Cross-posted from PROpenMic (I directed this post to other faculty on PROpenMic but thought Teaching PR readers who are not yet on PROpenMic might also be interested):
I've assigned participation on PROpenMic to several different classes over several semesters, with very little success in getting the students involved (to the point of taking points off final grades because they failed to participate adequately).
I made some changes to the assignment this semester that seemed to help and that have given me some other ideas for next semester -- thought I'd share in case any of you are having the same problems.
1. I gave students very specific guidelines about what "participation" means -- join at least 2 groups, write at least 2 blog posts, create a complete profile, post comments on at least five other blog posts (and not just students in our class), etc. This gave them a minimum to shoot for. Unlike past semesters, almost everyone got all the points for participation.
2. I contacted Prof. Jeanne Persuit at UNC-Wilmington when I realized that a lot of her students were posting, too. She came up with the idea of creating a group, Bulldogs + Seahawks, where our students could mix and mingle. She also had the idea of doing a "6 Random PR Things About Me" meme. She created the group, I wrote the questions and we each tagged a couple of students to get it going. The students seemed to comment mostly on the posts of students from their own school, but I think if we work on this again next semester we'll be able to get students to interact a bit more. I told students that participating in the 6 Random Things meme could take the place of one blog post; next semester I'll build "participate in at least one discussion" as a requirement in addition to the 2 blog posts. I think pairing up with another class at another school is a simple and non-intimidating way to get students interacting.
3. I know the students were primarily participating just to get their points, but it seemed to me that at the end of the semester, as the deadline loomed and a bunch of them were doing their blog posts and commenting on each others' posts, they did seem to get into it. Some of them made many more than 5 comments, some of them experienced the thrill of getting lots of comments on a post, and Magan Jenkins' ABC post was featured on the homepage. All of this can only encourage them to get more involved. So, next semester I'm going to try "A Week with PROpenMic" early in the semester in which everyone has to create their profile and write their first post. Maybe then they'll be more active throughout the semester instead of waiting until the end.
4. I'm following @PROpenMic on Twitter and will make a more concerted effort to check in and write comments on posts and participate in discussions. Richard Bailey was kind enough to comment on several of my students' posts, and I do think it's exciting for the students to get feedback from outside the class.