<p>Simon Cullen + Danny Oppenheimer help us rethink student attendance policies toward deeper engagement and learning on episode 591 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
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<h2>Quotes from the episode</h2>
<p><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20397" src="https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:auto/h:auto/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png" alt="Students love being treated like adults. They love having choice. Everybody loves having choice. People don't like other people telling them what to do." width="930" height="620" srcset="https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:930/h:620/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 930w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:300/h:200/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 300w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:768/h:512/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 768w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:600/h:400/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 600w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:360/h:240/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 360w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:930/h:620/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/dpr:2/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tihe591-4.png 2x" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /></p>
<p>There&#8217;s a lot of evidence that coming to class is one of the best things a student can do to facilitate their learning and performance in class.
-Danny Oppenheimer</p>
<p>You can make students attend, and most faculty do. They set attendance as mandatory. And then students attend and they learn because they attend. But they also hate you, and they hate the subject and they hate everything to do with the class.
-Danny Oppenheimer</p>
<p>If you give people choices, sometimes they make bad choices. Scaffolding choices can help people make choices that actually align with their preferences more effectively.
-Danny Oppenheimer</p>
<p>Students love being treated like adults. They love having choice. Everybody loves having choice. People don&#8217;t like other people telling them what to do.
-Danny Oppenheimer</p>
<p>In some sense students have a preference to attend class. And in some sense they have a preference to not attend class. Those preferences can coexist in some way.
-Simon Cullen</p>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6759">Choosing to learn: The importance of student autonomy in higher education, by Simon Cullen and Daniel Oppenheimer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/are-we-overlooking-power-autonomy-when-it-comes-motivating-students">Are we overlooking the power of autonomy when it comes to motivating students? by Danny Oppenheimer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1178">Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly, by Daniel M. Oppenheimer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/free-speech">Speak Freely, Think Critically: The Free Speech Balance Act</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/79174/9781328450524">Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A&#8217;s, Praise, and Other Bribes, by Alfie Kohn</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/79174/9781101970195">The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution, by Richard Wrangham</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/79174/9781945233234">Finding Meaning in the Age of Immortality, by T.N. Eyer</a></li>
</ul>
<p></div></p>


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