Student Participation – Doing More Harm Than Good?
Homsa, a student, reflects on his participation in class. / IMAGE: Noah Peterlin [Video Below]
Note from Editor: The following article is featured in our upcoming print edition of The Harbinger. Be on the lookout and grab a copy at the campuses of Illinois Central College later this week!
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11/27/18 – East Peoria, IL
Students have a GPA to uphold and that means accepting the assignments given to them, as well as studying intensely for tests and quizzes. In recent years, there’s been a “silent” uproar on the idea of student participation being graded on taking up a decent percentage of the final grade. But is it doing anyone any good?
This whole debate started during a Psychology class (We won’t disclose which to protect the teacher/s involved in those classes). The teacher tried pushing the students to answer the question they had asked them. Whether it was that they didn’t know the answer or they did but were too scared to, no one was speaking up. The teacher then picked a random student to answer (which he didn’t answer correctly). To any random student, this would be considered not very important. However, there is something going on here.
In every classroom, teachers are given the reigns of being the wise masters to their young apprentices, just like Yensid was to Mickey Mouse in the Fantasia segment The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. They’re there to make you feel appreciated and give you a sense that you’re there for a purpose and that you have a purpose and that you’ll give said purpose to the next individual in your walk of life. However, this is sadly not the case here at ICC.
The biggest challenge that students face at ICC is the lack of motivation given by many of the teachers here. Now, that’s not to say every teacher at ICC is unmotivated to teach. But it’s the teachers that you hear negatively in little snickers that give you the sense that maybe there’s a lack of support thrown to their students.
Let’s give a proper example. Freshmen year, there was a math teacher that required students to participate under every question and would be vocal of her displeasure in them giving the wrong answer. If one were to be a teacher that gives the proper guidance and encouragement to students, then one would know that you would give courtesy to them, give them 5-10 seconds to respond (later rephrase said question to help them better understand what you’re going for) and not be vocally rude to them. If they were to be, then the majority of the classes will more than likely feel very negatively towards their rhetoric and ultimately might switch classes or even drop out of it altogether.
Now, some might be wondering how does an example of a poorly-taught class have to do with student participation being graded? Well, that’s the thing: it does! In any peripheral viewing of how a class is run by said teacher, one can find whether the teacher’s holding it together or not. If the teacher appears to be high-strung and ready for the day, with a sense of pride and readiness to his/her work, then the students will want to participate. However, if they’re rude, clumsy in their preparation and sound a bit negative to the class itself, then there’s no chance that students will be open to wanting to participate.
So, with this in mind, why grade participation? Well, this was what News Editor Damien Cross and Harbinger contributor Noah Peterlin attempted to find out when they asked teachers and students around campus and the results can be found through a video on Facebook and YouTube. | VIDEO BELOW
By Noah Peterlin