The authors of the following list of strategies write that they attempted to “focus … on strategies and activities that typically do not require … a radical reframing of current standard practice, and are therefore more readily accessible to most science educators.” (p. 263) They discuss each strategy in much more detail than space here allows, and they include many references describing experiences with and alterations of these seven strategies.

Questions – These are questions that students discuss. Short periods of discussion occur after every 10 to 20 minutes of lecture, or they can be used to open and close a class session. Students may write ideas about answers, they may talk about answers with those sitting next to them, and they may explain answers to each other. As valuable as it for students to articulate content-related ideas and information, there is a caveat with this approach. “Good outcomes require good questions, and framing good questions is hard.” (p. 263) Closed questions (ones with one- or two-word right answers) have their place, but they are not very effective at promoting student interaction and reflection. Questions and discussion can be used in large classes and can contribute to student learning.

Technology for “on-the-spot feedback” – Clickers engage students with the content and provide instructors with valuable feedback. They are particularly well-suited for large courses, with the cognitive benefits of clickers a function of the quality of questions students are responding to. The goal is to develop those questions that move students in the direction of higher-order thinking.

Student presentations and projects – This article references another article in which 10 to 15 students researched and prepared reports on a “disease of the week.” They prepared materials for fellow students, and findings were also presented in class. Some instructors have used a poster-session model, where a different subset of students prepares and presents a poster to classmates each week. Presentations and projects can also be prepared by groups of students. They can be presented online and review of them assigned as homework.

Learning-cycle instruction models – Here’s a common example of a learning-cycle model: 1) engagement that draws students in with a video clip, provocative question, or other short activity; 2) exploration that uses other learning tasks to focus on the concepts and skills necessary to understand the central topic; 3) explanation that provides more examples and opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding; 4) elaboration that seeks to deepen understanding with applications and implications; and 5) evaluation during which student understanding is assessed. In this model the instructor’s presence is most visible during the explanation step, with students doing much of the work in the other steps, although they do so using instructor-designed tasks and materials.

Peer-led team learning – This strategy uses peers to facilitate learning in small groups and is described in detail in another article in this issue.

Inquiry-based approaches – Here students use simple equipment to do laboratory-type exercises in class. “Despite this necessity for simplicity, students can exercise the intellectual power behind designing aspects of the experiment, predicting outcomes that would lend support to their hypotheses, and analyzing and interpreting their findings.” (p. 265)

Problem-based learning and case studies – These are the kinds of problems that promote learning on a need-to-know basis. They can be formatted in a variety of ways, with students working on the problems in class. At various intervals the instructor might lecture about relevant content or be available to answer questions submitted by the groups.

Biology workshop – This model combines class and lab experiences as students explore a theme that is integrated into the content, activities, and assignments of the course. “Students explore and discover fundamental concepts through asking and answering their own questions.” (p. 266)

Given the continuing presence—indeed increasing prevalence of large courses—those who teach them must explore ways of making them rich learning experiences for students. As this article demonstrates, there are a variety of alternatives, all of which have been tried by instructors who teach large courses.

Reference: Allen, D., and Tanner, K. (2005). Infusing active learning into the large-enrollment biology class: Seven strategies from the simple to the complex. Cell Biology Education, 4 (Winter), 262-268.

Excerpted from The Teaching Professor, 25.3 (2011): 7.

Strategies to Manage High Enrollment Online Courses

The online enrollment boom is great for your school’s bottom line, but it creates new challenges in terms of course quality and instructor workload. As class size increases, it may not be practical to keep all assignments, discussions, exams, and other activities exactly as before, but it is not always easy to know which adjustments will provide the best results.

Discover the tools and techniques that can help you meet the demands of increased online student enrollment without compromising quality when you order a copy of Strategies to Manage High Enrollment Online Courses.

This 75-minute online seminar will help you understand:

• The different tools and technologies that will help you produce the desired learning outcome.
• Resources that will add variety and fun to assignments.
• How peer-to-peer activities can increase interaction and reduce instructor workload.
• Why it makes sense to replace some manually-graded assignments with auto-graded activities.
• What types of tools can streamline your grading process and ensure consistent application of assessment criteria.

By the end of the seminar, you’ll see how the right technology and Learning Management System tools can reduce your workload. You’ll discover free resources that can complement your current course offerings.

