I'd like to hear ideas from other instructors of large classes and specialists in the value of lecture environments for learning, ideas about where to draw lines, how to enforce policies, and whether this represents a common experience or one resulting mainly from my perhaps dry, intense, and formal instructional style. I believe there are problems with registering attendance by seat occupancy, and it requires a full-period observer who has to be paid from shrinking academic funds. Perhaps it's time to question the application of the policy to courses which serve juniors and seniors as well as freshmen and sophomores, and to a courses which are so large that many participants must necessarily feel anonymous if not alienated. It is certainly time to raise the question of whether we are exerting far too much energy to assume responsibility for students' behavior and apply artificial sanctions rather than letting them discover independently by personal experience that attendance improves learning. I most frequently observe this behavior prior to examinations in other classes.
People learn in different ways.
Some learn better by reading material or reviewing cases than by taking notes in lecture. There is also the circular problem where students complain they cannot keep up taking notes and demand notes are provided. Then the notes aren't complete enough, so they are fleshed out by the instructor. Then they are so complete the students don't feel they are getting enough additional information in lecture to warrant attendance. If our main objective as teachers is that students master a certain amount of material in a course, we test appropriately on that material, and the students pass the tests to our satisfaction, then attendance shouldn't matter.