All faculty should have recently received an email regarding attendance verification from the Office of the Registrar.  This is the webpage that relates to the same topic: https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/registrar/policies/tracking.php

The part of this that we can assist with is related to this quote:

“Financial Aid eligibility is determined based on a student’s attendance or participation in an academically related activity in the class.”

In other words, simply taking attendance isn’t good enough.  There must also be proof of academically related activities.  They have some examples of methods for meeting this requirement on their site.

You may already use Clickers in the classroom.  In CELT we always offer the guidance of their use to facilitate learning and engagement in the classroom. Even the largest lecture halls at SBU can be interactive and stimulating when these student engagement tools are used to their fullest.

So… good examples of questions to ask for the purposes of taking attendance and demonstrating academic content, will be:

pre-assessment questions (what do they think they understand or know before you teach the subject)

mid-lesson assessment (are they understanding the concepts you are currently explaining)

homework spot checks (a question about something only covered in previously assigned homework)

post-assessment questions (what did they learn during class… particularly useful when compared to pre-assessment results.)

Questions that explore cultural diversity or opinions (usually anonymous with no right or wrong answers and clearly appropriate to your subject matter.)

Also, they can be successfully used to facilitate and report back group work such as Think/Pair/Share and Jigsaw activities.

These would be poor examples of clicker use and would not demonstrate academically related activities :

Are you here today?
Did you do your homework?
Click in for attendance now.

Other tools that Academic Technologies and CELT offer that can demonstrate both academically related activities and attendance include Blackboard, echo360, VoiceThread, Qualtrics, Google Apps and Adobe Connect.

Please feel free to setup an appointment or attend one of our workshops, to find out more.