Most importantly, you’ll be able to maintain your current level of instruction while adapting to the constantly changing world of online learning.

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal website for unlimited access by the entire campus community.

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Who Will Benefit:
This seminar is designed for any college or university that is experiencing growth in its online course enrollment, but the strategies shared are applicable to all private and public higher education institutions. Key staff members include:

• Professors
• Instructors
• Instructional designers
• Courseware developers

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

The assignment works like this: students recommend songs, given the topics designated for coverage each day in class. They nominate the song and write a short paper explaining why and how the song relates to the topic for the day. Soper reviews the nominations and selects a song, with the student who nominated the song getting a small number of bonus points. For protection on the legal front, Soper asks students not to download the song. Once he selects the song, Soper pays for the download, which he plays as class opens. The lyrics to the song are projected via a PowerPoint slide so that students can follow the words.

The article contains lots of examples of songs students have nominated and Soper has selected. For example, the course begins with a session on the American Revolution and one of the favorite selections is the Beatles’ song “Revolution.” In the lyrics John Lennon expresses some ambivalence about revolutions. Soper explores with students where that ambivalence comes from and whether any previous revolutionary leaders might have experienced the same feelings. The article includes a number of quotations from students illustrating how the search for songs has made them aware of political science issues they would likely ignore otherwise.

Soper does admit the strategy has costs. Some are those messages it may convey about Soper as a teacher. “Starting class with a recognizable and catchy rock song can establish me in the students’ minds as a glorified talk show host—a sort of political science Oprah Winfrey—who will go to any lengths to keep them engaged with the material.” (p. 366) It’s also a fairly time-consuming endeavor—with nominations to read, a selection to make, the music to download, and the lyrics to acquire. Soper does use some of the same songs each semester, but he likes to let students in the current class make the nominations. This allows selection of songs that have relevance to current events and issues.

Despite the costs associated with using the strategy, Soper lists an impressive array of benefits accrued by it. They start with how the music enables students to connect with political science in ways that are meaningful. It’s also a strategy that adds some energy to the beginning of class. He writes, “It is no accident that music is ubiquitous at sporting events, because it invigorates the crowd and prepares them to participate in the game. Education is not a game, of course, but there is nothing wrong with borrowing a strategy from the sporting world and increasing the students’ initial engagement with a political science class.” (p. 366) He notes as well that the assignment is hugely popular with students. It generates more positive comments on his student ratings than any other aspect of the course.

Is the message here that every teacher should start class with music? No, but using music illustrates the kind of creative approach teachers need when students are passive and not particularly motivated about course content.

Reference: Soper, C. (2010). Rock and roll will never die: Using music to engage students in the study of political science. Political Science & Politics: PS, April.

Excerpted “Music in Political Science.” The Teaching Professor, 24.7 (2010): 4.

The class had three one-hour lectures a week, plus six one-hour sections of recitation. I stopped giving the Friday lecture when I implemented the Front Row format. Two students from each section (a different pair each week and announced on the previous Wednesday) would sit in the front row, and I would hold a recitation-style discussion with them, while the other students watched and listened.

I opted for a fast-paced hour of short question-and-answer items, solving problems, and short questions about units or values for constants with the goal of trying to touch on as many topics from the past two lectures as possible. Questions posed on Fridays were projected onto a side screen. Sometimes we did work on larger problems, but we always broke them down into small, manageable parts. I expected the entire class to work on the problems posed, but those in the front row had to go to the board and present the solution.

If students had questions about how to approach a problem, they could ask me, and at times we worked together to find an answer. I used this interaction to clarify what students were expected to understand and do, and they reported that the activity did make clear what I expected in answers. Some weeks, I used Fridays to explore new material, reformatted from a lecture format to a discovery mode. I would walk students through new information via some well-chosen examples, gradually providing new information for them to use.

The recitation representatives casually competed with each other during the process. Throughout the hour, a teaching assistant sat to one side, “keeping score,” which enhanced the inter-recitation rivalry. The TAs told me that more students had questions during recitation as they anticipated upcoming Front Row challenges.

I chose to use two students from each section so that they could work together and no individual would be singled out for an answer. Each pair of students had a team name written on a clipboard, and when they were ready to answer a question or solve a problem, they would raise their clipboard. On occasion, when no one in the front row could provide an answer, any class member could offer one.

