Taking Attendance with Seating Charts

Overview

Once a recurring calendar event has been created, instructors can open the event for the current day and record students as Present, Excused Absence or Unexcused Absence.   An advantage of using a Seating Chart for tracking attendance is the option to add a comment about the absence.  Seating charts are no associated with the course gradebook.

Instructions

Step 1. Set All Students Present

A quick way to take attendance with the Seating Chart is to first set All [Students] Present for the current date's class and then change the status of the one or two students who are not present to absent.

  1. Navigate to the Calendar widget on the course homepage.
  2. Select the date on the calendar for which you want to take attendance.
  3. Select the "View Seating Chart" button.
  4. Select the "More Actions" drop down menu and then choose "Set All Present", as shown in Figure 1 below.  The box for each student marked present should now be blue.

Figure 1. Set All [Students] Present

Set Students Present, Absent

Step 2. Update attendance for absent students.

  1. Select the box for the absent student (student box should turn white)
  2. Select the pencil icon next to Present and choose Excused Absence (student box turns grey and has a yellow dot next to the blue person icon) or Unexcused Absence (student box turns grey and has a red dot next to the blue person icon)
  3. Add a comment, such as "car trouble, flu, family death,etc."
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each student who is absent. Once attendance for the day is complete, select the "Set Session Completed" button.

Resources

PCT Classroom details and photos (Information about the instructor workstation, Room controls, and photos of the front and back of the room).

Define locations in your organization and assign seats to learners (Brightspace Help)

Create a Seating Chart (Brightspace Help)

Assign a seat to a learner (Brightspace Help)

What is a seating chart session? (Brightspace Help)

Create a session in seating chart (Brightspace Help)Taking Attendance with Seating Charts (ITS Knowledge Base article)

Create the Recurring Calendar Event for a P.L.A.T.O. Seating Chart (ITS Knowledge Base article)

What is a seating chart cold call? (Brightspace Help) 

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Related Articles (3)

Create Seating Charts for Merged Sections
Seating charts can be created to track attendance and participation in a merged P.L.A.T.O. course site once a group has been created for each section.
Creating P.L.A.T.O. Seating Charts
Seating charts can be used in P.L.A.T.O. to track attendance, participation and performance in face-to-face classes.  Seating charts integrate with locations and the calendar in a course site once the seating chart is complete. Grade column(s) would need to be created and populated manually. The seating chart you choose should be a visual representation of your classroom seating arrangement.  Classroom details and photos are available to view in the ITS Knowledge Base.
Creating the Calendar Events for a P.L.A.T.O. Seating Chart
P.L.A.T.O. seating charts integrate with locations and the course calendar to help instructors track attendance, participation and performance in face-to-face classes.  The seating chart is a visual representation of your physical classroom seating arrangement and must be added before integrating it with the calendar.