Class Participation

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors had "Participation" as part of the grading criteria.  He was a well-known book author and expert in his field and I was very intimidated.  I remember answering a question and watching him open his notebook and jot something down.  I puffed up a little, sure that I had received high participation points for my answer.  Unfortunately, I never found out whether my answers received any points or if the participation points actually counted for anything in the final grade.

At the beginning of the semester, it's a good time to take a look at what we are requesting of our students.  Does your syllabus have a graded "Participation" section?  There is nothing wrong with grading class participation, but it is one area that is often left unexplained.  How do the students get graded for the participation?  Exactly what is participation? 

Educator Chrisopher Willard has discussed class participation in his article "Reconsidering Grading Students on Class Participation."   In his article, Willard states, "I thought that a student’s verbal participation was a matter of just trying and I would call on them in my attempt to help."  It didn't turn out that way.  He further states, "The significant question that arises is this: If I am grading on participation, what am I doing to teach this skill? Or contrarily, how can I grade what I do not teach?"

Some educators have been more specific about teaching and evaluating class participation.  Martha L. Maznevski, when at the University of Virginia, wrote an article titled "Grading Class Participation" for a Teaching Resource Center publication.  She said that in work situations, the way to "evaluate performance on the job is to develop a set of behavioral indicators of good performance specific for a given job."  Giving credit for classroom participation should be no different.  In her article, she provides a scale that can be used for students' participation, which might be helpful to you.  The top score requires that the student sythesize and evaluate, part of Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives.  By providing behavioral indicators, students are aware of what they need to do to receive certain points.

To some extent, our college classrooms have become what James Ricky Cox calls the "youth soccer phenomenon."  Like children receiving a trophy for trying, our students may think they deserve higher grades simply because they've attended class or said one or two things while in class.  If class participation is not defined and no specific rating system is given, our students may fight for a higher grade simply because of the vagueness of the situation. 

It's something to think about as you begin your semester.