In the Spring of 2021 I was in my seventh-grade history class online. My teacher was trying to find someone to answer the question, but frustratingly no one responded when called on by their name. Finally, he gave up and asked me. I gave him my answer, but I was still upset since only five students including me were responding out of a class of twenty-three. I also became bored as this would happen every day. This completely changed the year after, in eighth-grade. It was back to in-person learning since quarantine, and my global studies teacher asked the class what the answer was. Multiple hands shot into the air wanting to respond. Instead of feeling bored and upset about having to constantly respond like in seventh- grade, I was smiling and having fun seeing other people’s answers to the question. My experience from those years were different because of the way people participated. Even though eighth grade had more involvement than seventh grade, I noticed participation has been decreasing. Gym class for example, a lot more people were more involved in sixth, than in eighth grade. Even though we are graded on participation in gym now when we weren’t back then. I believe that this is because participation is being used wrongly by both teachers and students. Some of the main reasons that prove this and show why it’s important are education, ideas, interest, and society. Being that participation is used in school, education is the most important.
One of the biggest purposes of school is to educate students. Most try to do this in the most efficient way, using participation. Participation actually helps educate students. “How does student participation influence student achievement?” which is an article by Tang, a school professor, published on May 11th, 2006 on the New York University website, did a test on this to see if it was true. Out of those surveyed in the end, 72% of the students felt like the more students involved in class, the more educated they would be. 52% of those students also said they felt like their understanding of school material would also increase if participation increased as well. However, some teachers don’t involve participation in the right way. This includes forcing participation by adding it as a major part of their grade. When adding participation as a major part of a student's grades(%50 or more), it makes students feel like they are forced to do it even when they don’t want to or are insecure. This can cause some to not care or gain anxiety from it which doesn’t add education value to their learning. In my gym class in eighth grade, our whole grade used to be based on participation which gave anxiety to the students. This was why very few people actually participated. Instead, teachers should avoid putting students in a stressful spot and support participation in a different way. The best way to do this is to make participation a lot smaller part of the students’ grades. Not only does it help avoid most anxiety, but also still have particpation in the classroom. Not only is participation essential to education, it also supports ideas.
Ideas are the second most important thing about participation because of a few different reasons. The biggest reason is that when participating in a classroom, students hear different opinions and ideas from other students. This helps a student expand their mindset after seeing how other people view it, but it also sometimes can be bad if used wrong. According to “Why Students don’t Particitpate in Class (and Why it can be a Problem)” by GradePower Learning published on Nov 26, 2018, “Many students will not speak up in class because they fear that other students will judge them if they have the wrong answer.” Because of other students and the teacher, one refusing to participate may actually just be scared to speak up. Another reason why diverse ideas and participation is good in the classroom however, is that it helps the teacher. “10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions” by Maryellen Weimer, PhD published on February 15, 2011” has a small section on their article talking about it. They mainly talk about how getting a student’s feedback about the teacher’s material, helps the teacher explain it and improve the way it's presented to students. Ideas are a really important part of participation. The best way someone can help improve it is to support it in the classroom as a teacher, and to stop judging other harshly about their answers as a student. These results from participation, gives out interest which is the third most important.
Being in a school environment as said before, education is pushed a lot. Interest helps build that, as it gives students motivation to learn and to participate. As they hear more sides and understand more about the topic, they’ll be more into the material. Interest is extremely important in which the article “Interest Matters: The Importance of Promoting Interest in Education” by Judith M. Harackiewicz, Jessi L. Smith, and Stacy J. Priniski, graduates of University of Wisconsin and Montana State University, published on June 30,2016 on the National Center for Biotechnology Information(NCBI), proves that; “Interest is a powerful motivational process that energizes learning, guides academic and career trajectories, and is essential to academic success.” Another thing that the article says is making school more fun. Participating in the projects with interest helps make the projects done faster. Like the other two, interest does also have a downside. If the teacher’s projects or activities in class aren’t fun to do, less students will care about the material and the project. Some fun ways to keep it entertaining is making the projects original helps keep students participating in class. Teachers should avoid doing the same thing over and over again. Instead, they should take ideas from social media, other teachers, or even the students. Even though most of the participation decrease is because of the school/teachers some of it is caused by the students, which is because of either social media or in real life. The fourth most important reason why participation is important and why it’s decreasing after education, ideas, and interest, is because of society.
Pretty much everything today is mentioned on social media or in society(in general). Since more and more students are having phones or electronicdevice, it’s decreasing participation in school. The article “They’re abysmal students: Are cell phones destroying the college classroom?” by Nate Anderson, a professor at University of North Carolina, published on Dec 27, 2019, on ArsTechnica; is about a teacher who saw participation decrease over the years, and how he tried to figure out why. The teacher in the article noticed a lot of students spent their time on their phone rather than paying attention in school and participating. The article “Screen Time and Children” by American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry published in February 2020, tells about a test on how much time someone spends on social media each day. “...children ages 8-12 in the United States spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens, and teens spend up to 9 hours.” Seeing my classmates and friends on their phones in school, it makes sense why it’s so high. Rather than participating in gym class, a lot of students in my eighth-grade class spent the hour on their phone. Other people may argue with that and say that it can sometimes be good. Hearing stories about other student’s experiences may give teachers ideas on how to improve, and it may make some students who want to participate more, to get that same experience. The more people participate in class and turn off their phones, the more people do the same. This is why it’s not just the teachers affecting participation, but also the students.
Participation is very important, it teaches valuable skills making it helpful for students. The issue though, is that not enough people reconize that and use it wisely, making it decrease over the years. Education, ideas, interest, and society all plays into why participation is important and why it’s decreasing. Even though my experience with participation had a positive impact in 8th grade rather than 7th, it still helped me focus a lot more in school and have more fun. Regardless how little it seems, participation still shouldn’t be used in the wrong ways. Some of these wrong ways are forcing it on grades too much, ignoring it, and using it to judge someone. This is for both students and teachers together. The more it’s used correctly, the more students involved. The more students involved, the more skills learned. That’s what participation is.