Why Grade Class Participation?

Why does Harvard Business School grade class participation?

This pertains to the Harvard Business School which was, I think, the first business school to adopt the medical school practice of using actual cases to educate students. The premise is simply and powerfully that the best way to educate practitioners is to put real, current problems in front of them and rely on their joint knowledge and experience to learn from and solve those problems. The implication is consistent with research on adult learning namely that adults learn best when they are actively engaged in topics of importance to them. Listening to lectures is passive engagement; discussing cases is active. The faculty’s job is to organize the right materials, ask good questions (open-ended), and tease the participants to draw, present, and defend their own opinions rather than parrot someone else’s.

This means that someone has to find and write the cases, someone has to plan how to best teach those cases, instructors have to pay attention to the teacher-talk/student-talk ratio, instructors have to have more respect for students, and that every class becomes a little leadership laboratory: can you formulate your opinions, present them, and defend them? Forget whether the instructor agrees with you, he/she will be “gone” at the end of the term—but your classmates are those you will be in business with.

So, we grade student participation after every class. There are many implications from this. We need some kind of student “card” with background information and daily cells for assessing each class. Instructors have different systems. I used a +3 to -3 scale: 3 = nothing left to say, 2=outstanding comment, a double in baseball, 1=reasonable comment, single in baseball, 0=did not speak, -1 = repeated something already said, non-sequitur from last comment, came in late, -2= significant disruption, not listening and fighting everyone else, -3= disrupted the whole class unproductively. One can add these assessments, calculate percentages, etc.

This kind of evaluation occurs in every conversation we have in life: is the other listening? Why or why not? Can I understand what you are saying? Are you blowing smoke? Can you support your conclusion with evidence and logic? Am I convinced? Have I convinced you?

So, case method devotees believe that class participation is CENTRAL to the learning process and to developing more talented, wiser practitioners. Introverts have a more difficult time in case classes. Extroverts can get graded down for dominating the discussion or blowing smoke or just listening to themselves think out loud. I am a strong advocate of case method approach to learning and to predominately student-centered discussion.

For more, deeper analysis see my book Teaching Management (Cambridge University Press) or my Level Three Leadership website with text and video clips at www.nadobimakoba.com.