One little thought. Naturally groups tend to grumble when they all get the same grade 
(or, those who actually do the work grumble!). A way round this I used in the past 
was to require them to collaboratively write all their group notes, and design their 
presentations etc. inside a Google Drive folder (which I made for them). I told them 
I'd be checking the activity log in their folder/files to make sure everyone 
contributed: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2409045. It's a tiny bit creepy 
but it does quieten the grumbles, and enables you still to dock grades if someone 
really didn't contribute.

Dave

__________________
Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
Senior Lecturer, Dept Language & Communication Studies, Uni. of Jyväskylä, Finland | 
www.jyu.fi
Chair, EU COST Action CA19102 'Language in the Human-Machine Era' | www.lithme.eu
Founder & Moderator, TeachLing | https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/teachling
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On 26/02/2021 12:43, Damien Hall wrote:
> Dear all
> 
> I'd like to pick your brains on this. Here's my situation. Basically, the question 
> is: how can you assess oral participation in a class, while still being fair to shy 
> sociolinguists? 🙂
> 
> BACKGROUND: I teach a second-year one-semester course called 'Linguistic Variation in 
> French' (the language of instruction is English). It has no prerequisites, so, even 
> though it is a second-year course, there are always some students who have never done 
> any linguistics, and even those who have, have 'only' done a full-year first-year 
> Introduction to Linguistics. Average enrolment in Linguistic Variation in French is 
> about 30.
> 
> EXISTING SITUATION: For a number of years my assesssment for the course has been 70% 
> essay, 20% seminar presentation and discussion, and 10% oral participation in 
> discussions. I now have to replace the 10% participation, because School policy is 
> that having a participation component in the final grade is not fair on students who 
> have a valid reason not to have contributed as much as others. I am therefore 
> thinking about what to replace it with.
> 
> THE WHOLE POINT: The point of the participation assessment was simply to make people 
> talk, and so get them to realise that they /do/ know things about sociolinguistics, 
> simply because they speak a language. They can therefore contribute to a discussion 
> about variation in French by bringing in a relevant point about variation in English, 
> for example. In order to get marks for participation, all a student had to do was 
> contribute to a discussion; the contribution didn't have to be correct or profound, 
> as long as they made it, because it showed they were thinking about it. They were 
> therefore getting a grade for thinking in a relevant way about knowledge they already 
> had, and for advancing others' thinking by putting their own thinking forward.
> 
> To grade this, I would literally put a tick on a sheet if a student said something in 
> a class discussion. The grade for that component would then be the proportion of 
> sessions in which the student contributed at least once, out of the number of 
> sessions in which they could have contributed. This was set at 10% of the total 
> course grade in order to be big enough to make a difference, but not so big that it 
> would disadvantage those with a valid reason not to contribute.
> 
> THE DILEMMA: Grading this is now not allowed. But I do want to give some of the marks 
> for contribution to an oral discussion, and I am looking for ideas about how. One 
> advantage of the old system for me was that it was no effort to grade it. The 
> simplest way of replacing my old oral participation mark would have been to have a 
> VLE-based discussion each week, but that would involve adding an element to the 
> course (VLE discussion as well as having to come to class), whereas the beauty of 
> grading oral discussion in class is that you have to come to class anyway, so it is 
> less effort for both students and instructor.
> 
> A PRELIMINARY IDEA: One idea I have had (which would still be subject to approval) is 
> to replace my (individual) seminar presentation with a group-animated seminar 
> discussion on the topic of the week. Students in groups of 3 or 4 would have to 
> /briefly/ present a topic related to the lecture topic for the week, and then lead a 
> class discussion about it. All students in a given group would receive the same mark. 
> This would be different from the existing seminar presentation (where individuals are 
> supposed to speak for 15 mins) in that the presentation of the subject matter would 
> be brief, and more time would be devoted to actual discussion and debate. It would 
> cater for students with a valid reason not to participate orally, because for example 
> any such students could take responsibility for preparing the initial presentation of 
> the subject, and wouldn't have to talk as much during the session.
> 
> I'm open to ideas--thanks for any you can share! Also, I must admit that I would be 
> especially open to any ideas that arrived this weekend. I am already overdue with my 
> course description for this module for 2021-22; if I don't get it in soon, I will not 
> be able to fundamentally change the course until next year, for 2022-23. If I can't 
> think of something satisfactory in time, then for 2021-22 I might simply remove the 
> participation and make the assessment 80% essay - 20% presentation, or similar, then 
> think about it more in the coming year.
> 
> Sorry for the long read, but thanks for reading!
> 
> Damien
> 
> --
> 
> Damien Hall
> 
> Newcastle University (UK / Royaume-Uni)
> School of Modern Languages Director of the Year Abroad
> (French) Linguistics
> 
> Zoom office hours: Mon 12.30-1.30, Tue 9.30-10.30, Thu 9.30-10.30, here 
> <https://newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/j/82525346680>
> 
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