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Monitor attendance in Moodle

The attendance activity in Moodle allows programme and module teams to maintain a record of student attendance for every session in a course and can work as a replacement or supplement a paper-based attendance register.

It can be used in learning environments where students are required to attend lectures and/or seminars and allows teachers to track and/or provide a grade for the students’ attendance (optional). Programmes and module teams can set easily the frequency of their sessions (recurring weekly classes) or create specific sessions individually, as well as allowing students to record their own attendance.

Why would a teacher use this approach/tool, and link to the 4C features

Coherence

  • Programme and module teams expect students to attend all sessions and the attendance activity would help monitor students who haven’t attended and ensure staff are able to intervene.

Community

  • By encouraging student attendance, all students are able to engage with discussions from the same starting point.

Consistency

  • Students should be familiar with attendance across all modules.

Choice

  • It allows students to record their involvement in modules at any given moment and keep track of any synchronous sessions/activities that they may have missed and need to catch up on.

How to use this approach/tool

Inclusivity and Accessibility review

Tracking student attendance can give programme and module teams an indication of whether there are students who haven’t been able to attend sessions for a variety of reasons. This can also be an indication that students haven’t been able to attend sessions because they cannot access certain technologies used in the course (such as proprietary software) or because fast broadband connections are required to attend online sessions.

Ensure all relevant activities are added to the Student Study Plan for the module in question.

All online resources should be compatible with the UK Digital Accessibility Standards 2020. See Creating Digitally Accessible Learning and Teaching Materials Brookes Moodle course.

Use the Blackboard Ally tool to help check the accessibility of the content you have prepared (available within Moodle late July - early August 2020).

Author/s

  • Richard Hall
  • Harry Kalantzis