Assessing Class Participation

Student attendance and active intellectual engagement should be the norm in all Harvard College courses. Instructors need clear strategies for assessing participation to ensure fairness and accountability. Having multiple strategies for students to demonstrate participation acknowledges a diverse range of student contributions.

The Bok Center recommends:

  • Raised hands in front of a chalkboard

    Be Explicit About Expectations: Students shouldn't guess what "good participation" means. Clearly communicate: how often and in what ways you expect contributions, and whether you value staying on-topic or appreciate new directions. Underline that risk-taking and mistakes contribute to learning, and that “good participation” doesn’t mean always having the “right” answers.

  • Provide Timely Feedback: Don't wait until final grades to address participation concerns. Reach out to students who aren't participating as expected.
  • Document Participation Immediately: Record each class session's dynamics during class or while it is fresh in memory. 
  • Create Multiple Participation Pathways: Students can engage beyond whole-class discussion through pairs or small group work, assigned roles that make each student essential to collective learning, or online discussion platforms for asynchronous participation.

Practical Methods for Recording and Assessing Participation in Large Classes

  • Give in class assignments or activities that double as attendance. Give individual or group paper-based activities that students turn in during class, such as a written reflection, a short problem solved as a group, a short free-response question. If you give assignments on scannable paper and use a fixed name and ID spot, they can be quickly scanned, tallied, and graded. If you use an online tool for in-class quizzing, be aware of the possibility that students not present in the room may be alerted by peers and submit without attending. 
  • Take attendance on paper or with a purpose-built attendance tool. 
    • Have students sign an attendance sheet in the classroom. 
    • Hand out attendance slips or “exit tickets” at the beginning of class and collect filled out slips at the end. 
    • Use an online tool such as Qwickly or others provided by HUIT. 
  • TF-taken participation or attendance. In small classes or sections, TFs can mark attendance or participation manually on a document or in a spreadsheet. In a large class, consider using a tool like Teachly or others provided by HUIT.