[Let me start with a caveat: I stole this idea. Like so many good classroom practices, I picked it up from a mentor, a colleague—maybe even from a friend on Twitter. If the person I stole this idea from is reading this article, I apologize that I couldn't give you due credit. Please claim that credit in the comments.]
Grading participation is notoriously tricky. Students often perceive participation grades as arbitrary, and teachers like Derek Bruff and Ladysquires argue that grading participation damages the social contract of the classroom. Nevertheless, in classes where regular student input is expected (or necessary), many professors see value in assessing students’ contributions to class discussions and activities.
Last May Brian shared how he grades students’ class participation. At the end of that article, he speculated about crowdsourcing participation grades. I haven’t quite crowdsourced participation grades this semester, but in my College Writing class I’m experimenting with a more dialogical approach to the process. The way it works is simple.
I’ve set aside twenty minutes for in-class writing assignments three times during this semester—the first of these fell last week. The assignment sheet for these classes is simple: on it I’ve printed the class participation policy from the syllabus. I ask students to write a one-page essay in which they:
- Propose what grade they deserve for class participation thus far, and
- Defend their proposed grade with evidence from the classroom.
I tell students that their actual participation grade will be determined by the persuasiveness of their essays. I advise them that I won’t find an essay persuasive if it misrepresents its evidence—just as I wouldn’t find an essay about Moby-Dick persuasive if it cited Ahab’s heroic victory over the whale. “If you have trouble finding enough evidence to make a case for a good grade,” I advise, “use your essay to describe instead the specific steps you will take to improve.”
Having collected one round of these essays, I’m ready to tentatively declare the experiment a success. By and large, my students were honest—perhaps even too exacting—in their self-evaluations, and participation has noticeably improved in the weeks following the exercise. I like asking students to evaluate their own participation for a few reasons:
- The assignment forces students to revisit the guidelines laid out in the syllabus, which strikes me as a useful exercise in and of itself.
- The assignment encourages students to reflect critically on how they’re working to meet those standards—to substantiate their actual contributions to the class, which often differ from their perceptions of how they’ve contributed. Students who only come to class have difficulty arguing that their mere presence satisfies expectations.
- The assignment challenges the idea that professors randomly (or worst, vindictively) assign participation grades by exposing the process of evaluating participation to students. My students quickly understood that we were working with a standard—the syllabus—that could be effectively compared to specific classroom activities or moments.
- The assignment asks students to practice the central skill that this course seeks to develop: building persuasive arguments based on evidence. The twenty minutes they spend writing these participation essays (sixty, if you count all three evaluation days) are minutes in which they’re fully invested in the rhetorical process.
There are, of course, potential problems with this approach to grading participation.Some students are too hard on themselves, assigning grades far below what they’ve actually earned in class. Others err in the opposite direction. One of my students, for example, argued that she had earned an A- for participation, despite the fact that she regularly texts in class, rarely lifts her eyes above her laptop screen, and had only contributed twice to classroom conversation over ten class sessions. If you plan to try this method for grading participation, you must be prepared to comment more extensively on essays when students’ self-assessments veer wildly from reality. I must say, however, that in a class of twenty I only had to correct two students: one who dramatically undercut herself, and one that dramatically oversold herself.
This assignment could also pose problems for students with disabilities. Students who need accommodations for timed work, for example, might need to complete the essay outside of class.
Overall, however, I’ve been impressed with the way self-assessment reframes the issue of class participation. This assignment helps students reflect on their class citizenship, and reconsider how their professors assess a course goal that might otherwise seem subjective or arbitrary.
How do you assess participation? Do you grade it at all? Tell us about it in the comments.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user Michael 1952.]
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10 Responses to Grading Classroom Participation Rhetorically
educationnet2007 - October 7, 2010 at 7:19 am
Online participation seems like a breeze at first glance. However, it’s not so easy. Blackboard, WebCT, D2L, and the like have ways of tracking the number, although not the quality, of student postings. But postings are not the same as participation. Has anyone found a way to sort the kinds of postings (i.e., discussions, social, course questions, etc.)?Thanks,educationnet
harrietschwartz14 - October 7, 2010 at 7:40 am
I agree. I just started using this approach. I am part-way through the final assessments and so far most students are right on (one graded himself lower, than he deserves, the rest are ok). I think that knowing they would have to do this at the end of the mini-course pushed students to be much more aware and reflective along the way about their involvement in the classroom.
lcevering - October 7, 2010 at 9:19 am
After years of frustration, I no longer give any points in any of my courses for participation. Too often students see the particpation points as a “gimme” and assume they should get the points merely because they attended class. I also found measuring the degree to which students particpated along with the depth and breadth of their contributions too tedious. I am at a 4/4 load institution with ever increasing class sizes (thanks, ecomomy!) so you can see how this can quickly become cumbersome. I beleive that active class participation is a professional expectation as part of the classroom community (I teach education majors) and moreover, a professional disposition. I have, however, implemented more ways to encourage participation and used questioning strategies that require all students to be accountable for answers. I want them to WANT to particpate so I have become more creative in doing things to foster interest and inquiry in the course content.
v8573254 - October 7, 2010 at 10:09 am
I have used a similar approach for a number of years. I think I came to it through a colleague in history. My students’ responses match those described above. Some of the best writing emerged from these in-class essays.They do not take that much time to read. One can say to students that there will be no response beyond “agree” except for instances where opinion differs. They will be fine w/that.
