While class participation grades intend to raise incentive, they often promote conversations that aren’t constructive. Participation may not be the most accurate reflection of a student’s ability to absorb and comprehend material.
Remarks made by students can be perceived as not meant to further the discussion, but simply to meet participation requirements. The need to make comments solely for the purpose of reaching certain criteria undermines the intent of the open format. “Forcing students to speak up in class before they really have anything to say puts pressure on all of them, introverts and the extroverts, to perform rather than actually learn,” author and lecturer Susan Cain said in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
Class participation can be especially challenging and overwhelming for shy or introverted students. About 80 percent of educated adults in America suffer from some form of glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking,” law professor at University of Virginia Robert Sayler said in an interview with UVA Today, the university’s online news publication.
Similarly, many students fear public speaking and while they may be intellectually engaged and understand the material, their fear of speaking out prevents them from earning a grade that recognizes their efforts. “One third to one half of Americans are introverts,” Cain said. “In other words, one out of every two or three people you know.”
In contrast, mandatory participation grades are an opportunity for hardworking extroverts to excel. While they may contribute greatly to the conversation, even just memorized facts and buzzwords could make an outgoing student appear more intelligent than a classmate who absorbs the information and keeps quiet.
“There’s certainly a feeling that everyone should learn to present and speak in public and I think that that’s valuable but I think that we have made a really big mistake in grading class participation,” professor of education at Montclair State University Emily Klein said in an interview with Cain. “I think that it confuses classroom participation with knowledge acquisition. And it certainly rewards certain kinds of behaviors over other kinds of behaviors.”
Extroverted students have similar advantages in open class seminars. All too often, teachers choose a hands-off approach and let students control the conversation. While idealistically this is preferable, it has apparent flaws upon application. The space tends to be filled with students desperate to say something to check off the numerical requirement for participation, so that the truly interesting questions and comments are swept up with the chaos.
While our teachers work very hard to create a comfortable and engaging learning environment, for some, speaking out in public causes a great deal of fear and anxiety. This fear should not be reflected in poor grades, as a student’s understanding and engagement is much more complex than the amount of times they speak up.
Abolishing participation requirements is a step toward creating an understanding and supportive environment for all. There are ways of opening the class dialogue to reward analytical thought and include those who prefer to just listen.
Teachers can present alternative assignments, such as allowing seminar notes to substitute oral participation. These types of approaches would show introverted students that how they feel is valid, despite living in a society that often tells them otherwise.