Although the front row and I engaged in a lively exchange on Fridays, the strategy could make it easy to lose the rest of the class. To avoid this, a problem covered on a Front Row Friday frequently appeared on a quiz or exam or in homework. This tactic made it clear that Friday was not a day off for the rest of the class, and it did positively influence both attention and attendance on Fridays. In evaluation feedback, students not in the front row also reported that they benefited from seeing what their peers could and couldn’t do and from what they knew and didn’t know.

Before each Friday session, I made a seating chart of the front row, so that I could call on everyone by name. I also asked those in the front row to be there five minutes early. This helped me to learn most of the students’ names. I also asked them to stay for five minutes after class, to get their input on how the session went.

Coupling the approach with my commitment to a “teach less/learn more” philosophy, I found that I could still cover most of the material that I did in the traditional lecture format, sometimes faster. I knew this format was working when students started asking to participate in The Front Row. At the end of the class, on class evaluations, there were significant increases in their evaluation scores of me as an instructor, notably, “The instructor showed concern for the students” and “The instructor seemed to enjoy teaching the course.” Evaluations also provided the opportunity for written feedback. Several students wrote, “I love Fridays!” One wrote, “This class was designed in a very tricky way—I managed to learn a lot about a relatively difficult subject, yet it was fairly painless. Tricky!” As for me, I have to be honest and say I found Fridays exhilarating.

John Allison is a professor and the director of forensic chemistry at the College of New Jersey.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 24.2 (2010): 1.

• The course covers too much material, sacrificing depth for breadth.
• It’s taught as if student were majors and those enrolled in this course are not.
• It’s taught with approaches that are “generally ineffective” at encouraging the understanding of basic concepts.
• The course design is “inconsistent” with the research on how students learn.
• The teaching methods used are not usually “pedagogically sound.”
• It fails to engage student interest. They emerge from the course less satisfied with chemistry than when they began.

That’s a pretty scathing indictment and I’m not sharing it so that we can finger point at chemistry. Hats off to those in chemistry who care enough about their basic course to publicly name its problems. Moreover, I think a similar critique could be leveled against basic courses offered by many departments and not just those in science either.

The editorial shares a bit of history about the general chemistry course. It was developed in the sixties and has basically stayed the same. A noted chemical educator is quoted as observing that the current version of the course has been taught for so long, the reasons justifying inclusion of particular topics have been forgotten. What’s been added to the course is more content as illustrated by texts developed for it. “The texts of today are larger and more encyclopedic than ever, so that the typical course often appears to the novice as a disjointed, brisk trot through a host of unrelated topics.” (p. 230)

What’s particularly nettlesome is the failure of various efforts to reform this and other introductory level science courses. There have been any number of nationally funded, highly visible efforts to alter the content and delivery of these courses. Their success at changing what occurs in courses outside the funded project has been limited.

Of course, there are exceptions—many of those courses are taught by faculty who read blogs like this and are always looking to improve the learning experience. But in general, overall, would you agree that these introductory, service courses are some of the most poorly taught in the curriculum? And that really shouldn’t be a big surprise. First, there is no academic glory associated with this teaching assignment. In fact, it is often the newest (and least experienced) member in a department who gets “stuck” with the big introductory course, even though these courses happen to be among the most difficult in the curriculum to teach. Students don’t want to take courses with content they don’t think will be interesting or relevant. Most of these courses are packed with content and students. Often there are so many students them, teachers cannot possibly get to know all of them. The size also makes it more difficult for teachers to use strategies that engage and involve students. We’re not talking about a recipe for success here.

However, this is not a hopeless situation. There are many teachers who’ve found ways to make these courses vibrant learning experiences for students. It seems to me that what these courses need are advocates—not just folks willing to teach them, but faculty committed to their goals and willing to speak on their behalf. These courses are required for good reason. When I took one of these chemistry courses a few years back I finally understood why global warming, acid rain and fossil fuel depletion were such big problems. I can now discuss them knowledgeably and better sort out what’s fact and fiction.

I can’t think of one of these introductory level courses that doesn’t contain content relevant to individuals and the communities to which they belong. With a renewed sense of their importance, we could critique what we’re doing and use the many models of creatively designed introductory courses to find our way to solutions. We need to start teaching these courses more cognizant that the quality of life in the future depends on them. Or is that too much of a stretch?

We’re curious: If you teach a large introductory course, how do you make it a vibrant learning experience? How do you help your students find relevance in your content? Please share your strategies in the comment area below.

