On 28 Feb, CTLE held a half-day professional development event, which focused on promoting and assessing class participation. Over 40 UM academic staff joined the event.

In his opening remarks, Prof. Michael Hui, Vice Rector (Academic Affairs), highlighted the difference between class attendance and active participation. He emphasized the need for tailored strategies to assess engagement, collaboration and proactive learning, considering factors like course context, class size, teaching style and individual learning needs. (Watch Video)

Dr. Jennie Mills, acting head of the Academic Development Centre at the University of Warwick, delivered a keynote session entitled ‘Assessing class participation for effective as well as inclusive learning’. She discussed challenges in creating fair and effective rubrics for student assessment with colleagues. She also explained the intricacies of balancing detailed criteria for evaluating complex skills while making requirements clear to students. In addition, varying perceptions of participation must be considered when assessing diverse student groups from different cultures. Dr. Mills recommended using multiple assessment methods to accommodate different communication styles and allowing students thinking time before inviting responses. Besides, giving students group identities and competitive team-based activities can encourage participation. Polls and quizzes were used in this interactive workshop. (Download Slides) (Watch Video)

In the practical session facilitated by Dr. Jennie Mills and Prof. Katrine Wong, director of CTLE, colleagues were divided into groups and experimented with different strategies for documenting and assessing class participation through mock classroom activities (online forum and quiz questions). Participants also reviewed the mock activities. The discussion concluded with a few observations, including building trust with students in the process of assessment, creating a safe space where students can experiment without judgment, reducing performance pressure through designing different participation actvities. Colleagues also felt that quizzes could inspire competition, whereas forums would allow more open-ended exploration. (Watch Video)

In the technology session, Dr. Chris Fulton from CTLE shared tools that could promote class participation. He shared with colleagues how to set up large participatory activities to track students’ engagement in UMMoodle, using Forum features. He also introduced Microsoft Form which could be used as poll and quick quizzes. Video discussion board in Microsoft Flip app was also introduced. (Download Slides) (Watch Video)