Move the chairs back to their standard configuration at the end of class in University-managed classrooms, see the diagram posted near the door. Make clear from the beginning your expectation that students will participate.
On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation. Indicate that you want to do all you can to ensure that the classroom dynamics and activities support full participation, including calling on students who do not raise their hands and sometimes asking frequent contributors to allow others to have a chance. Ask students to inform you if you can make any changes to improve the classroom dynamics and rates of participation.
On the first day of class, give students a clear idea of what to expect regarding participation. If you plan to lecture each day with pauses for questions and discussion, do so on the first day; if you plan to lead more extended discussions, then do so on the first day.
If you do plan to grade participation, inform students of the specific criteria that you will use. Grading student participation is especially important, and usually essential, in discussion courses see Teaching with Discussions.
Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. In a discussion course, assign to your students some of the responsibility for increasing participation by all. For example, on the first day of class, you might tell students your goals for class participation e. Students who feel invested from the beginning in making the discussions successful will be more likely to work together to increase participation.
Consider requiring students to lead discussions or to submit discussion questions before class. Provide guidance and assess student performance on these tasks assigning a score, for example, that forms a part of the class participation grade.
Use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, discussions, and small-group work. If you are teaching a lecture course, set aside time during each lecture to ask and answer questions, to ask students to solve a problem, or to discuss an issue. Pause every minutes for this purpose. When students learn to expect these opportunities for discussion or questioning, they will listen more actively to the lecture.
If you lecture for 45 minutes before you pause for questions or discussion, your students will have been taking notes for so long that they may find it difficult to switch modes quickly.
Furthermore, they may well have forgotten questions, comments, or unclear concepts from the earlier parts of class see Teaching with Lectures. If you are teaching a discussion course, integrate short lectures into the lesson plan in order to introduce concepts, clarify and order ideas, and help students make connections.
In order to monitor and assess student rates of participation, we designed a graphic organizer to track the frequency of pupil involvement, and tally the number of oral responses given by the learner. Our research design included a reward system which consisted of a raffle.
Students were given one raffle ticket for every 5 tallies for classroom involvement. These raffle tickets were used to determine participants for a weekly honor's lunch program. Through this incentive, students had an opportunity to spend one lunch period playing board games and socializing with their peers in a fun and informal setting.
Another aspect of the reward system is to recognize the students who participate most often. At the end of each instructional block, we publicly acknowledged the top 5 participants of that day. At the end of the school year, we plan to celebrate student improvement in participation and performance through a formal award ceremony. Our pedagogical practices were modified to promote learning environments where students were actively engaged in the lesson.
We utilized higher-ordered questions, based on Bloom's Taxonomy, that required students to analyze and synthesize mathematical concepts and problems. In our questioning, we made sure to ask students to support their answers and explain their thinking. We also incorporated tactile manipulatives into our collaborative work assignments, and increased the number of fun, educational activities.
This sentiment relates directly to adolescent development and the precedence of peer influence in their lives. Another apparent trend that the pupils described was the effect of their personal content knowledge on their participation rates. When students were exposed to mathematical topics that they could relate to, they were more willing to engage in classroom discussion.
Students also saw a direct correlation between participation and an improvement in their grades. Students who rated their participation at 5 or above also rated their math ability as being above average. Therefore, there appears to be a direct correlation between student's participation rates and their perception of achievement levels. Our implementation of the research design was incorporated into a mathematical unit on integers.
We collected a baseline measure of the student participation rates before we explained the tracking and reward system. Using this data and the student city-wide test scores, we selected our focus group of 6 students. There appeared to be a trend between low-level achievement and non-involvement. This can in turn improve relationships between students and between the student and professor.
Despite the many benefits of class participation, the vast majority of students do not regularly contribute to their classes. There are several reasons why students choose not to participate in class including class size, time, and course policies.
Larger classes, for example, have been shown to increase public speaking fears, as students struggle with the idea of sharing their ideas in front of a large group of people. With that in mind, colleges that encourage their faculty to focus on teaching, rather than research, are more likely to experience higher participation rates, as professors are more engaged with their students.
Students are more likely to participate in class if they have a comfortable relationship with their professor. This also means that the professor is patient with all his or her students, listens to every response with attention, and provides feedback that is both positive and constructive.
Professors can increase participation by creating a safe and respectful class environment. They can also improve the situation by learning the names of their students, so that each individual feels that their opinion is valued.
Course policies drastically affect participation. Participation can mean anything from asking questions to leading discussions. Observe the student for evidence of a speech or language problem.
A student might be reluctant to speak up in class because he has a speech defect or difficulty putting his thoughts into words. Articulation problems usually are readily evident to teachers, however, difficulties in language usage can be more difficult to identify.
If your observations suggest a communication problem, bring that to the attention of your school's speech-language specialist, who might want to do an evaluation. Leave this field blank.
Search Search. Newsletter Sign Up. Teaching Self-esteem With Zero. Columnists All Columnists Ken Shore School Issues: Glossary. Ken Shore: Encouraging Class Participation. Search form Search. Consider the following strategies: Ask questions you are confident he can answer. Let him know before class that you will be calling on him for a specific question so he can prepare an answer.
If you arrange to call on him, do it early to lessen anxiety. When he does respond, reinforce his comments with positive statements and an encouraging smile.
If you ask a question and he blanks out or says nothing, restate the question perhaps in a yes or no format , or lead him toward the right answer by providing a clue.
Or you might let him off the hook by giving the answer, while saying something like "That was a tough one," and then moving on. Click to read a complete bio. Trending Report Card Comments It's report card time and you face the prospect of writing constructive, insightful, and original comments on a couple dozen report cards or more. Here are positive report card comments for you to use and adapt! Struggling Students? You've reached the end of another grading period, and what could be more daunting than the task of composing insightful, original, and unique comments about every child in your class?
The following positive statements will help you tailor your comments to specific children and highlight their strengths. You can also use our statements to indicate a need for improvement. Turn the words around a bit, and you will transform each into a goal for a child to work toward. Sam cooperates consistently with others becomes Sam needs to cooperate more consistently with others, and Sally uses vivid language in writing may instead read With practice, Sally will learn to use vivid language in her writing.
Make Jan seeks new challenges into a request for parental support by changing it to read Please encourage Jan to seek new challenges. Whether you are tweaking statements from this page or creating original ones, check out our Report Card Thesaurus [see bottom of the page] that contains a list of appropriate adjectives and adverbs. There you will find the right words to keep your comments fresh and accurate. We have organized our report card comments by category.
Read the entire list or click one of the category links below to jump to that list. Behavior The student: cooperates consistently with the teacher and other students.
Character The student: shows respect for teachers and peers.
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