Reference: Cooper, M. (2010). The case for the reform of the undergraduate general chemistry curriculum. Journal of Chemical Education, 87 (3), 230-231.

Unfortunately, class sizes are increasing almost everywhere, and that means the number of faculty struggling with the challenges of large courses is growing, too. But if there’s a silver lining to that big, dark cloud of bad news it’s the increased coverage of the topic in the pedagogical literature. Let me highlight several good resources.

• The redesign of an introductory biology course, described by the authors as “problematic” and enrolling between 170-190 students, included the reordering of content, regular use of in-class group problem solving and some student-centered strategies like a revised approach to quizzing. “Our positive results illustrate how changing the instructional design of a course, without wholesale changes to course content, can lead to improved student attitudes and performance.”

  Armbruster, P., Patel, M., Johnson, E., and Weiss, M. (2009). Active learning and student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in introductory biology. Cell Biology Education, 8 (Fall), 203-213.

• Problem-Based Learning, Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning and Peer-Led Team Learning are three group models developed on the science side of the academic house but are now used in many disciplines. This article describes each, and identifies relevant resources and references research on their efficacy. The models are adaptable and offer a range of ways of engaging students with each other in substantive learning activities.

  Eberlein, T., Kampmeier, J., Minderhout, V., Moog, R. S., Platt, T., Varma-Nelson, P., and White, H. G. (2008) Pedagogies of engagement in science: A comparison of PBL, POGIL, and PLTL.” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 36 (4), 262-273.

Here’s a couple of excellent books:

• Stanley and Porter’s book is a classic and one that anyone who teaches a large class ought to own. It’s an anthology with an opening section that addresses all the issues involved in planning, delivering and assessing learning in a large class. It even includes a readable summary of the research. Would it surprise you to learn that one of the earliest studies of college teaching was an analysis of the effects of class size on learning? The second section contains chapters written by faculty in 17 different disciplines, all with large courses. They offer a wealth of ideas and information.

  Stanley, C. A. and Porter, M. E. (2002). Engaging Large Classes: Strategies and Techniques for College Faculty.

• Heppner’s book also addresses a variety of issues, contains practical advice and a range of alternatives to lecturing. He offers wisdom accumulated across 38 years of teaching large classes.

  Heppner, F. (2007). Teaching Large College Classes: A Guidebook for Instructors with Multitudes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Regular readers of this blog and The Teaching Professor newsletter know that I frequently direct faculty to reading in disciplines other than their own because I believe many instructional strategies are transferrable. The best way to decide if you think that’s true is by taking a look some of these resources. In this case I’d even propose that most of these large course strategies are great ideas for smaller classes as well.

Now, do the strategies need to be adapted so that they work with the kind of content you teach, with the peculiarities of your teaching style and the learning needs of your students? Absolutely! But what faculty who teach large classes often don’t have are ideas and the literature contains a plethora of them—the effectiveness of many verified by research. The tip of the iceberg described here is supported by a huge collection of ideas and information not mentioned here.

I encourage you to use the comment box to share your best ideas and favorite references for teaching large classes.

Here’s how the groups have been used in 10 sections of courses that enroll between 60 and 150 students: During the first week of the course, students are randomly placed into small discussion groups with five to 10 other students. Throughout the semester, each group will work on four to six problem-based learning (PBL) cases. Like all good PBL cases, the ones used in this research present intriguing but ill-defined problems. They cannot be solved without students finding more information.

The example included in the article describes the “suspicious” death of a professor who may have been a victim of foul play or may have succumbed to an undiagnosed metabolic problem. Students work on each case for about two to three weeks. Online, in their groups, they propose hypotheses about what’s happened, and they may request data from the instructor or pull information from texts. While students are working on each case, they are assigned readings that contain relevant information, and they hear material in class presentations that is also pertinent. However, the solution is not provided in the texts or in class. To prevent groups from sharing solutions with each other (across semesters or within them), faculty use similar cases but with different data and solutions.

What’s most interesting and useful about the approach described in the article is the method these authors have developed for assessing student work in these groups. Performance in the case discussion counts for between 10 percent and 15 percent of the course grade. The scientific content of each student’s posting is given a numerical rating from one to 10. The rubric used to make these determinations is included in the article.

