High Quality Participation

Engaged, reflected participation involves:

• active, enthusiastic participation and active listening in class discussions and activities
• demonstrating your understanding of class readings by using what you’ve read to help explain or justify comments
• asking thoughtful questions
• responding to other students’ comments in a responsible and constructive manner
• leadership and active participation in small group activities, helping keep the group on task
• relating concepts from class to your experiences as a teacher and as a learner

Acceptable Participation

Recognizing that we all have days when we may, for emotional, physical or other reasons, be less able to engage in group settings, acceptable participation involves:

• reasonable participation and reasonably active listening in discussion and activities
• demonstrating some knowledge of class readings in comments
• asking clarification questions about readings and concepts

Unacceptable Participation

Participating in the following ways makes it difficult to maintain a positive learning environment for everyone:

• physical presence in class but cognitive absence (e.g., reading a newspaper, checking email/Facebook, texting)
• non-constructive responses to the comments of other students
• no real attempt to complete tasks in a reasonable or thoughtful way
• no participation in group activities or actual attempts to distract others
• tardiness to class, or inappropriate use of laptops, iPads, smart phones, or computers

Repeated demonstration of these actions will negatively affect your overall course evaluation.