Attendance and Participation in HIST 103

Attendance and participation—general engagement with the class—will do a lot toward your success in the course. Taken together, the attendance and participation elements described on this page account for 50% of your grade. Moreover, people who stay engaged do better on quizzes. Engagement is a major characteristic of this course. The aim is to retain more students and see that you do well in the course. It’s clear from the research: students who come to class and are engaged do better.

Come to Class!

Class attendance and participation are required and play a large and significant part in evaluation of your work in the course. Every day in class you will be asked to complete some participation item—usually via PRS, sometimes on paper. Every time you do so, you will receive credit for participating, and your participation points will be totaled at end of term. This is required participation, not extra credit. Thus, if you fail to attend class and participate, then the damage to your grade will be direct and linear.

Participate in Class!

As stated above, occasionally you will have something to complete on paper, but usually the participation items will be done by PRS. Here’s the usual drill. Lectures for the course are illustrated with PowerPoint slides. Embedded in some slides are questions to which you will be asked to respond via PRS. You are not scored right or wrong on the participation questions; you are just expected to participate, for which you receive credit. Show up, participate, and you get your points.

Participate in the List!

Participation in the email list, your discussion section of Cumberland Gap, also plays a significant part in determining your grade. You'll find some expectations about your participation in Cumberland Gap given in the Study Guide for Democracy in America. And you'll find instructions for how to participate in the Cumberland Gap page. So, how is this online participation counted for grades? Two ways: individually, and collectively (that is, by groups).

Here's the individual part. All your contributions to the list are archived into a mailbox with your name on it. At the end of the semester we review these for frequency, timeliness, and quality. That's a lot of work for us, but from that you can infer we take this aspect of the course seriously. You are graded on your contributions to the list. This is not extra credit.

Now the group part. Three times during the semester we will review the online discussions that have taken place thus far group by group. Again, we will be looking for frequency, timeliness, and quality. The best discussion group in each review gets 10 participation points added to the score of every member of the group. Several other runner-up discussion groups get 5 marks each.

Students have asked for specific criteria to be used in evaluating participation in the list, Cumberland Gap. Fair enough, here they are. Some aspects of the evaluation are quite quantitative, but others are qualitative. We have to read your work and make a judgment. Still, it is possible to say specifically on what grounds we intend to make such judgment. Remember that participation is evaluated in two ways—by individuals and by groups (discussion sections).

Criteria for Evaluation of List Participation
Individual	Number of contributions to the list. There is no set number required, but if you have less than fifteen, I would say you are below average.
	Timing of contributions. The dates of receipt of your messages should show engagement throughout the semester. A bunch of messages right at the end of term, or any other time for that matter, will count for little if you are a non-participant the rest of the time.
	Quality of contributions. It should be apparent from what you write that you have read the assignment and thought about it. And you should take care to communicate your thoughts clearly and cleanly to your peers.
Group	All the same things as are applied to individual participation.
	The fostering and practice of dialog. This is supposed to be a discussion. We want to see evidence that you are reading one another's contributions, thinking about them, and responding to them.

Points for Attendance and Participation

The table below summarizes the point scheme for attendance and participation. Note that it includes reference to three out-of-class assignments, Cultural Currents of the University, History in Your Community, and Service Learning. Follow the links to see specifications and guidance for these three assignments.

The table also makes reference to “hard points” and “soft points.” For an explanation of these terms, see the grades page.

Finally, notice that the specifically required elements of participation do not add up to 300, the number of points possible for participation. This means that in order to score well, you have to complete some optional assignments, in addition to the specific requirements.

Points for Attendance and Participation
Element		Explanation	Points Possible
In-Class Participation	See explanations above—you have to come to class and complete participation items (4 points each day)	Hard points—must be earned through in-class participation	100
Individual List Participation	See explanation and criteria above—you have to read Tocqueville and discuss it online	Hard points—must be earned through list participation	100
Group List Participation	See explanation and criteria above—you need to be concerned about the quality of discussion in your list	Soft points earned through list participation by your whole group	20
Cultural Currents of the University	An assignment designed to get you into university activities and relate them to Tocqueville	Hard points for the first, required completion of the assignment May be repeated twice more for soft points	20 per
History in Your Community	An assignment designed to get you into your community and relate the experience to ideas about History	Hard points for the first, required completion of the assignment May be repeated twice more for soft points	20 per
Service Learning	An assignment to promote hands-on learning and community service (watch weblog for announcements of opportunities)	Soft points—can be completed once	Variable, 20-60
Total Participation Points Possible			300

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