Typically, individual scores start out low, but as students acquire information, start asking the right questions, and get the data they need, they are able to hone their postings and the point totals start to rise. The highest contribution score achieved within the group as a whole becomes the final group grade. Individual student grades are assigned relative to the group grade, based on both participation and quality of individual contributions. The grading mechanism is explained in detail on pp. 255-256 of the article, including how much time is involved and how senior students can be trained to help with the grading.

The grading system allows faculty to track the problem-solving abilities of students throughout the course and sometimes even two courses (as two of these courses were part of a sequence). They found that this activity did improve the problem-solving abilities of many students, although they also found a group of students who consistently applied the same ineffective strategies. Those students did not improve without faculty intervention. The beauty of the approach, though, is that it allows faculty to work with those students who most need help.

Generally, students responded to this activity positively. Sixty percent found that the case studies helped them understand biochemical concepts and that the experience of working with other students was enjoyable. About 10 percent of the students responded negatively to the experience. “By far the most common negative comment was that students did not trust their peers to contribute correct biochemistry content.” (p. 258) The solutions students developed to the problems showed that this fear was unfounded.

The authors see two main benefits with this approach. First, it provides students “with a forum to discuss and apply their biochemistry learning.” (p. 261) Opportunities like this are not often a part of large courses. Second, the activity gives instructors the opportunity to analyze individual students’ problem-solving strategies. “The data obtained in the online discussions allow a far more precise and constructive method of student assessment than is possible in the face-to-face setting.” (p. 261)

Reference: Anderson, W. L., Mitchell, S. M., and Osgood, M. P. (2008). Gauging the gaps in student problem-solving skills: Assessing individual and group use of problem-solving strategies using online discussions. Cell Biology Education, 7, Summer, 254-262.

Excerpted from “Developing Problem-Solving Skills via Online Discussions.” The Teaching Professor, 23.10 (2009): 6.

Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching in Large Classes

Creating a learner-centered classroom involves more than simply engaging students. It is a philosophical shift in how the instructor approaches the class. And while learner-centered teaching has become increasingly popular in higher education, implementing student-centered teaching in a large classroom with hundreds of students can seem daunting.

The “learner-centered” approach to teaching puts students front and center, allowing their decisions to shape the experience, the content, their involvement, and ultimately, the depth of their personal learning outcomes.

Take the guesswork out of lesson plans and classroom time with this step-by-step guide to integrating learner-centered strategies into existing courses. This 75-minute audio online seminar will help you visualize learner-centered teaching through real-world case studies and proven techniques. Learn how to shift the balance of power to your students, and enjoy a better classroom environment and increased student success.

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Topics covered in this seminar include:

• Making gradual and effective learner centered adjustments to any course
• Refining the grading process to allow students to flourish and achieve
• Evaluating student feedback
• Assessing the effectiveness and impact of learner centered teaching

Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching in Large Classes is presented by Dr. Carol Hurney, executive director at James Madison University’s Center for Faculty Innovation.

A great seminar for all faculty, administrators, and support staff:

• Instructors
• Professors
• Department Heads
• Deans
• Faculty Development Staff

Order this seminar

The CAs are drawn from a competitive pool of applicants at the beginning of the term. They must be top academic students, seniors, and interested in helping first-year students develop an understanding of our discipline. They go through a competitive application and interview process. Usually I have around 15 applicants for two positions. After selection, the new CAs sign a contract that contains a list of roles and responsibilities. I expect CAs to respect the objectives of the course and positively reflect on the faculty, department, and institution when dealing with students.

The CAs work 50 hours over a 13-week term and are paid $10 per hour, roughly one-third of what their TA counterparts are making. They are provided with all the reading materials for the course and attend class on the days when I have students working in groups. I let them know in advance what tasks the students will face on those days. Along with the TAs and me, they circulate among the students, keeping them focused, helping them with their work, and asking and answering questions about the course materials. They are invited to participate in the plenary discussion during the final 15 minutes of class. Much of their work is completed behind the scenes. They assess and record the results of the group work and random reading quizzes.

My use of CAs significantly improves the instructor-student ratio, which is especially important on days when students work in groups. Students in the class accept the presence of the CAs without question. To first-year students, seniors look quite advanced, and they give beginning students a glimmer of hope about the kind of students they may one day become. The CAs have also taken a number of relevant courses in the department, and their appraisal of these courses sometimes seems more honest to students. In contrast, the instructor and TAs are removed from the students by age, education, and vocation, making it more difficult for them to relate to student concerns.

