One of my classes this semester requires me to track how often students speak in class, and evaluate each comment. I also have students leading discussion, and I need to be able to generate completed rubrics easily for them so they get my feedback.
I’ve found that I can keep track of all of this in an Excel Spreadsheet on my iPad Pro, and that I can also use Excel to generate individual rubrics and a class wide participation report.
Here’s an example workbook that you can download and modify, and some screenshots that explain how it works.
The Participation Tracker screen – as students participate, I type in their names in the Person column (Excel remembers names after awhile, so I only have to type the first few letters), and I make their rating in the Score column. I can also put any comments in that I might need later.A pivot table that summarizes the participations in class, gives me the average score and standard deviation.When a student is presenting, I make my rubric ratings in this spreadsheet page. I can make comments after each rating area, and also know which presentations are coming up next or refer back. I also have a last column that’s “private” to me – it doesn’t show up on the rubric, but is a great place to make notes about something a student said that I might want to put on a quiz or exam.The Rubric Report sheet – I simply change the number in the upper right to the row number I’d like to create a report for, and it populates the information into the Rubric. I can then take a screenshot of the rubric, and upload it to my LMS (Canvas) as a comment.
Hopefully you find the spreadsheet useful – I know I have in just the 2 weeks I’ve been using it. It’s saved me a lot of administrative work, enabling me to do more “fun” pedagogical stuff in class!
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