Totally makes sense. Seminar style classes should have attendance factored in, but not by “did you attend” but by “did you contribute to the converstion?”. (And you shouldn’t use an app to track them. )
These classes end up feeling unproductive for me. By mandating attendance and contribution, you end up getting the entire class raising their hand to reiterate the same point and get their participation mark for the day. People who are actually engaged with the material enough to formulate a new point are stifled. By the end of class only maybe 10% of the discussion ends up being worthy, the rest a waste by this middle school participation exercise that rewards noise and length equally to a well worded argument.
I’m sorry to hear that, but that’s on your teacher. They should do a better job of facilitating.
A good seminar is 16 people (max, 12 is better). No hand raising needed. The goal is learning and understanding. Ideally there’s not any grades. If there are they should be opaque and subjective up to the instructor :)