Thread: Absences

You're in the first week of a new 6-week session, but only half your very devoted intermediate students are there for class. (due to vacations, work schedules, whatever).

You had planned on covering really basic foundational material that the students need for the entire session. Do you:

• Forget your lesson plan and just do drills with the students who are present?
• Teach your planned material, knowing you'll have to spend the whole classtime next week doing it again?
• Teach your planned material and refuse to repeat it all the following week, leaving half your class perplexed for the rest of the session?
• Teach it all, and review it only briefly the following week?
• Something else?

Seems impossible to me to be fair to everyone in this situation.

I've had very similar issues with troupes and students in the past. What I do is work with who I have, but work on a progression. I teach what I need to teach that day and I always briefly review the following class-then move on unless all students need to review again. I also offer a makeup class option for students-perhaps you could work that out. If people flake, that's their fault and not yours. It's hard to be firm like that, but you have to or no one will develop. I've also found if you raise your standards, so will they.

Oyyy. Summer attendance really seems to be a drag for a lot of us lately.

I'd drill and play "catch-up" for the majority of the class. Get everyone acclimated and eased into the new session. This is a nice transition if you have new students or if you had a bit of a break between sessions.

If you're introducing a new choreography, maybe show everyone what it looks like in its entirety and begin to introduce the first segment or two. If you're introducing new technique, give a little taste of things to come, but don't delve into all of it. If you introduce a modest amount, you and the students that are present will feel like you accomplished something, but they probably won't get bored repeating it the next week, and you won't have to worry about next week's crew feeling inundated.

Unfortunately, you can't please anyone and you might not have a full class next week. Would be interesting to hear what others have to say about this...

Yes, I have been wondering this too. It seems that sometimes the review can get too long if too many people miss.

Do you require people to sign up for the full six weeks or allow drop-ins? If the drop ins are new, do you feel you are spending too much time helping them?

I don't allow any drop ins.

I like to work with structured lesson plans that build on each other, and I have to plan my schedule around the classes that people register for, and ensure that the space isn't overcrowded. So each class has a minimum/maximum registration.

Due to how the classes are set up here I usually plan on a complete review/do over of my first class for the second class. Mainly because I have gals who sign up, come to the first class, have a ball, tell everyone they know, and often end up bringing in new students to register the second week.
I don't go into as much detail the second week when it comes to break downs unless I see its really needed. I don't see anything wrong with re-drilling/explaining the things I cover in the first class for a second week. There will always be one or two things at least that someone doesn't remember, didn't quite click for them the first week, or that they have questions about because they tried practicing it at home and couldn't quite get things to work out the way they did in class. Plus with so much information being given to them in the first class its pretty much a guarentee they aren't going to remember it all so the review is a good thing.

I do the review every week too, but much like Viv I have new people coming in a lot. I'm kind of here and there with permitting drop ins; I do at the moment but find it sort of mucks up the system. I get calls and tell them a new session will start in a month and they sound so crestfallen...any thoughts on how to deal with this for those who do permit drop ins, or is the general consensus that they have to sign up for the whole session?

Originally Posted by BreaMorgiane

I do the review every week too, but much like Viv I have new people coming in a lot. I'm kind of here and there with permitting drop ins; I do at the moment but find it sort of mucks up the system. I get calls and tell them a new session will start in a month and they sound so crestfallen...any thoughts on how to deal with this for those who do permit drop ins, or is the general consensus that they have to sign up for the whole session?

Well I have to do drop-ins due to how the classes are set up which means I can get a brand new, never danced a step before in their lives, gal at any point in a session. Usually if its in the first three weeks there is no problem getting them caught up to the rest of the class or close enough to the rest of the class. After that I tell them what week we are in, that the rest of the class is going to be ahead of them, there may be some things that they won't be able to do, and that I won't be breaking everything down but if they have questions ask or stick around after class and I will break down anything they need. If its in the last couple of weeks of a session I tell them to have fun, we're really only going to worry about their posture, just try to copy what is going on and if they enjoy it and want to register for the upcoming session a lot of what they don't get can/will be broken down at the start of the new session. Then I just keep an eye on them and make sure they aren't doing anything too horribly out of wack so that they hurt themselves. It seems to work for me, a lot of those last minute gals sign up for the next session.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

You're in the first week of a new 6-week session, but only half your very devoted intermediate students are there for class. (due to vacations, work schedules, whatever).

You had planned on covering really basic foundational material that the students need for the entire session. Do you:

• Forget your lesson plan and just do drills with the students who are present?
• Teach your planned material, knowing you'll have to spend the whole classtime next week doing it again?
• Teach your planned material and refuse to repeat it all the following week, leaving half your class perplexed for the rest of the session?
• Teach it all, and review it only briefly the following week?
• Something else?

Seems impossible to me to be fair to everyone in this situation.

Welcome to my life, though I have several commited gals it is impossilbe for them to commit 100% they have kids and being in the military if the hubby doesnt make it home from work, is on duty, tdy for deployent they JUST cant come and tryfinding a baby sitter last minute. It is hard I know. I generaly try to cover the same thing every class for 1 month that way they each get it 1-4 times then we can move on.........

