As you may already know, the Student Engagement Roster (SER) is an early feedback tool that allows faculty members to communicate with students about how they are doing in a class and make recommendations to improve or deepen their learning. While the SER is often associated with grades (i.e is the student passing or failing the course), the SER can also be used to provide students with resources that can help them improve academically and develop a sense of belonging here at IU. While you may have a more flexible attendance policy to encourage students to take care of their health, there are some ways to capture how they participate in class with you, their classmates, as well as with course content: https://flags.iu.edu/for-facultystaff/types-ser-facultystaff.html
Utilizing this roster is an additional way to help students know that you are interested in their success enough to provide them with a personalized message that reiterates this idea. It can serve as additional encouragement to students who are working hard in your class. Most importantly, using the roster can alert some students to the idea that they have a limited amount of time to refocus their efforts towards coursework and earn a passing grade. It is strongly encouraged that you take advantage of this resource to provide some type of feedback to your students.
If participation has been limited due to lack of attendance, CITL recommended this resource, compiled by Penn State, which contains several suggestions aimed at helping to improve attendance: https://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/pdf/Large_Class_FAQ_Attendance.pdf
You can also provide access to career and advising resources that connect to conversations you have had in class or office hours, or topics that connect to course content: https://ser.indiana.edu/faculty/index.html#assistance Please let me know if we can meet and work through some solutions to help increase attendance/participation in your course.
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