Recently, a number of teachers have written to me asking about grading for classroom participation. I have conducted a good deal of research which showed that this is a tremendous disservice and unfair situation to a great many of your students.
Students participate as a result of their leadership personality traits.
This does not mean that these students are less on-task than those who continually raise their hand. Therefore, if you give points for classroom participation, are are really rewarding those with a strong leadership personality style and punishing those with a weak one. The following is a summary of my research in this area, if you want to know more about leadership in students. It comes from my work with cooperative learning groups, but the concepts of leadership are directly applicable to student participation in the classroom. Applications with Cooperative Learning .