Participation grade

By Erica Hughes - Tallahassee, Florida

In my opinion giving a participation grade is basically a way to motivate students to speak in class. It's a way to encourage informal, spontaneous speech and give students "credit" for it.

I have started a system in my more advanced classes where the students receive a page of about 15 or so little squares that say "I participated" on them. The write their names on the squares and cut them up. Then every time we are having a discussion in class, and they make a contribution, they pass up on card. At the end of 1 or 2 weeks, I count the cards and return them to each student.

That is a way for me to quantify and defend the participation grade I give them, but more importantly the student who don't usually participate, because they don't see the benefit of making a comment in class, get immediate "credit" for their comments. It can get a bit cumbersome in big classes, and of course there are still a few students who always participate and others who never want to, but I have stuck with it.

Daily Points in Class

By Frank Holes, Jr

Starting your class on the right foot each day is very important to both you and the students. There are certain expectations you will have, be they required materials (texts, folders, gym clothes), basic supplies (pencils/paper), or behaviors (on time, in seats, working on opening activities). You are going to want these expectations met every day.

We designed a simple set of 5 rules to start out every class. These are easy to remember and easy to keep track of. Several of our teachers use a variation of the 5 rules to start their classes, and you may feel free to adapt these to your class. These are the rules I use in English class:

Rule 1: Students must be in their seats when class begins. In some schools, classes begin (and are dismissed) by a bell. Some classes begin at a specific time. Still other classes are started by a
particular signal from the teacher.

Rule 2: Students must have a writing instrument. Again, different teachers have different expectations, be it pencil or pen or whatever. For me, it doesn't matter as long as it s dark enough to read. I only balk at silver, gold, white, or any other light or fluorescent color (hot pink or yellow for example).

Rule 3: Students must have their folder out on their desk. Each of our classes requires students to keep important papers, notes, and other course artifacts. Some teachers allow students to keep these, and others provide a location in the room for folders.

Rule 4: Students must have all required materials for class that day. To reduce the number of times students ask me about what they need for the day's class, I will either write the materials list on the board or put it on the class announcements on our TV (watch for the article on creating a class cable TV network our upcoming March issue).

Rule 5: Students must be working on the class warm up activity. In English class, students write out Daily Oral Language (DOL) sentences, practicing proofreading skills. On the edge of each day's entry are the numbers 1 through 5, making it easy to grade. All you have to do is circle the appropriate number.

Again, we give each student a daily grade of points (1-5). Some teachers have only four rules and one rule is worth 2 points. You can change up and set your own rules and create an easy to grade set of points to fit your own classroom.

After a few weeks of practice, the checking of daily points becomes a student job. One student from each group (the RECORDER) gets the weekly responsibility to check the students' daily points and circle the proper number. The teacher is freed up for other activities, and you only need to spot check through the room. This way I can record the daily points only once every two weeks and they are already tallied up for me.

Find Frank Holes, Jr.'s website at: www.starteaching.com/writing.htm

Scoring systems for students

By Maria Spelleri, Manatee Community College, USA

Every semester I mess around with my scoring systems, trying to find "something better." I'm not happy patrolling for homework, nor do I like points for attendance because I find myself making all kinds of exceptions for people. I teach in a community college, so, I cannot just assume behavior and habits conducive to college learning; therefore, it seems that part of my grading needs to be for rewarding the development of successful student behavior like completing homework and showing up to class. Yet, I loathe the time-swallowing nickel and dime approach to grading: daily collection of points spread out over many different categories so that no one category seems more important than another, or perhaps in our students' eyes, all categories seem equally unimportant.

Just as an observation as I mulled my own grading problems, I realized that we give points/ grades for behaviors we want to encourage (attendance, homework, completing a paper according to format), points for amount of effort put into something (bigger tasks get more points, we may reward a quantity of something or a completion of something, quality of research, or we take off points for late submissions), and points for demonstrating achievement (tests, quizzes, essays, presentations). I believe that if students develop certain behaviors and if a certain effort is expended, then the last point, a demonstration of achievement, will almost always occur.

To get away from 2-4 mini-categories of grading (attendance 10%, HW 15%, etc.), I am trying a catch-all category for a larger percentage of the grade called "Specified in-class and out-of class assignments and activities." My idea is that this category encourages the behavior I want and the amount of effort going into studies, which will then lead to success in the class. This category does not include tests or major class projects like major essays in a writing class or major presentations in a speech class.

As I see fit, I will pre-announce that a specific homework assignment will be for points, that a particular class discussion will receive points for quality of participation, a pair activity writing an introduction will be given points, or a quiz will be for points. Not only do I get a larger, and I believe, more meaningful percentage value, but I also don't have the daily grind of remembering who participated and to what extent, nor do I have to go around with a grade book like a third grade teacher checking for homework. (Well, I do that, but maybe only once every 4 classes!) My quiz category is enveloped into this mega-category as well. (I don't care about quiz grades as a measure of evaluation -- I leave that for the tests. I give quizzes to keep students on their toes studying and to find areas of weakness.)

I'm almost half way through the semester using this method in 5 courses. I certainly have been less frustrated than when I have to be overly strict, tediously marking every lousy point, or when I am too lax and students walk all over me. We'll see how it goes. Some class examples: in my high intermediate grammar class, the scoring for the class is Tests- 60% and "specified in-class and out of class assignments and activities"- 40%. My high intermediate writing class does six major papers for 70% of grade, and "specified in-class.." for 30%.