Why the Tally System Doesn't Work

As we all know, it is required to get 25 tallies per five weeks to get our grade for participation. Each person does the tallies one day, so that the task is equally shared. In essence, yes, this is a good system. It promotes participation and it gives the naturally shy students a reason to talk so that they don't lose points. However, this system has a few major flaws. The size of the class itself, and the way the tallies are marked down are these major flaws.

In most classes, the size of Mr. DeMail's social institution's class ranges between 21 and 28. In his four SI-only classes, he has an average of 25 kids per class. Let's pretend that in an average period, there is a chance to answer a question once every two minutes. That is around 30 answers per period. In an SI-only period, that means that each student gets to participate 1.2 times per day, which equals out to an average of 30 tallies per 5 weeks (5 weeks x 5 days x 1.2 times per day = 30). However, in his 3rd period S.I.-Art History class, there are 39 students. If there are 30 answers per period, each student gets .77 times to participate during class. Multiply that out to a 5 week period, and you get 19 tallies. That means that if every student participated equally, which is the assumed purpose of the tally sheet, to get everyone to participate, NO ONE will reach the required amount. Take out a day for finals, and the average drops to 18.

If that wasn't problem enough, then we have the manner in which tallies are marked down. First of all, because of the size of the classroom, we cannot always tell who is talking. Desiree, for example, probably has a hard time seeing that Evan is talking, seeing that they are on opposite sides of the classroom entirely and Evan has a somewhat quiet disposition. I might take tallies one day and forget to mark someone down because I'm taking notes on what they said, and it slipped my mind that I had tallies. There are NUMEROUS reasons why someone might forget to mark down a tally. The job of the person speaking is to answer the question; the job of the tally-marker is to mark down tallies. If Evan answers and someone fails to mark it down, that IS NOT EVAN'S FAULT. Evan cannot possibly know that the person failed to give him a tally, unless the person happens to be sitting near him. Evan should not be marked down because he doesn't know that he didn't get his due tally, he did his part of the bargain. Seeing as tallies are hard enough to get (only an average of 18 per 5 weeks if everyone participates) the fact that some tallies are lost in the translation make it even harder to get these tallies. So unless Mr. DeMail wants us all to keep track of our own tallies so we can get an accurate total at the end of the five weeks, tallies will most likely never be accurate. Given the already mentioned fact that tallies are hard enough to get in the first place, this possibility is a death sentence to anyone that wants tallies.

I see two possible solutions for both Mr. DeMail's students and Mr. DeMail himself. Obviously, Mr. DeMail does not want his class to fail/do poorly. Participation is a grade in his class and the better we do in that aspect, the less chance we have of failing. Now it is already obvious that we are not given the same opportunities other classes are given (smaller class size means more chances to participate), so things should be equalized so percentages stop dropping 2-3% because of a failure to get tallies.

Either, A) extend the tally time to 10 weeks. Because we have a bigger class, we should have 10 weeks to obtain 25 tallies. That is fair because our class is 14 students larger than the average SI class size, which shows a 64% increase in class size. Or,

B) Lower the tally requirements to 20. This way, the average student gets close but doesn't necessarily get all the tallies required, and the big speakers are rewarded for their hard work. This is NOT a curve, this is an equalization between classes because one class (Period 3) is irregularly larger than the others. Technically, by NOT curving it, Mr. DeMail IS curving it towards his smaller classes, because they have a better chance at reaching the tallies and therefore get higher grades on participation because of it. He has to account for class size.