Participation is an important part of a student’s grade in virtually all Harvard College courses; often, it counts for as much as 20% of a student’s final grade. And yet, when it comes to assessing their students' class participation, we frequently see instructors fall back on what amounts to a highly impressionistic approach, assigning grades at the end of the term based on a vague sense of how much or how meaningfully a student intervened in several months of class discussions. In many cases, moreover, these vague, retrospective judgments may depend on a host of untested assumptions about the extent to which the frequency or confidence with which students speak in class accurately reflects their level of engagement with or mastery of the course material.
In fact, there may be very little correlation between how forthcoming or assertive a student is in class discussion and how engaged they are in the intellectual project of a course. While some students benefit by processing their thoughts out loud in front of their peers, others process them through quiet reflection, or in writing; while some students have been habituated to the idea of raising their hands and speaking up in groups, others value making space for others or have been habituated to the idea that they are not meant to hold the floor.
In recognition of the fact that assessing participation may be more complicated than is often assumed, and that our practice in this regard raises significant questions about equity and the extent to which students feel that they belong in our classrooms, we suggest that instructors employ the following strategies:
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Create multiple ways of participating. There are many ways in which students can share their current thinking on a topic and/or engage with their classmates beyond raising their hands in a whole-class discussion. As we discovered during the 2020–2021 year of remote instruction, some students who find it challenging or unhelpful to try to insert themselves into a running oral conversation might be sitting on fascinating thoughts that they'd be more comfortable sharing in writing, with more time or space for revision and reflection, or in smaller groups of their peers. Here are some other vectors through which students might participate in an ongoing conversation:
- Small group discussions, jigsaws, gallery walks, or pair-share activities in class. See our advice on active learning and ABLConnect mini-site for dozens of ideas about how to break up your class discussions into smaller paired or group-oriented segments.
- Assign roles. Students needn't all be prepared to participate the same way in every class. By assigning students specific roles—"you prepare to discuss the author's use of metaphors; you be prepared to analyze the author's use of sources in the footnotes; etc."—you can help students feel like essential members of a collective project, and create a dedicated space for them in the flow of in-class discussion.
- Online discussion. Consider using an online discussion platform such as discussion boards on Canvas, Slack, or Ed Discussion. Not all participation needs to happen live in class; in some cases asynchronous participation may be easier for students to complete, and easier for you to assign and assess.
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Be clear about expectations. We too often take for granted that students know what it means to participate adequately and effectively in our courses. The reality is that instructors' expectations can vary quite radically from one course to the next, let alone across disciplines and course modalities. Make sure that you are explicit and transparent with students about how often, and in what ways, you would like them to intervene in different venues within the course. Likewise, make sure that you are explicit and transparent about how students will be assessed. Are you counting the number of contributions they make to an online discussion board or in-class discussion? Are you planning to judge the quality of their comments (and what does "quality" mean?)? Do you prefer that students contribute to the conversational thread that you've been developing, or is it equally acceptable to send the conversation in a new direction? (Hopefully you can make students feel that it's ok to take risks and make mistakes, as wrong answers and misconceptions are often just as valuable to their own and their peers' learning as are right answers!)
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Give feedback. If someone isn't participating in the way that you would like them to, reach out to them and let them know! While you may be reluctant to "embarrass" a quiet student by flagging their relative lack of participation in class, in fact, they may be grateful to you for naming your concern and engaging them in a strategic conversation about how they might participate more effectively in class. Asking a student about their experience of class, and inviting them to think with you about how they might be more visibly involved, is a great way not only to increase their participation, but also to get to know about their interests in the course and about how your teaching is coming across.
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Create structure and space. Insofar as you do want to stick to assessing students' real-time oral participation in class discussions, make sure to create structure and give your students time to process their thoughts. Resist the temptation to call on the first hand that's raised; instead, give multiple students time to raise their hands ("Let me give you a minute to think and raise your hands, and then we'll go down the list"), and create—and stick to—a queue so that everyone who wishes to join is acknowledged and is guaranteed a turn before the conversation runs off on a tangent that leaves the fourth, fifth, or sixth student feeling like they've lost the chance to say what they wanted to say. It's rarely the case that the first reaction to a problem is the most comprehensive or nuanced one; why should we run our class discussions in this fashion?
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Assess promptly. Make sure to record/journal about the trajectory of each class meeting as soon as possible after the conclusion of class. We are all imperfect at remembering accurately who participated in a discussion, what they said, how it propelled or retarded the flow, etc. In the worst case scenario, we tend to overcredit the students whom we already consider to be strong with having made the most important interventions (and vice versa), further widening the equity gap. Make sure, then, to build in a practice of sitting down for a few minutes right after your class period ends to record what actually happened, whether you do so in a tabular or narrative format. (NB: This practice will also help you in the event that you teach the same course or material in the future!)