What is Participation?
20% of your final grade comes from participation: 10% from lecture participation and weekly reading questions, and 10% from tutorial.- Lecture participation. There will be a few clicker-style questions in each lecture, to help gauge everyone's understanding. We are not worried about whether you answer these questions correctly, only that you attempt to answer them.
- Weekly reqding questions. Each week has a reading associated with it. We will discuss the reading as part of lecture, and often in recitation (sometimes even in tutorial). We expect you to do the reading! There will be a set of short reading questions to answer each week.
- Engagement in tutorial. This means coming prepared to tutorial, pay attention to your instructor and fellow classmates, asking and answering questions, participating in groupwork, etc.
Grading
We don't break your participation grade down into an exact formula because various elements, especially tutorial, present different opportunities for participation. To make up for this lack of specificity, we will issue recitation participation check-in grades throughout the semester (you can see the exact dates on the calendar). These check-in grades are the grade we'd give you if we had to assign a final grade at that point (which means they're cumulative: each check-in grade is based on all of your participation up to that point).
We understand that you may need to miss a lecture or two during the
semester, that you might forget to do a single reading question,
etc. There are enough opportunities to participate in this class that
you do not need to worry about missing a single instance. If you need
to miss multiple classes beacuse of a medical or personal issue, see
below.
I'm anxious about my participation grade. Whom should I
contact? First, some reassurance: the vast majority of students
do well with participation in 6.1800. We've designed the recitations so
that there are lots of opportunities to participate, and while past trends
don't always dictate future results, we typically give many A's for
participation.
You'll receive check-in participation grades throughout the
semester to let you know how you're doing, but you can always reach
out to our course administrator Taylor Braun for personalized advice
on how you're doing and what you could do to improve (if you need
to). The best way to reach Taylor is by using 6.1800-personal@mit.edu
(which goes to Taylor and Katrina).
I need to miss a single lecture or tutorial. Can I make up the
participation somehow? In general, no. The majority of
participation happens in class, and we don't have the staff to run
off-schedule lectures or tutorials for students who miss one. But
missing a single lecture or tutorial will not appreciably impact your
grade. There will be many, many other opportunities to participate.
I need to miss multiple classes because of a medical or personal
issue. Is that possible? We will do our best to work with you in
these situations, especially if we know about them early. Make sure
you're in contact with someone at S3, and reach out to 6.1800-personal@mit.edu so that we can come up with a plan.
FAQ