Using the Attendance Feature to Track Student Absenteeism

Transcription

1 Using the Attendance Feature to Track Student Absenteeism Creating an Attendance Scheme: You can create attendance registers to track attendance for course based activities, including mandatory grade items. To add an Attendance link to the main navigation bar in your D2L course site: 1) Click on [Edit Course] in the navigation bar 2) Select [Navigation and Themes] under Site Setup 3) Click the dropdown arrow next to [Course Default] 4) Click [Copy] 5) Click into [Course Default Copy] that you created 6) Scroll down the page to the Links area 7) Select [Add Links] in whichever quadrant you would like the attendance register to be located in the main navigation bar 8) Check the box to the left of the [Attendance] link and click [Add] 9) Click [Save and Close] 10) Click the dropdown next to Default under the [Active Navbar] select the [Course Default Copy] and click [Apply] You should now see the [Attendance] link in the main navigation area of your D2L course site.

2 Create a New Attendance Register: 1) Click on the [Attendance] link in the D2L navigation bar 2) Click [New Register] on the Attendance Registers page 3) Enter a new Name for your register Optional: enter a Description 4) Select an attendance scheme from the [Attendance Scheme] dropdown list 5) Enter a percentage (%) to indicate the minimum attendance requirement in the [Cause for Concern] area. When a percentage is entered, you will see a Cause for Concern icon (warning) for under-performing students in the % Attendance column on the Attendance Data page 6) Select the [Allow users to view this attendance register] checkbox 7) Select the user(s) that you want to include in your register. You can choose to include all users or specific groups or sections a. In the Sessions area, enter a Session Name, Session Description, and Order for each status b. If you need more sessions, enter a number of necessary sessions and click the Add Sessions link. The new session field(s) will appear on the page 8) Click [Save] then [Close] Attendance scheme statuses: Attendance scheme statuses define the criteria for your attendance schemes. Statuses consist of four fields: Symbol, Status Full Name, Assigned %, and Order

3 Review of terms: Symbol an abbreviated name for the status. Improve recognition by using symbols that intuitively reference the corresponding status name (A for absent, P for present, L for Late, EA for Excused Absence, etc). Status Full Name The full name of the status. The name should clearly describe the status, for example: Late, Present, and Absent. Assigned % an optional weight assigned to each status that contributes to the individual student s percent attendance (performance) for the register. This field allows you to allocate attendance credit to particular activities and set attendance expectations. If a status s Assigned % is blank, then any instances of that status are ignored in the user s overall attendance calculation. Order the display order of the statuses. Using the Cause for Concern Metric: The Cause for Concern metric allows you to track students who are failing to meet your set attendance requirements by placing the Cause for Concern icon beside their names on the Attendance Data page. To Use the Cause for Concern metric: 1. Enter a percentage that indicates your minimum attendance requirement in the Cause for Concern field. 2. Click [Save]. How Attendance Percentages are Calculated: Please note the % Attendance Calculation is created by adding the total assigned percentage for each status and dividing by the number of statuses that have an assigned percentage. For example, consider the following status sets:

4 Symbol Status Full Name Assigned % Order P Present A Absent 0 2 L Late 75 3 EA Excused Absence 4 If the attendance register has four (4) total sessions and you assign a student one of each of the above statuses [(P, A, L, EA) (one for each of the four sessions)], their % Attendance would include the P, A, and L statuses and ignore the EA status since it has Assigned % at nothing or blank. As such, the user would have a % Attendance of (( )/(100 x 3) x 100 = 58.33). Adding an Assigned % of 100 to the EA status would change the user s % Attendance to (( )/(100 x 4) x 100 = 68.75). ing users from the Attendance Data page: You may want to specific students if they need to be notified their lack of attendance is a cause for concern: 1. From the Attendance Register page, click the drop-down arrow next to the register, then click [View Attendance Data] 2. Complete one of the following actions: Either Select the students you want to from the user list in the Attendance Data section, then click the icon OR Click the All Users button 3. Compose your message in the Compose New Message pop-up

5 window 4. Click Send on the top-left of the pop-up window Note: A Sent Successfully message will appear in the pop-up window and the pop-up window will close automatically. D2L does not save a copy of your sent message, so you may want to add your UWM address to the to: or cc address line. D2L v 10.3 May 2015