There’s a reason schools all the way up to the post-secondary level typically grade their students on participation. Participation matters. Productive participation not only benefits the students who participate but also their fellow students, who can learn from what they say. Instructors also benefit from students who participate effectively.
Classes where students participate productively tend overall to be more engaging and fulfilling than classes where students don’t.
There are things instructors at all levels can do to encourage their students to participate in class, including the shyest students. Instructors can promote participation by, for instance:
- Devising assignments and activities that encourage participation
- Creating an ethos of participation
- Being self-aware of their own position in the room
- Teaching participation skills
There are also things students can do to participate productively in class. Here are three.
#1 Keep Up with Course Material
To participate productively, students need to know what’s going on. That means they need to stay up to date with course material.
They can do so, depending on the class, by completing their readings on time, finishing their homework by the deadline, or discussing class material with teachers outside of the classroom.
#2 Prepare
Students who have a good understanding of what’s going on in class tend to participate more effectively than students who don’t. So too do students who prepare, in advance of the class, how they intend to participate.
Besides keeping up to date with the course material, familiarizing yourself with a course’s syllabus and outline gives students a more concrete sense of what an individual class will entail before it starts. If a student is taking an English online high school course in Ontario, for instance, and they know the class coming up is going to be on how to scan Shakespearean sonnets for their rhyme schemes and meter, then a student who dedicates some time before class to understanding the concepts of rhyme scheme and meter can come to class prepared with particular questions that are directly relevant to the class.
In practice, preparing to participate in class can mean:
- Making notes for classroom discussion
- Writing down concepts that are difficult to understand (if a dedicated, high-achieving student is confused by a particular concept, chances are other students are as well)
- Highlighting passages of assigned readings that might be explored in class
#3 Be Brief and to the Point
Students who participate because they like to hear themselves speak do not make productive participators. Neither do students who ramble on and on. To participate effectively, students should make comments that are brief and to the point.
One way to be brief and to the point when participating in class is to write down what you plan to say before saying it. You don’t have to write down what you plan to say word for word, however. Simply sketching out what you plan to say can be equally if not more effective. Writing down what you plan to say is a great way to think about what you plan to say before saying it, so that you don’t end up thinking aloud.