Track and Increase Attendance in Virtual Learning

Why It Works

The start of a synchronous lesson on Microsoft Teams or Zoom is the perfect opportunity to set a positive tone and acknowledge each student. Think about it – students love a handshake or fist-bump as they walk into your physical classroom. Why not give them the same attention when they enter your digital classroom?

Get Started

Step 1

You'll want to create an "Attendance" behavior on your school-wide behavior rubric. We recommend a point value of 1 – but talk with your team about what fits best.

Pro Tip: If your team decides to track attendance without awarding points, you can make your behavior worth 0.

Step 2

Now, create your procedure for how you want to award points to students. Below is a sample "recipe" – you can adapt it to create your perfect routine:

1. Students enter to a warm-up question in the first 5 minutes of the lesson. At the end of the warm-up, it's attendance points time!
2. Share your screen so students can see LiveSchool. Hint: You can hide last names for privacy!
3. Award points for attendance! Try this process for maximum engagement – hover your cursor over the top-left student on the screen. The student says "here!". Click their name, and hover over the next student. Get into a rhythm as you take virtual roll! Pro tip: after a student says "here!", say something positive to that student. Some examples: "Hi Seth!", "Hey Jamari!", or "Good to see you Sarah!".
4. Submit your points and hear "ding"! After you've highlighted all the students, click Continue, then select your Attendance behavior. Click Submit and you're done!

Pro tip: You can add a comment in front of students to set the tone – for instance "Let's get our learn on!" or another fun comment. It's okay to be a little corny ;)

That's it!  Your students will hear the positive "ding!" and see their green point bubble go up. You're off to another successful lesson!

Step 3

Use your data! By tracking attendance as a behavior, you'll get access to powerful data on student and class trends. Try these examples:

• Use a Timeline to pull a list of all students who were present on a specific day.
• Use a Scoreboard to find all students who were present at least 18 of the past 20 school days.

Mix It Up!

Feeling creative? You can spiral this procedure to include SEL or academic tie-ins. How? Simple: ask a question for students to answer as they earn their attendance point. Here are just a few options:

• Ask students to share how they're feeling using a mood meter.
• Invite students to do do their social distance greeting of choice on video.
• Use Timer to record how long the procedure takes – then challenge students to beat their time!
• Ask students an academic challenge based on your current unit like "name a US state" or "name a multiplication fact"

Get creative, have fun, and remember – keep it positive! 🎉

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