Taking Attendance When Students Are At Home

 This post is for secondary teachers who are teaching either hybrid or fully remote modalities.

Despite the fact that there will be days where students are learning from home rather than in school, student attendance is still compulsory. So how can you track attendance for your students even when they aren't in school? Some options below:

Option 1: Use a Google Form for Students to Check In

I found this attendance hack on Twitter. The directions are pretty clear. Here's how it works. 

1. Create a Google Form for students to "check in" daily when they aren't in school. 
2. Create the Form's corresponding Sheet and set it up per the directions on the attendance hack document.
3. Post your Form somewhere where students can access it--Google Classroom "Material", Google Sites, email--you will have to train your students to access this Form daily.
4. Once the students submit their Form responses, the data will start to fill the cells on the spreadsheet. When you navigate to the pages you created per the directions you will get an alphabetized list by class period.
5. Be sure to mark daily attendance in SchoolTool.

Watch this tutorial to learn how.

Option 2: Use Google Classroom for Students to Check In

Thank you Tina Middaugh for sharing a strategy that worked during the spring closure!

1. Post a DAILY question on Google Classroom and train students to comment on it. This is a great opportunity to be creative and build a sense of community among your students. The questions can be non-content related and should be engaging enough so kids look forward to opening Google Classroom to check in.
2. Be sure to mark daily attendance in SchoolTool.