benbel28 - October 7, 2010 at 10:26 am
We’re required to keep and submit attendance records with our final grades. I’ve added a two-part attendance/participation grade into my syllabi (sociology). In addition to assignments, each class meeting holds the potential for 5 points– 3 for having your butt in the seat (a sideways 3 makes a very cute butt on the whiteboard–students laugh)– and an additional 2 points for participation. “Participation” includes asking a question, making a comment about a lecture point, bringing in an outside news/current event/campus issue that it relevant to the topic, etc., something that “enhances our understanding of the subject at hand.” Participation does NOT include one-word responses of agreement, “me-too” responses, eye contact with me, laughter at my jokes (although I might change that). If you hog the floor, you still can’t get more than 2 points.Some adjustments I’ve made after using this process for a couple terms: I’m now including students who bring outside stuff to my attention, even if I’m the one who describes it to the class. This takes into account those students who are painfully shy– I’ll do it for them the first time, but insist that THEY explain their point every time after that. With a little coaching, I’ve helped a couple class wall-flowers become more outspoken. I had to add eye contact to my NON-participaiton list because one student actually argued that her eye contact with me was a sign of her attention. Yes, but it’s still not participation. It’s not a perfect system, and some students really complain about it. I thought it was gonna be a nightmare to keep track, but it’s not. I have the advantage of teaching mostly small sections (
demery1 - October 7, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Self reflection–always a good idea.
pamelatodoroff - October 8, 2010 at 9:42 am
I grade participation more frequently and more subtly in my college writing classes than offered here, whether the class is on-campus or online. My “Reflective Response” assignments are 10 minute free-writing opportunities to any prompt that fits the lesson plan–sometimes it’s a quote from Yeats on writing or Hemmingway’s famous “…architecture not interior design…” or something else directly from the assigned reading. In a 15 week term there will be ten RRs worth 10 points each. Thus, up to 100 points can be added to their grade just by sitting in their seat at the point when this assignment is offered. In the bathroom? Sorry. No make-up for this one.I’ve found that this exercise doesn’t just measure attendance because usually the class will use the prompt for continued discussion. And since some of the students are now awake and cognatively functioning, they are able to participate.
phdeviate - October 8, 2010 at 10:10 am
I read (perhaps on the Chronicle!) of a teacher who assigned participation grades for a foreign language conversation class in the following manner (roughly re-created from memory):10: Active participation, exclusively in the target language7: Active participation, but with some inclusion of english5: Moderate participation, or participation almost exclusively in English3: Physical presence in the room0: AbsentI found myself falling in love with the idea that if physical presence in the room is all you can say for the student, it still amounts to a failing grade. Now, clearly this wouldn’t work for a lot of other types of classes–but I suspect such a thing could be adapted for heavily discussion-based classes of many types. I’ll also note that tracking participation grades in real-time is the only thing so far that has made me want an ipad. I think the touch interface would be awfully useful for such a thing.Lastly, I had a teacher once (also in foreign language instruction) who kept a rather large roll book in front of him throughout class and literally ticked off every time each student spoke. Again, that’s not qualitative, but it certainly gave him DATA at the end of the semester. I’d have a hard time focusing on the lesson, I think, if I were doing that. Hence the ipad. I think touching a box would not disrupt the flow of my thought nearly as much…
morningsider - October 11, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I am required to take attendance and so include attendance in the final semester grade. I usually do not include a “participation” grade. “Participation” is a junk category: know nothing loudmouths are rewarded while thoughtful, engaged quiet students are penalized. It usually boils down to a professor’s impression of a student–something just too arbitrary to be fair.
Unfortunately, this semester I’m teaching a First Year Experience course with a syllabus that has been handed to me and it includes a Participation grade worth 30% of the semester grade! I am horrified, really. How do I grade the quiet female students, who turn in all their work on time but rarely volunteer to speak, in comparison with the loudmouth male students who swagger in and “forget” their homework but are eager to smartmouth their way through class?
I think “participation” is disingenuous–learning is not about speaking in class. That’s why I think an attendance grade is fair–I can measure that fairly and accurately. I cannot measure a student’s attention span and interest–a truer indicator of learning than speaking in class.
lmann - October 13, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Morningsider, I disagree in several ways.
First, it sounds like your vision of the classroom, and of participation, is everyone looking at you, and everyone speaking, when they speak, to you. And the idea that “participation” means “speaking” rather than, say, “interacting.” It’s untrue you cannot measure attention and interest – it may depend on class size but I would assume if there is a participation grade then we are not talking about a 250 person lecture – actually interacting with students or giving them a chance to interact gives you a plethora of information about what students are doing.
There are many ways to organize a class and to organize participation. For example, part of my class participation grade can be derived from posting or commenting on a post online (I have them respond to readings weekly) – that way people who don’t feel comfortable speaking in class have a chance to show they know something and maybe even interact.
But even more seriously, participation is part of peer-to-peer learning, and this is important. It’s an important skill in itself (in the wider world, your students will be required to speak up in front of others, to assert and defend their opinions in public), and it’s important for learning – it can increase attention and interest, it increases retention, it can help students learn in all kinds of ways.
I would suggest you are not at the mercy of student personalities as much as you seem to feel here. Most importantly, student personalities and qualities of interaction can actually be affected by what you do in the classroom.
Actually, the implications of what you say at the end are a little problematic – especially in terms of gender – are you suggesting that women cannot learn to speak up, and that men cannot learn to be more respectful? If these are not innate characteristics, then surely the environment –including the classroom environment– are part of why certain people come to dominate, in the classroom and beyond?
It might be better to frame this as “how can I make sure that the loudmouths don’t dominate?” “how can I encourage the quiet ones to feel more comfortable speaking?”
Luckily, these are, in fact, questions that many teachers have been discussing, and I have learned a lot from those discussions, and found many tools that have improved and altered the dynamic in the classroom.