My wife was right, the literature classroom is often structured around the discussion of a text—and class participation, either graded or un-graded, is important to the whole enterprise. Yet, the way we structure participation varies from class to class and tends to be potentially more assumptive than quantitative. Some teachers may reward students with daily participation points (which are generally somewhat nebulously defined); others may base student participation on the completion of daily assignments; and still others may encourage participation but may not worry about measuring it or keeping track of it in their grade books. However we assess participation in the classroom, there are often a few things that are easy to identify: namely, who participates the most and who participates the least. Students who fall on either end of the participation spectrum generally, for better or worse, tend to stick out. But what about the students in the middle? How do we understand their levels of participation? And further, can our current methods of assessing participation generate enough actionable data that can help us better understand our students and courses? Of course, participation data should not drive our literature classrooms, but it could help to enhance them.

For the sake of an example, let’s say I was using ClassDojo in my literature classroom to measure discussion participation (of course, you could use another service or method—the purpose here is to illustrate using a service that creates actionable data). Every time a student spoke or responded to a question or did some other activity that I defined as participation, I would simply click on that student’s name in ClassDojo and add one participation point to the student’s profile. At first, this data would not be worth a lot, but over time, as the data sample grew, as it could be compared to data of other students and to the class as a whole entity, it could become incredibly valuable. I could use the data to identify students who were participating daily, but who were only saying one or two things per session; I could identify students who participated heavily during one week and rarely during another; or, I could use the data to make an accurate assessment of a student’s participation at the end of a semester—all things that without good participation data would not be possible, or would be incredibly difficult to produce and quantify. Second, the data could be used to help me reflect on how I structured my course and planned my lessons. For example, if I could see data that showed that the whole class commonly participated in discussion during week A but not during week B, I would be forced to think about the texts I’d chosen or the lessons I’d used during those weeks. I could use the data to see what texts created the most discussion and what texts created the least discussion. And I could take all the data, which I would not have if I had simply put a mark next to a students name at the end of the after determining that they had “participated,” and I could act on it, making changes and adjustments to the way I taught the course or at least facilitated textual discussion.

In other words, if I had solid data about discussion participation, broken down by date, time frequency of occurrence, student, student groups, and the class, I could have a better understanding of how and when my students were participating. I could also have quantified feedback on how well the course, my lessons, and my texts provoked and encouraged discussion. Of course, there are many holes in a data sample created by a service like ClassDojo, and I am not suggesting that we base how we teach on how well we record student participation. But at the very least a service like ClassDojo requires us all to consider the same question my wife asked me: “If the literature classroom is all about participation in discussion, how do you guys keep track of it?”

For more information about ClassDojo you can visit their site by clicking here. Another service that aims to help record class data called MyClassTalk is available on ios devices and can be found at the app store in iTunes.

What do you think? How might access to classroom data help you assess and better reach your students?