Evaluating class discussion. Business school case teachers do it all the time. It's not uncommon for them to base the final course grade on 50 percent class participation. And this with 50-70 students in a class! This sends shudders up the spines of most science teachers. Yet, what's so tough about the concept? We are constantly making judgments about the verbal statements of our colleagues, politicians, and even administrators. Why can't we do it for classroom contributions?
Most of our discomfort comes from the subjective nature of the act, something that we scientists work hard to avoid in our work-a-day world. It may be that we are even predisposed to become scientists because we are looking for a structured and quantifiable world. Flowing from this subjective quandary is the fact that we feel we must be able to justify our grades to the students. We are decidedly uncomfortable if we can't show them the numbers. This is one of the reasons that multiple-choice questions have such appeal for some faculty.
