Learner Behavioral Checklist

Par­tic­i­pa­tion marks are con­tro­ver­sial in post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion are often con­tro­ver­sial due to their sub­jec­tive nature for both stu­dents and instruc­tors. Bain (2019) argues that instruc­tors should view par­tic­i­pa­tion grades as oppor­tu­ni­ties for “skill build­ing “ oppor­tu­ni­ties and offers strate­gies to help man­age this approach.

CTLI pro­vides an alter­na­tive to tra­di­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion grades, build­ing on Bain’s sug­ges­tions by encour­ag­ing stu­dents to self-assess their behav­ior on the class­room. The learn­er behav­ior check­list replaces instruc­tor – observed par­tic­i­pa­tion, shift­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty and account­abil­i­ty for behav­ior to the stu­dents. This way, any deduc­tion marks are made by the stu­dents them­selves, not the instruc­tor.

As Bain (2019) sug­gests, the check­list is pro­vid­ed at inter­vals through­out the semes­ter, allow­ing stu­dents ample time to iden­ti­fy chal­lenges and adjust. It also includes a sec­tion for reflec­tion to pro­mote metacog­ni­tion.

CTLI has expe­ri­ence with the check­list – con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion on imple­men­ta­tion.

The check­list is pro­vid­ed here in a Word doc­u­ment, enabling instruc­tors to cus­tomize descrip­tions and cri­te­ria. Alter­na­tive­ly, this can be done as a large group activ­i­ty, involv­ing stu­dents in set­ting the cri­te­ria in the ear­ly part of the semes­ter.