Recording Class Participation

A method to record class participation in grade book.

1. On the course navbar, click Grades. Then click Manage Grades.

2. Click New > Item.

3. Choose Numeric.

4. On the New Item page, type in a name for the grade column. In the Grading section, fill in the maximum points and the weight. For easy calculation and understanding by students, you can set the maximum points as the number of class meetings in the entire semester multiplying 10. For example, if there is one class meeting each week, there will be 14 class meetings in the semester. So, the maximum points can be set as 140, as shown in the screenshot below. The weight of the participation can be taken from the information in your syllabus. In this example, the weight of the class participation is 10%.

5. Click Save and Close at the bottom left. Now, the Class Participation grade column is created.

6. Click the down arrow next to Class Participation, and then choose Enter Grades.

7. Fill in 140 for all students. Then, click Save and Close at the bottom left. That is, at the beginning of the semester, all students start with full participation. As the semester goes, points are deducted for no participation or less participation in each of the class meetings.

8. When you need to record the student participation in a class session, you only need to deduct points for the students who didn't get full credit. To do so, click the down arrow next to Class Participation in Manage Grades page or Enter Grades page, and then choose Enter Grades.

For example, if a stuent missed the first class, you change 140 to 130 for this student. Click the pencil icon on the far right to add a comment. If a student partially participated, you can deduct 5 points.

9. A pop-up box appears. In the Feedback field, fill in the reason as to why the points are deducted. Click the Save button. If a student missed more classes or didn't get the full credit for their participation in additional sessions, you deduct more points and edit this page again to add more dates and the reasons of lossing points.

10. Click Save and Close at the bottom right.

This is what a student sees about their participation grades and feedback on their Grades page.