Class participation - what's the point? (1 Viewer)

[dude01]

I'm in my final year of university now and have noticed that almost every single one of my subjects now have 10-20% weighting on class participation. I see no point in being assessed on class participation, it just encourages people to make up bullshit answers.

This type of assessment does not suit people like me who do not study much throughout the semester, instead preferring to cram before exams and work on written assignments. I have gotten this far with minimal attendence of lectures and tutorials, but class participation has now screwed that up.

In the first 3 years of my degree none of my classes had class participation - WHY THE SUDDEN CHANGE?

Post your thoughts on class participation marks.

 

[witide]

They give me an extra 10-20% easy marks. I see no reason for complaint.

 

[babikakez]

I got 13/15 CP marks in a class where I did no reading or tute work the whole semester, sounds good to me

 

[Absolutezero]

I suppose it's to encourage engagement with the subject. I'm fine with this for tutes, though I terms of lectures, I'm like you: 'preferring to cram before exams and work on written assignments'. I can't be bothered to rock up to lectures if they're just going to go over the notes verbatim.

 

[Gmac_0]

Well I'm 1st year so I guess I have no idea how annoying this component could come to be with showing up and all, but it seems like an easy 10% to me to just show up n contribute an answer every now and then.

 

[dude01]

I think 'class participation' might be assessed differently depending on courses/subjects.

It can be pretty hard to make up BS answers for law classes because the lecturer asks very specific questions on cases and if you haven't done the weekly readings you're screwed. For me it's just too much of a burden to be doing my readings every week just for an 'extra' 10 marks. I'd rather that 10% just be assigned to the written assignment.

 

[LordPc]

getting marks for just showing up to a tutorial is too easy. class participation is to help ensure that you dont just come and do nothing for an hour + ensuring that you actually know something about the course and arent cramming in the last few weeks

OP: i dont think uni's want to encourage your type of study behaviour and certainly wont want to make it easy for you to adopt that for your entire program, hence the class participation

 

[TheYear2011]

That shit is fuckkkedd upp.

diss dam subjectt is all leik 'buy dis textbookk' and we gotta do these readings but the fucking book cost $150.

so in my tutorial i told the fucking tute that i dont have a spare $150 and so she didnt markk my namee down for participation whenn i didnt answer da questions DAMN SLUT.

imeanwtf

 

[Rhanoct]

To encourage class discussions. You learn a lot more if you actually talk about whatever you are doing (whether it's studying a legal case or the results of an experiment). Students might offer interpretations or ideas that you were yet to think of (and probably wouldn't have), so if you have a question in an exam you can offer multiple interpretations for uber marks.

I agree it's kind of shitty, especially if you're having one of those days and just want to sit there and sleep until the tute finishes. But what can you do? Try get into it and you'll learn more and get more marks.

 

[Trebla]

I always thought class participation was a 1st year thing just to get everyone to actually bother with the work...what the hell is it doing in a 3rd year unit? lol

 

[dawdlex3]

Any tips for getting higher class participation marks?
How do you actually convert what you've read in readings to actual contribution in class?

 

[Sokolov]

Assessable tutorial exercises in Control Systems

EIGENVALUES AND EIGENVECTORS

 

[rx34]

I love class participation marks, easy 10-20% marks. I would also suggest you talk to your tutors after the tutorial. Ask a few general questions, introduce yourself. That way they will have a better impression of you as a person.

 

[rokkuguhyo]

Do we have to participate in every tutorial? Because it seems like too much effort, since I like to just sit back and listen to the discussions.

 

[postnatal]

does sitting there silently looking at the participator's titties count as cp?

 

[babikakez]

Do we have to participate in every tutorial? Because it seems like too much effort, since I like to just sit back and listen to the discussions.

in my business law tute, you only have to say one thing each tute to get the cp marks for that tute. but that means you have to go to all the tutes to get full marks, though you don't neccessarily need to prepare THAT well.

 

[izzy88]

Do we have to participate in every tutorial? Because it seems like too much effort, since I like to just sit back and listen to the discussions.

The problem is, if everyone in the class takes that approach, there wouldn't be any discussion to listen to! In arts at least, you don't need to participate in every tutorial to get top marks, but if you've done the reading, its generally pretty easy to make some sort of comment.

Class participation is there to get people to talk- uni is about sharing ideas/knowledge/being challenged. The one thing that gets really annoying after years of sitting through tutes, is going to a tutorial knowing that its just going to be an hour of awkward silences because no has done the reading or is prepared to speak up. There is only so much a tutor can talk about for an hour after realising no one is going to say anything- and it just ends up being boring and awkward.

I'm now doing honours, and we have a 30% class participation mark for our seminar. The one good thing is, it's a small class, and we all want to be there, so everyone does the reading, and everyone contributes to the discussion and the time goes relatively quickly!

 

[babikakez]

The problem is, if everyone in the class takes that approach, there wouldn't be any discussion to listen to! In arts at least, you don't need to participate in every tutorial to get top marks, but if you've done the reading, its generally pretty easy to make some sort of comment.

Class participation is there to get people to talk- uni is about sharing ideas/knowledge/being challenged. The one thing that gets really annoying after years of sitting through tutes, is going to a tutorial knowing that its just going to be an hour of awkward silences because no has done the reading or is prepared to speak up. There is only so much a tutor can talk about for an hour after realising no one is going to say anything- and it just ends up being boring and awkward.

I'm now doing honours, and we have a 30% class participation mark for our seminar. The one good thing is, it's a small class, and we all want to be there, so everyone does the reading, and everyone contributes to the discussion and the time goes relatively quickly!

I think people prepare better for tutes with CP marks. One of my arts tutes last year did not, very few people turned up (no minimum attendance), noone did the readings, and the tute was extremely awkward and boring.

 

[dawdlex3]

Class participation may be easy for a small tute, but think about 25 people in the same 1 hour tute. Ideally speaking each person should get only about 2 minutes or so for their so-called participation. Unfortunately the same few people keep talking and talking and it's so hard to just butt into the discussion. I'm not the aggressive, active talker either.

 

[Lou283]

I think the 'sudden change' this year is to do with the overhaul of all the units. All my tutorials have a class participation percentage.