My head is already in next semester, and I wanted to throw a question out to the blog world: How do you grade participation?
I am torn about whether to include participation as part of a course grade. Including it in the grade communicates to the students that their preparation for and participation in class activities (which will include class meetings and an online component in my case) is essential, but it also ends up being difficult to quantify. How do you make a participation grade more than simply an attendence grade? And how do you keep it from inflating grades?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I'm dealing with this now as I compute grades for my students. I'm basically "computing" participation on an A; B; C; D scale. Participation for me is not just speaking in class (although important), but also the degree to which you are actively engaged (i.e. come prepared), helping students grasp concepts (i.e. during group), effort you make to come meet with me outside of class (i.e. office hours). It's very hard to quantify, but I do think you can get a sense of who is engaged and who is just there taking space. I calculate attendence seperately, but obviously if you don't attend you can't participate.
I don't grade participation. This will tell you everything you need to know about me as an undergrad, but it just seems to reward students who suck up and well, I don't necessarily want to do that. I realize that's totally irrational and it really does have everything to do with my undergrad experience. but I don't really see how I can assess let alone quantify a student's interest, investment, or even preparation.
I suppose I might consider on the other hand, creating smallish daily or weekly assignments that are not graded but doing them faithfully adds up to something like a participation grade.
I grade participation and attendance (which can be empirically measured) separately. For participation, there is a statement in my syllabus briefly discussing what constitutes particpation and how it will be graded (A,B,C,D,F). For example, I tell them that a question about what page the story is on doesn't constitute active participation. And, I give them an example: "If you talk, ask questions, etc. 2 out of every 5 classes, then you've only participated about 40% of the time. In addition, I developed a handout to give students during the first week of classes that details what I mean by participation and how they can incorporate it and make it benefit them. As you and I know, conversation is the CORE of almost any graduate class. But undergrads don't get this yet. So, I tried to break down what we do in graduate classes.
Regarding Anastasia's comment about participation being "sucking up", I've safeguarded against this by explaining in the handout that the participation grade will be lowered for students who regularly dominate class discussion and/or don't allow others to join in. I've had this sort of participation policy for over 5 years now, and I've never had it become a problem of sucking up. And because I make participation such a large part of their grade (usually 20%), students take it very seriously.
Plus, having a handout not only covers your rear in case there are any complaints about a bad participation grade, but I've found that it gives students a concrete material object that they can reference anytime. I also give them a midterm estimate on their participation grade, so they can beef it up if necessary.
I use a class participation grade because I feel like I encounter a lot of challenges to my authority - young, female, of color, teaching political topics to sheltered and entitled but professionally discontent activist students. So I put a long discussion of good class citizenship into my class participation section, which lets me hold them accountable when they start acting out. Good citizenship implies treating the professor and other students with respect, btw.
But a lot of this is because of the political nature of my classes. Luckily, all of this emotional energy is rewarded with their brilliance because they really are smart.
I am as specific as I can be because I want to be able to defend participation as 10% of the grade. I count discussion, peer review, preparedness, quizzes, and group work. I try to have documentation for everything but discussion--stuff they have to produce from group work, for example. The quizzes aren't talled and computed; they just give me a sense of who is doing the reading. Generally, people can do poorly on one or two quizzes but if they're consistently sucking, it shows they're not doing the work. (The quizzes are designed to be really easy if you just did the reading.) Using quizzes first thing helps deal with tardies too. If you're late, you get a zero.
I print out attendance sheets with names in alpha order that they initial, and I use the sheets to keep records for the day. It sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't. A second at the end of class to put stars by your best talkers or groups. Oh, you don't have your draft today for peer review? No problem. Where's the attendance sheet? Let me just record that. It avoids the whole conflict of it and also sends a clear message for them to take it seriously. I tell them at the beginning of the term I'll be doing this, and then they see me doing it.
At semester's end, I have real notes to consider and tally (pluses and minuses) but I still have a bit of flexibility to figure out how it'll work with the students' grade. If a student is borderline and has great participation, it sends her up a notch. Same thing the other way. I figure that a good participant gets a B, and students go up or down depending on how their plusses and minuses tally up. Attendance issues are separate.
This has helped me deal with my worry that quieter students are being punished too much for something that just reflects a different way of learning. I'm such a student myself, so I'm more aware of that. I know who the talkers are in my classes, but this system lets me consider the ones who are regularly prepared and ready to work, but may approach it differently than someone who just dominates every discussion.
I co-facilitated an online (graduate) course this semester and we had the students grade themselves for participation according to the following rubric:
* Do I provide an appropriate balance of content and process input?
* Do I express a respect for the input of others?
* Do I demonstrate a willingness to engage in inquiry as well as advocacy in our discussions?
* Have I provided a demonstrated contribution of resources and ideas to the community that formed?
* Have I had a consistent attendance record (in presence, mind, and spirit)?
* Have I expressed a demonstrated reference to the various readings that comprise the course materials?
With the submission of their final paper, each student was asked to provide a 200-300 word justification for their self-assessed participation score, out of 20%.
Mind you, the self-assessment works because the course is at the graduate level (therefore less emphasis on absolute grades, and more maturity among the students), and the entire course was about developing an ethos of process awareness (it was a course in Organization Development practice, largely conducted as action learning among a community of practice).
Post a Comment