Teaching Online at UTAS

Do you monitor or assess student participation in tutorials, workshops or online classes? Tracking participation in tutorials can be quite difficult and time-consuming, especially when multiple staff are involved.

Using the MyLO Grades tool

Dr Gemma Lewis coordinates a large first-year undergraduate unit with over 450 students. Tutorials are included in the unit, and a range of tutors are responsible for collecting data on student participation. In the past, tutors completed a form for each tutorial and returned it to Gemma. Gemma would manually enter the data from the forms into an Excel spreadsheet. However, this was time consuming and forms were nor always delivered to her in a reasonable timeframe.

Gemma decided to use MyLO to remove the need for double-handling of participation data. She created 12 Grade Items in her unit’s MyLO Grades tool, one for each week. She developed a marking schema for tutors to use: 0 for no-show; 1 for attended with minimal participation; 2 for attended and contributed; 3 for attended and made contributions supported by theory. A similar set-up is explained here.

Tutors received training in how to filter the Grades tool for their convenience, as well as how to enter marks. Though some continued to make paper notes during class, all recorded marks into the  relevant Grade Item rather than sending through a handwritten note or spreadsheet. All the Grade Items were organised under a Category, which automatically calculated a cumulative overall result for the each student.

Using participation cards

Dr Gail Ridley (Tasmanian School of Business and Economics) uses this process in her classes.

1. Gail prints participation cards on coloured card as per the image below. The same cards are used every week.

   

2. Each card has room for a student’s name, student number and tutorial day and time.
3. In the first tutorial for the semester, Gail hands one participation card to each student.
4. The students are asked to complete the card with their details and to place their card on the edge of their desk.
5. When a student shows a level of participation that satisfies Gail, she picks up the card from their desk (or asks them to hand it to her).
6. Gail records a student’s participation mark in the MyLO Grades tool after the tutorial, then hands them back their card at the start of the next tutorial.
7. Gail keeps the cards in an envelope between tutorials. In case some of the cards are not collected, Gail always keeps a few temporary cards on hand.

This method has an added benefit – the collection of the participation card is recognition of a student’s effort. In turn, quiet or shy students now have a role model that they can watch and listen to for ideas about how they might participate in future.

In addition, the participation card method allows the lecturer or tutor to focus on teaching, rather than distracting administrative tasks, during a tutorial.