Originally Posted by BreaMorgiane

I do the review every week too, but much like Viv I have new people coming in a lot. I'm kind of here and there with permitting drop ins; I do at the moment but find it sort of mucks up the system. I get calls and tell them a new session will start in a month and they sound so crestfallen...any thoughts on how to deal with this for those who do permit drop ins, or is the general consensus that they have to sign up for the whole session?

I also have this problem. My wednesday nights are drop in. I teach the same lesson every week, with a small choroeo at the end, But we drill for 45 starting with the basics that way the baby begginers are not lost but the more advanced girls (not saying advanced but MORE advanced than the begginers) get to work on things they need to work on or layers. I say of this side of the room basic shimmy, this side of the room shimmy side to side, or shimmy with a rib cage circle.

grrrrr student absences -- the bane of all instructors!

Lauren, you're talking here about students who are familiar with your class set ups, not newbies. They know that if they miss a class, they've missed a certain amount of the basis for the rest of the class session. They know when a class will start (date) and when it will end and yes, they are all adults who can actually plan their calendars around this knowledge.

Hard pill to swallow and I choke on it often -- but I am more and more doing only the basic "let's start with what we did last week" -- going through that maybe twice, and then moving on to the new stuff. If students miss a class and want a make up session to catch up, I'll oblige, but they'd better have been attending a funeral, sick themselves (or a child), or had a legitimate emergencies (vacations aren't emergencies in most cases!). The class as a whole (and getting through the session's class plan) has to be the focus or I'd spend all my time backtracking for someone who decided that something else -- anything else -- was more important than going to class because I'd stop the rest of the class's progress to catch them up the next week anyway. . ...c::

Since I've been doing that, excuses such as "I was so tired after work" and "I laid down to take a nap and didn't wake up in time" and "I was shopping and lost track of time", etc. have fallen off.

this is why i simply dont do ongoing classes in summer. it just doesnt work. in summer we have drop in workshpps, that's it... the regular weekly classes resume in september. i realise that might not be an option for those whose sole income is bd, but i just find that summer attendance is so unpredictable that it doesnt work. or students just would not enroll...

so we have drop ins and workshops in summer instead..

in your case lauren, i would just work with whom i've got and make my summer series program/class contents in such a way that it doesnt matter if people miss classes. (that they can still follow etc)

Thanks, it's really interesting to see how people handle these things. Normally my choreo classes go like this: Warm up, drilling technique (esp any new moves/combos I'm about to add on, or any that people struggled with last week), review last week's material twice at tempo, introduce new material, then put it all together.

In this case, the group is going to be learning a Melaya choreo for the next 2 sessions (12 weeks). The first session covered 'what the $*&# is a Melaya? Why do we dance with one? What are the various ways we hold it? Open it? Close it? What is the overall mood and character for the dance?'

So I had no choice but to try to cover all that material again. I did it in the form of a pop quiz with 'fabulous prizes' (bindis and dollar store body glitter, etc) for people who knew the answers. So we re-covered all the material with rewards for the folks who were present the first time. Only I didn't show videos of the different styles again, I just posted links to youtube clips on our Yahoo group and hope people check them out outside of class. Maybe I'll offer to show them again after class sometime.

I just hate penalizing the people who do come to class all the time by making them sit through the same class twice. But I don't want half my students learning a Melaya dance with no background or cultural context!

When there are several students missing (or only a couple of people who actually show up) my instructor will often ask us at the start of the class if there is anything in particular that someone wants to review, or if there is anything that we would like to try. Usually there are a few students fighting with a move or two, or with a technique, so we'll go over that, and if someone suggests that we try something different, we'll give that a shot. Last time this happened I requested that we try using zills and veils at the same time - it was a lot of fun, and we got some great pointers from the instructor. :D

That being said, if people are missing too many classes in a row, then tough beans to them (at least that's what I say in my head!) and we carry on with the curriculum.

Originally Posted by halftruths

That being said, if people are missing too many classes in a row, then tough beans to them (at least that's what I say in my head!) and we carry on with the curriculum.

amen! i get really frustrated as a student having to review the same thing ad naseum because people couldn't make it to class. its unfair to the students who do show up. reviewing/drilling is good, but too much gets boring.

I dunno, Lauren. I have the same troubles. I tried to teach a choreography this session, but gave up on it. It was always a different group with people missing class left and right - it was getting frustrating. Life happens, and the summer is a tough time - I guess the lesson I learned is that during busy times of the year like summer and Christmas, maybe a progressive class (what I normally do) isn't the best option.

Else, I guess you could give a quick review and move on. I wouldn't teach it twice as it is their responsibility to come to class if they want to learn the material. It's not fair to those who are in class regularly.

Hi Lauren, for this session as a lot of my regular students were going to be away and I had a bunch of new people starting, I've just chosen to teach a few basics (2-3 new things a week depending on how quickly they catch on; class length 1.5hrs). I also review the things from the week before so anyone who has missed can at least get an idea of what's been happening, but I keep moving. My plan is to start teaching a routine in the last 2 weeks of the session and if any of the new people continue in the Fall they will get to continue with that choreography.

Anyone who was a student of mine from before, gets a massive review since its all material they've already learned, but review is important anyways.