THE “WHY ” OF CLASS PARTICIPATION A QUESTION WORTH ASKING

participation clearly registers as impor-tant to faculty. We codify our values for a course in the grading scheme and, if appropriate, a corresponding descriptive rubric for performance. When something is required, graded, or rewarded, students know that the professor thinks it matters. We signal to our students the relative importance of various components by the weight we attach to them, which is not lost on students. Class participation is so often included as a course expectation that faculty must value it, and it is there-fore worth considering further. In developing one of my first graduate courses several years ago, I received a great deal of advice from those who had taught similar courses for similar stu-dents. Their warnings convinced me that I had better explicitly describe for students how I expected them to perform in my class, and in developing a rubric to do so, I discovered what I truly valued: (1) qual-ity of tasks, (2) completeness of tasks, (3) timeliness of tasks, (4) attendance, and (5) class participation. In an ideal world, all the components of a course will add up to a larger change in students we wish to see happen: the ways of knowing and doing with which our class will equip them. The issue at stake for us here is whether we are, in fact, valuing what we think we are and getting what we hoped we would through class participation. For some, the goal of participation requirements is to cause students to engage in the course ideas as they encounter them. For others, its purpose is accountability for hav-ing engaged with previously encountered ideas (e.g., assigned readings, preceding lectures). I argue that we need to explore the intent and types of class participation as a means of arriving at what should be the heart of the matter: the thoughtful engagement by students with the core concepts of the course