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I needed a simple way to take attendance AND aid in contact tracing this Fall. My colleague Christine Wong used a QR code to take attendance at our new graduate student orientation. It gave me the idea to use that process for my course.
In this episode of Take5, I provide a video walk-through of how I am going to automate attendance in class and aid in contact tracing. There are probably far more elegant ways to do this, but we are short on time and my main concern is contact tracing.
Steps if you don’t feel like watching the video are listed below.
- Create a form (I am using Qualtrics, but you can use Google forms or anything like that) to collect attendance. Here’s my example: https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5bzZwf3zvloPbXo
- Create a seating chart (optional) for your room to indicate front, back, and middle, and add that to your form to help students visualize where they are sitting. You can use an even more sophisticated system such as https://seatingchartmaker.app if you prefer. Embed that in your form.
a. If you are here at UT Austin, and you teaching in a General Purpose Classroom (GPC) you can find your room here. If not, you can download the layout of your room here: https://utdirect.utexas.edu/apps/campus/lis/drawings/
b. If you don’t create a seating chart, you can at least ask students to identify if they are in the Front, Middle or Back of the room.
c. If you need a more specific chart and you don’t teach in a GPC, I made this one in Lucidchart (but you could also easily make it in PowerPoint).
With this example, you could just ask students to identify in a text entry box the seat they are in (e.g. Table 1, A). Here is an example of a Form I created in Google using a UT Austin General Purpose Classroom. - Create a QR code, using a free QR reader. (I use Flowcode.)
- Put the QR Code on a PowerPoint slide at the start of each class or pass around the QR code on paper.
- Display the QR Code on the PowerPoint Slide at the beginning of each class.
- Document your attendance policy and process in your syllabus.
Canvas also has a seating chart tool. I have tested this, and it’s great for those who teach only one section. If you teach multiple sections, you have to toggle through the system but it still works. See a quick video of how to use the Canvas seating chart here. You have to have the Attendance tool showing in your course navigation menu to use this option.
Could students game this system? Sure if you have a large class – a student could get someone else to fill out the seating chart. If you are worried about that, make clear in your syllabus that such a tactic would be a violation of academic integrity.
You can use the same QR code for every class. If you change up your seating arrangement just edit your form to reflect that.
Molly Polk says
THANK YOU, Julie!!!!
Julie Schell says
Great to hear from you, Molly! Best of luck this semester!
Samantha Wilson says
This is amazing! Thank you so much for coming up with this and then creating a whole video explaining how to do it! I appreciate the help so much!
Julie Schell says
Awesome!!! Let me know if there are other topics you are interested in hearing about!
Katina Johnson says
What a great, easy to follow tutorial! Thank you for putting this together!