Why grading a student based on Class Participation and Interaction shouldn't be a thing?

The transition from online to offline classes has been challenging for school teachers and university professors. Going back to March 2020, there was a significant decrease in the level of class participation among students when classes were pushed online. This was mainly due to the reason that all classes were recorded, and the students were able to watch it asynchronously whenever they wanted. The students had to freedom to build their timetable and follow it, rather than building their routine around the class timings that were set in stone.

Students often shied from keeping their cameras turned on for several reasons. 1. They were uncomfortable with their environment. 2. They were uncomfortable with the way they looked on the screen. 3. Lack of high-speed internet connectivity. 4. Possibly doing other activities like eating, lying on the couch, and attending classes, walking around, and these were stuff they were unable to do in person. 5. Fatigue due to screen time. 6. The group norm, if most of the students keep their cameras turned off, the other students followed them. 7. Easily distracted by other tabs and mobile phones. These actions subconsciously decreased the interaction they previously had with their colleagues and the lecturer.

Coming to 2022, where most of the schools and universities have their classes in person, the class interaction remains significantly lower than in pre-covid. This has forced the lecturers to allot a percentage of the final grade, just for class participation and interaction. The more you interact, the more marks you get. There are several problems with this approach.

Firstly, the students just like teachers are trying to get back to the mental state they had during the pre-covid times. They need a couple of semesters, if not more, to adapt to offline classes. Imagine the amount of pressure they would have, while sitting in a room of 40 students whom they have never met in person before, wearing masks and looking at you as you are about to speak. This feeling of judgement and fear of improper communication of thoughts and ideas, act as an obstacle to active class interaction.

Secondly, grading students based on class interaction leads to polarization in the level of interaction. The students who have good communication and social skills tend to perform better than the other students. This forces the other students to interact lesser with the class due to the fear of competition pressure since now they must interact with the same level of confidence and articulation as the former set of students have. Are we still going to reduce the grades for these students?

Thirdly, one may argue that the industry/corporate is based on opinions and discussions. I agree. However, do they matter? Isn't the point of education is to bring the best out of ourselves? Is the classroom-based discussion so important that a student cannot survive if they cannot perform well in that environment? Being able to articulate opinions and ideas has nothing to do with classroom participation. The 60 minutes of lecture time where the student is forced to interact with the class is not going to help them become a better speaker or a team player or a leader. It takes months, if not years of practice to become a proficient speaker and a leader.

Am I just going to complain? No. There are ways through which we can improve the learning experience while enhancing classroom interaction. 1. While creating classroom discussions, create smaller teams (maximum 4). Make sure that each student in that team already knows at least one other student. 2. Find the requirements and challenges faced by the students who are unable to interact much. To be brutally honest, a good teacher must educate every single student in their class by personally attending to their needs. However, this can be challenging if the class size is over 50. 3. Create pairs and assign activities to them. Notice their responses in such circumstances. 4. Make incentives (like one less homework question, or 1 point towards the final score) for the students who take the effort and interact with the class. Note that this is completely different from allotting a part of the final grade just for class participation. 5. Give them the choice of how they want to learn. If they are good at practical, encourage them to work on a project rather than submitting a 3000-word assignment. 6. Encourage peer to peer learning. This is different from asking the students to take a seminar on a topic. Peer to peer learning involves assigning topics to each member of a small student team and asking them to teach them to each other, not necessarily in a classroom setup.

Innovation in traditional classroom-based education is extremely important at this point. Students can learn skills off the internet, and land amazing jobs without even going to school. Universities need to evolve and create a differentiating factor. Let's make university education a memorable experience, one step at a time.