Participation!

Tips and Strategies

Today’s session

• Participation: Our Stories
• General Principles
• Considerations for Assessment
• Breakout Work: Rubric or Activity Creation
• Sharing Strategies

Participation:�Our stories

Carrie: Past Issues/Remedies

Moving from 20% to 10% for participation allocation

Modifying approach based on varied learning styles

Remaining conscious of verbal comments/written record

Offering alternatives to discussion

Inclusivity

Current Approaches

Bradley: a very small class

• FYW class which began with 12 students but dropped to 6 — one very quiet, one with Aspergers
• Discussion disaster!
• Redesigned class to shorten discussion periods, add more 1:1 time, include studio time
• Realized value of multiple approaches to understanding and encouraging “participation”

Carrie: Accommodating a Deaf student

• Providing a written record of all course information, including transcriptions of podcast/video content and extemporaneous comments made during PowerPoint presentations
• Relying more on Blackboard discussions for participation
• Not only slowing down my speech, but interpreting and repeating student comments
• Checking student comfort level in terms of presentations/offering additional written material or presentation transcript as an alternative
• When using handouts or in-class readings, give more time than usual for students to read and respond
• Increased documentation and multimodal approaches to participation benefits the entire class

Bradley: multiple ways + self-evaluation

• Integrate desire to ask students to reflect on their own participation (and their methods of participation) with flexible approach to defining and valuing participation
• Multiple ways to participate, with grade levels which allow high grades without achievement in all categories
• Self-evaluations at five weeks and fifteen weeks speak to both documentation and reflection / metacognition
• Can be integrated with other assignments
• Used at 100, 300, 600 level — example is from 106 template

General�principles

Five principles

• Rethink discussion for both talkative and quiet students
• Adapt early and often
• Recognize multiple types of participation
• Be flexible about value
• Use rubrics to reduce ambiguity and encourage reflection

• Rethink Discussion: Talkative vs Quieter Students

Silences can be okay! It’s important to allow everyone time to think — especially less outgoing students who may want more time to compose their thoughts.

Sharing does not necessarily mean caring. How do you handle students who speak frequently, without adding much substance to the conversation?

To cold call or not to cold call? If discussion is an important aspect of your teaching, do you typically call on the quieter students? Is this effective?

Cultural differences are important. Some cultures value reflection more than brainstorming. How can your approaches encourage both?

2. Adapt to individual courses, days, units

No two classes are the same. Assess classrooms needs individually — size, distribution of majors, disability, and other factors. Flexibility is key! This is one reason assessing participation can be difficult and can change with each set of students. This also helps keep things fresh (for you as well)!

Don’t let one bad day/week get in the way. Even the most diligent and prepared students (and classes!) have low-energy or distracted moments.  

Be realistic about achievement. Don’t apply standards of a grad seminar or 420 to 106. Most 106 students are new -- or fairly new -- to the college setting. Help set the standards for their class participation, both verbal and written, for the rest of their time at Purdue.

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3. Recognize multiple types of participation

• Preparation for in-class participation
• Reading, listening, and other skills which aren’t traditionally allied with “participation” but which are nonetheless important
• Can be harder to document and measure  — seek ways to encourage students to express these in writing (journals, comments on their own drafts, etc)
• Potentially adds value for students struggling with these important but often neglected skills
• Connect participation to professional ethos
• Provide vehicles for out-of-class work to be introduced into class (not only reading responses and the like, but community engagement, study groups, etc)

4. Use flexible models which balance value proportionally as needed. (Adapted from user-centered design.)

5. Use Rubrics to Reduce Ambiguity about Participation

Giving out bad grades isn’t fun. Even less fun? Grade appeals. One way to avoid this? Create a participation rubric that incorporates multiple approaches and fits different abilities and learning styles.

• Identify behaviors and participation methods to encourage and discourage.
• Rank the behaviors in terms of rewards and impacts, and arrange them
• You don’t need to create a classic “grid” rubric which describes behavior at every level; something more linear works just as well.
• Test your rubric by imagining how former students of different types would fill it in, and adjust as necessary. Repeat at the end of the semester for current students.

Considerations for Participation Assessment

Why “measurable & documented?” How?

• “Measurable and documented,” 10% limit comes from IMPACT, grade appeals
• As noted earlier: resist use as reward/punishment slush fund
• You can record the different participation behaviors you observe during classes — though it is labor intensive, and can distract you from conversations.
• Build methods for making that easier:
• Tally sheet which facilitates checking with +, –, etc
• Take notes immediately after class (put this in your calendar)
• Ask class to create crowd-sourced notes about discussions

More best practices for M&D

• Talk about the feedback you're providing, as with responding to writing, and ask students to reflect on it as well.
• Scaffold participation with other activities: for example, ask students to consider how recaps of a discussion might help them find useful selections from a text for their projects.
• Use student-led discussions, individually or in groups—but know this is a difficult task! (Like teaching.)
• Differentiate between attendance, completing assignments, and participation.
• Drop the participation grade entirely. You can achieve the pedagogical goals of participation in other ways.

Group Activity

Creation of Participation-Centered Activity or Rubric

For the next twenty minutes, please work in small groups or alone to incorporate the principles we have discussed by:

• Creating or amending a pre-existing participation rubric that aligns with your teaching philosophy/ethos
• Developing a class activity to assess participation (other than discussion)

After the twenty minutes, we’ll have participants share what they have created or brainstormed. (Share a Google Doc with or email the results to dilger@purdue.edu if you’d like to show them on screen.)

Sharing Strategies

Rubric and Activity Ideas/Collection

Thank you for attending this workshop! If you feel comfortable sharing your rubric and/or activity from this workshop with fellow instructors of ENG 106, please email them to Carrie Kancilia at ckancili@purdue.edu. Here’s to a productive semester!