Sun, an associate professor of biology at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, sent a quick message on GroupMe to students who’d taken the course the last two times she’d taught it. She explained that current class members were embarking on their projects. “Any tips and wisdom you’d like to share?” she asked.
The project asks students to create a global travel itinerary as a way of learning about diseases. It’s meant to let them be creative, connect with one another, and have some fun.
A couple of Sun’s former students responded right away. Get started early, one graduate suggested, and then you’ll have more time for your other courses during the end-of-the-semester crunch.
Sun set up the GroupMe in the fall of 2020. She was teaching on Zoom, and wanted another way that everyone could communicate if the conferencing platform went down. GroupMe proved to be a good avenue for the students to connect, and at the end of the semester Sun converted their conversation to an alumni group, where the students — mostly pre-health professionals — would sometimes share relevant news articles.
When she taught the course in 2021, it was back in person, and Sun didn’t rely on the app in the same way. But she offered to let students join the alumni group afterward, and some did.
Among them was Marissa Layman, a 2021 biology graduate who responded to Sun’s question by writing: “Try to find a topic you really enjoy and are passionate about!” Layman’s group had had fun with the project, she said, designing it around dos and don’ts for staying healthy while traveling the world.
Seeking advice about a course from former students is smart, Layman said, “because we were the ones taking it, and not the teacher.” And GroupMe is a good channel for this kind of communication, she added, because messages don’t get lost in a crowded inbox.
Sun shared the former students’ advice during class. As students packed up to leave, she heard some of them discussing what the alumni had said. They seemed encouraged, she noticed. “I could see a lot of smiles.”
Have you given your former students an opportunity to support current ones, either ad hoc or in a more sustained way? If so, what benefits have you found? Tell me about your approach, at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com, and it may be included in a future newsletter.
How Your Students Participate
In a recent newsletter Beth wrote about one professor who had rethought class participation, and asked readers what you had done to make earning such points clear, fair, and meaningful for students. She then shared some of your ideas. Here are a few more:
- David S. Weiss, a part-time instructor of English at Georgia Gwinnett College, gives his students credit for what he calls “engagement,” rather than “participation,” he wrote. It comes to 20 percent of their final grade. “An engagement grade will be posted for each class,” Weiss states on his syllabus. “It will consider your attendance of and participation in class, your communication (by email and on D2L) with the instructor and fellow students as requested, your timely completion of assignments, and your consideration of feedback previously provided. If you do all these things, you will receive full credit … for that class.” Three other possible grades are listed: Present/Participated; Distracted; Failure to Participate/Distracting Others. Weiss invites students to challenge their engagement grade, he said in an email. “It is my view that if a student actively challenges an engagement grade in writing, they are both fulfilling the purpose of my class (remember, it’s a writing class, English Comp II) and are demonstrating engagement. I have had very few students take advantage of my invitation to challenge grades, and on the whole their objections are valid (in which case, I gladly change the grade).”
- Linda McCarthy, a professor of sociology at Greenfield Community College, in Massachusetts, offers her students options. “I used to give examples to students about all the ways that they could participate, along with a rubric,” she wrote. “But last semester I moved to giving students the opportunity to set their own learning goals for participation. Why would we expect all students to participate in the same ways? We don’t, in meetings and such!” In her current system, McCarthy’s students are asked to pick three goals from a provided list — with the option of adding their own. Students assess their own progress on the goals at the middle and end of the semester, and, at the end, they grade themselves. Students liked the approach, she reported. “One student wondered why every professor isn’t doing this. They said it kept them cognizant of their role in the class. I hoped it let them know that everyone has an impact on the class, and that can look differently.”
- Stephanie Laggini Fiore, assistant vice provost of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Temple University, in Philadelphia, works with her students to create a rubric for participating in class. “I put them in pairs to discuss, and the pairs added ideas to a Jamboard. Then we went over the answers and discussed it together. I made sure to add some things as well. The students came up with some great things about quality of contribution, building on the comments of others, actively listening, etc.,” she wrote. “Then I created a simple rubric from what we had all discussed in class. Its heading was ‘Students Who Show Exemplary Participation in Class,’ with the items listed that we discussed.” Midway through the course, Fiore said, she had students assess their own participation, and compared it to her own observations. “It worked great,” she said, “in having students take ownership of their work in class and also define what participation could mean.”
ICYMI
- In a piece for The Chronicle, Rebecca Schuman offers advice on how professors can meet their writing goals amid the teaching demands of the semester.
- On his blog for Inside Higher Ed, John Warner shares insights for teaching from experiencing a Peloton class in which some participants are back in the studio with the instructors.
- “Less money is coming directly from students’ pockets to pay for course materials,” according to this article covering a new National Association of College Stores survey, in EdSurge.
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us, at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.
—Beckie
Learn more about our Teaching newsletter, including how to contact us, at the Teaching newsletter archive page.
