Do You Grade Class Participation?

August 18th, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Teachers' Corner

Grading class participation or giving students a daily grade is beneficial because these grades hold students accountable for their learning in class. If a student is chronically absent from class or sits in the office for most of the period, her participation grade will suffer. These grades also reward students who come to class and stay on task.

But, grading class participation can be tedious. It’s also tough to make it fair. What makes good class participation and what is just merely warming a desk?

The Seating Chart Method. When I taught foreign language, our department kept track of participation points using a seating chart and clipboard. Each week, I’d have a seating chart grid with each student’s name and five spots to record participation. Students who were present earned one point (tardy students earned zero). Students who answered a question earned another point. Students who answered more than one question earned three points, which was the maximum point value for the day. Absent students could make up points with a short, memorized dialogue to be given in the hallway before or after class. Students with unexcused absences could not make up points.

The Exit Slip Method. Before students leave class for the day, they must complete a short exit slip. This could be two math problems or short answers to review questions from the lesson. I never used daily exit slips, but I occasionally gave them to my classes. My generic slip was a half sheet of paper, which I’d divided into quarters. One quadrant asked: Why is this lesson important?, another asked: What did you learn today?, the third asked: How will you use this information?, and the fourth asked: What further questions do you have?

The important part of the exit slip is to record the class’s responses. Students, like everyone else, want to know that their thoughts are important. I gave the slips a completion grade (four points – one for each question) and then compiled the interesting answers onto a transparency to display as students entered the classroom the next day. If I missed this sharing step, the students groused. If I missed this step, their answers on the next exit slip tended to be lousy.

To be fair to students with an excused absence, I averaged out the exit slip grades over the number of slips students turned in, not the number of possible exit slips and used the grade as a quiz grade in my grade book.

The question is: how do you evaluate class participation in a fair manner? Do you just give a point for showing up in class every day? Do you average out the points so grades for those students with an extended illness don’t plummet? Do you offer make-up points for this grade? Do you think that participation points can ever be fair? I’d love to hear about your methods and support/criticism of participation points in the comments.

Photo credits:
Untitled [rescue basket]: uscglantareapa / USCGLantAreaPA on Flickr.com Creative Commons
USACE employee helps students move into next phase of ‘Tin Can-Construction’ project: USACE Europe District / USACE Europe District on Flickr.com Creative Commons
eCybermission students visit Army laboratory: RDECOM / Research Development and Engineering Command on Flicr.com Creative Commons 

Tags: exit slip, grading, participation