during parts of the semester).
Option for some classes: If you miss a class due to illness, you will have until midnight the day following the class session to send me lecture notes on the content to be counted as present. If this involves an activity, you need to show completion of the activity to get noted for attendance that day. Plan on spending 40-50 minutes on the lecture notes for a standard class.
Policy for Online Asynchronous Courses
We will treat these courses like remote jobs. As long as you get your work done by the required deadline, you are free to spend your time however you would like. This also means that you need to plan ahead: I plan on overlapping weeks for modules on D2L to allow for more flexibility to students. If you are going to miss a weekend, plan on finishing the work prior to the deadline.
The Importance of Deadlines and No Late Work
Deadline Policy
As part of maintaining a structured and efficient learning environment, it is important to adhere to set deadlines in my courses. The policy of not accepting late work is in place to encourage timely submissions and ensure a smooth progression of the semester for everyone involved. This approach is designed to help cultivate responsibility and time management skills, which are essential not only in academia but also in professional settings. Adhering to deadlines also allows for consistent grading and feedback cycles, ensuring that all students are evaluated fairly and in a timely manner. While this policy might seem strict, it is intended to support your learning and development, and to maintain the integrity and pace of my courses for all participants.
As a reminder, I have two “deadlines” that you will see in D2L:
- Due date: generally 5PM on Friday. This is the encouraged time to submit your assignment to build good work and study habit. I understand that not all students work on the same timeline and have various obligations that make this deadline extremely difficult to reach.
- End date: generally midnight on Sunday. This is the official due date of the assignment. D2L will flag it as “late” but you will not be penalized for a “late” submission. After this day, assignments will no longer be accepted.
Extra Notes
As we move to a world where remote work is becoming normalized, we may see work attendance of being in person change. However, for classes that are listed “in person,” we will treat them like a job that requires you to be in person.
For lab courses, I give credit for attendance to the main lectures, but not the optional discussion lectures.