Overview
Participation counts for a substantial portion of the overall grade in an online class. (Review the Grading Policy on your Class Home/Syllabus page to see what weight participation carries in your class.) As you know, the Online Education Department posts an announcement explaining the minimum “Participation Requirements” in every online class. However, we strongly recommend that you supplement these generic guidelines by formulating and posting your own, more specific expectations.
In order to assign a grade for students’ participation, you must be able to evaluate the quality of their participation. And as is true for any kind of critique, you need to know what you’re looking for — and so do your students. So it’s important to begin by setting clear expectations.
Expectations for Participation
You might find it useful to include two kinds of expectations:
Basic Protocols might include the following criteria:
- minimum number of postings
- a requirement that students respond to their classmates’ comments
- guidelines about appropriate length for postings
- specifications as to the timing of postings
- requirements about proper spelling and/or grammar
- a requirement that students embed images and videos in their discussion posts (instead of attaching them)
a reminder to cite their sources, if they’re borrowing words or ideas
Beyond these basic conventions, it’s also important for you to consider what you want to see in terms of the quality of student comments — and, again, to communicate these expectations to your students. For example, you might require that students do some of the following in their posts, in order to receive a good grade:
- contribute new ideas or information
- make appropriate reference to concepts presented in the modules
- ask relevant follow-up questions
- support their ideas with examples and/or references
- summarize/synthesize ideas from multiple sources
- analyze the significance of information or ideas they present
Once you’ve determined your standards for both protocols and quality, then draft a paragraph (or two) explaining your guidelines and expectations for their discussion participation