I would like to argue against cold-calling as a premise to question the validity of graded class participation. Cold-calling is the oldest trick in the book, yet students are still learning how to prepare to be on the receiving end. The concept of a cold call is intended solely for the teacher to ensure learning occurs in the classroom. In retrospect, it is a tried and true method. However, there are effective alternatives to the dreaded cold calling; it’s not the only way. Not to mention how students perceive teachers who cold call. It is a lose-lose situation. If students were given more time to form an answer, cold calling would be less demeaning. This is to counter the idea that a student who could not form a proper response is not avidly paying attention since cold calling accounts for the time it takes to make something up. Instead, if a student has difficulty answering on the spot, it is out of stage fright. 

There are many ways for a teacher to gauge student engagement; what happened to Kahoot? Even the whiteboards are gone. These routes never failed; I don’t know why we left them in middle school. Picking on a student who was not paying attention is warranted. Picking on the shy kid is plain wrong. Coming from someone close to mastering the art of cold calls, not everyone has the same expertise. Cold calls are not the solution to gauging engagement since they are at the expense of shy students, while there are sufficiently better alternatives.

It is true that public speaking is a skill that individuals can improve on. It is also true that being soft-spoken is also part of one’s nature rather than something that can be changed through training. It is, therefore, not something practically teachable like grammar or spelling. Instead, it is a skill that students grasp through experience over time. This learning process takes place throughout college, not in one semester. Students should not be accountable for the rate at which they grow their confidence in public speaking. Teachers are responsible for guaranteeing that their students are paying attention, but it does not have to be at the expense of a student’s grade in their class. 

Graded class participation fails to recognize the disadvantages of shy or generally less articulate students and instead of fostering learning opportunities, graded participation penalizes them. Participation is worth 15-20% of the total grade in most of my classes. Students less inclined to raise their hand should not have one-fifth of their grade at risk. On behalf of every shy student here at Bucknell, I see you. I don’t hear you, but I see you. Engaging in class discussion must take a lot of courage, let alone under the spotlight. I think there is more merit in a student’s written work rather than the spoken word. Years from now, we will not be presented with a PowerPoint slideshow and asked to explain its content. Why should this practice even be applied when we will make no use of it following graduation? The only definition of cold-calling outside college is post-graduate students desperate for jobs. There is no real-world application for cold calling. No one in your workplace will suddenly turn to you and ask you to explain anything while your colleagues hush to a dead silence to listen. It then calls into question why bother to employ cold-calling if its only use is in school and its only purpose is easily interchangeable. To reiterate: what happened to whiteboards?