Do you think giving students “participation” points is a good idea? I don’t. I’ve been promising for over two years that I’d be writing about why class credit for participation is a Bad Idea. So here’s the post! People put “participation” points* in the syllabus for a variety of reasons. In my experience, professors count 5-10% of the total grade towards “participation,” and sometimes more. It seems that a student’s level of “participation” can make the difference of a whole letter grade, by making an otherwise-B into a C if a student gets a poor participation score, or can lift a B into an A if they get full credit for participation. In most of the syllabi I’ve reviewed, these participation points are rarely calculated quantitatively. A student could go into the final exam without having any idea what their participation grade is. That seems wonky, doesn’t it?
Why I don’t use “participation” points
Why I don’t use “participation” points
Why I don’t use “participation” points
Do you think giving students “participation” points is a good idea? I don’t. I’ve been promising for over two years that I’d be writing about why class credit for participation is a Bad Idea. So here’s the post! People put “participation” points* in the syllabus for a variety of reasons. In my experience, professors count 5-10% of the total grade towards “participation,” and sometimes more. It seems that a student’s level of “participation” can make the difference of a whole letter grade, by making an otherwise-B into a C if a student gets a poor participation score, or can lift a B into an A if they get full credit for participation. In most of the syllabi I’ve reviewed, these participation points are rarely calculated quantitatively. A student could go into the final exam without having any idea what their participation grade is. That seems wonky, doesn’t it?