Does anyone ever participate in class discussions?

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Those kinds of classes are definitely common at my school.

Well, I'm kind of required to. Most of my classes are anywhere from 10-25% class participation. Easy marks, really. Gotta love business school.

I love to.

Most of my classes in college were seminar style were we sat around a big table and had discussion on stuff we read. 40% of our grade was based on participation. I great difficulting with that. I was often lost and confused. My grades were mostly Cs and Ds. I graduated with a GPA of 1.86. In high school I had a 3.45 and graduated 4th in my class.

I absolutely hate discussion classes. In my opinion, I'm paying college tuition to learn from somebody with a degree. I do not care to waste a class period hearing the uneducated opinions of my peers. I'm very moody and sullen during discussion classes, usually, even if they're for a class that deals with a subject that I really like. I will only talk if it's a subject that is a special interest of mine, or if a peer has said something that is blatantly wrong and stereotypical and I feel that I must pipe up and set them straight. I also think it's absolutely idiotic that we get a participation grade in discussion classes. This is college, not high school. I'm an adult. If I choose not to speak in class, that's my business.
-OddDuckNash99-

I've had a few "discussion" type classes in college, and it's just always the same 5 people saying things (out of about 25 people). I've never been one of them...

Teachers often try to get students to participate so they can gauge if they are bothering to follow the material.

I never had a problem with it except that I was often criticized for dominating discussions...never letting others get a word in.

I enjoy classroom discussions. However, my critical analysis' of other people's opinions often lead to open hostility from the other students. Fortunately, receiving the highest grades in the class is more than sufficient to vindicate my behavior.

Ever since I started school I've had comments about my "lack of participation in class discussions". Having the teachers tell me I'm not 'joining in' enough is not in any way going to help me be able to do so, so I really don't understand why they have to go on about it so much. Can they not respect my right to not have to talk? I work fine by myself, better by myself, and me being pressured into stuttering uselessness in front of the rest of the class isn't going to help anybody.

In most classes I get told I don't participate because the "discussion" is just answering the teacher's questions, which I find very boring and not worth putting my hand up for.

But in classes such as RE, History, English, etc, where they want your opinions and stuff, I tend to participate too much. I'm one of the only 5 people saying things in that kind of discussion, because I tend to have a lot of opinions on world issues and the like. There are some people in my classes who don't know even who the current president of the USA is.

Sometimes I put my hand up in class just to come out with some typically pedantic point that nobody really wanted to hear, I've only recently learnt to decide if anyone will seriously care about what I have to say. Like in math class today when one of those word problems involved a commercial jet which had six passengers on it on one flight, I was just unfolding my arms to put my hand up and say that that is a shocking waste of fuel, especially as you can clearly see the effects of global warming on the polar ice caps and glaciers around the world, only then I realised that nobody cares about some logical flaw in a word question, and that I would just make myself sound like a nerd, which, as a new student at this school, I am trying to avoid.

I do.

I have a class called Film as Literature, and most of the class discussions are about films and little trivia tidbits on the film. We also have to pick one film we watch this semester and lead a discussion on it. I picked Blade Runner, which is actually the third-to-last film we're watching (because Annie Hall was all signed up for, and one of the students who picked it did a wretched job explaining how it tied in to that week's focus, editing). I usually have something to add in every discussion.

However, my participation is usually limited to English (and Film as Lit is an English class) and History classes, both of which i'm good in. I usually don't say anything in Math or Science.

I like class discussions and make atleast a few contrabutions, but not much though, I mainly just listen

I don't believe we are individually graded on class discussions.

For my case, I DOMINATE class discussions so much that I got full marks for class participation... and full anger and ire from my classmates as well...

I like some class discussions, depending on whether the teacher has it in control or not (I do not enjoy people interrupting me and talking really loud, so I get really annoyed and sulky in those classes), but I worry too much whether I'm talking too much, so I only ask the 1-2 most important of my questions.