“Let Me See Your ID”: Now Coming to a Lecture Hall Near You.
NPR is reporting that Northern Arizona University has installed ID card scanners at some lecture halls so that student attendance in large classes can be taken automatically. Apparently NAU is the first college in the country to do this.
I’m no opponent, in principle, of taking attendance in college, though I know many student activists are. In my view, class participation can be a legitimate component of a student’s grade, and you can’t participate if you’re not present. (Beyond that, I do think that it’s a professor’s prerogative to discourage absenteeism by taking attendance, even if it’s only to save some students from themselves.)
But I’ve got a few concerns about this scheme.
First, it seems to me that college attendance is nowhere less important than in huge lecture classes. A lecture