The CAs free up valuable hours of senior course staff time; while the instructor and TAs remain responsible for delivering lectures and doing the bulk of the grading for the course, the administrative work of the CAs makes it considerably easier to accomplish these tasks. CAs also provide useful feedback to me about how well the material is getting through, which has encouraged me to change the pace, order, and content of the lectures. I appreciate getting the feedback during the course as opposed to getting ratings results after the course has concluded.

There have been some challenges. Because nobody else in my department uses CAs, securing funding, modest as it is, is an annual hat-in-hand ritual that depends entirely on the current budget and the department head’s support. When I began this program a few years ago, there was excited talk of developing a senior seminar on university teaching, in which students in their final year would work as CAs; read literature on pedagogy; discuss what they learned with one another in weekly meetings; and receive course credit based on written work, participation, and feedback from the instructors with whom they worked. This had the advantage of making the CAs far more cost effective while also giving the program some official sanction and pedagogical merit. Within a few months, the idea fizzled, as so many ideas do.

Some colleagues see the program as pragmatic and innovative, while others have expressed concern that it might reduce the quality of education in the department. Having seen the benefits of using CAs firsthand, I am convinced that the program has the potential to ease strained teaching and financial resources, provide senior students with valuable and relevant experience, and offer beginning students a key link to the senior course staff.

Dr. Ken MacMillan is an asociate professor at the University of Calgary.

Reprinted from The Benefits of Using Classroom Assistants, The Teaching Professor, February 2009.

The following tips from Susan Ko, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Maryland University College, will help you maintain course quality and interaction in large online courses:

• Use study groups for some of the asynchronous discussions. Have students in groups of up to 10 members conduct threaded discussions. Let them know that you will be observing these discussions, and have them post a summary of their discussions to a classwide discussion area.
• Divide topics into manageable units. Keep the number of main topic threads to a minimum in a single discussion to avoid confusion. You can create a new topic or even a new discussion if needed. But be sure to explain how these discussions are organized, so students can follow them easily.

• Explain the protocol for responding to a post. Make sure that students know to accurately title each posting to correctly reflect the subject they wish to discuss. Also, have students quote the section of a previous posting to which they are responding.
• Reconsider posting requirements. In a small class, you may require students to respond to an initial prompt and then to the posts of two classmates. In a larger class, this amount of posts may not be appropriate.
• Don’t feel obligated to respond to every student. You may be able to combine responses to more than one question or encourage students to respond to their classmates’ questions.
• Use group assignments. Turn an individual assignment into a group assignment, and grade both the individual contribution and the whole project.
• Use peer review. Create a rubric for students to assess one another’s work.
• Use a detailed grading rubric to provide feedback. This will allow you to give students a clear explanation of what their grades mean, without having to add commentary.

Reference

Ko, Susan. “Tips for Managing Larger Online Classes.” DE Oracle @ UMUC. November/December 2007.

Accessed March 19, 2008 from here.

Reprinted from Tips From the Pros: Managing a Large Online Class, Online Classroom, April 2008.

If you teach large classes, either online or face-to-face, you’ll find more tips like these in our free report: Strategies for Teaching Large Classes. Go here to download it.

How do you manage your large classes? Share your tips in the “comment” box below.

He confesses to having made “every horrendous teaching error you can make” and explains how these mistakes led to his book: “Once I passed my 50th semester of introductory biology, I began to regret that my profession doesn’t have a real apprenticeship for teaching—why should every young professor facing his or her first big class…have to make the same mistakes I did and, perhaps more important, why should they not know that everybody…has the same problems? I couldn’t think of a good reason, and that’s why I decided to write this book.” (p. x)

The book covers a host of topics related to large classes, including testing, grading, managing TAs and graders, using media effectively, and devising activities to use when the classroom is an auditorium. In the first chapter, he describes the large-class teacher as a course manager and then suggests how that should affect the teacher’s thinking about the large class. Here’s a sample of Heppner’s suggestions for teaching large classes:

Large courses can’t be ad-libbed. Heppner thinks it’s a whole lot easier to “wing it” in a small class. In a large class, saying one thing and then deciding on a change can be a logistical nightmare. In large classes, instructor preparation is critical.

A bad policy is better than an inconsistent policy. All students, but especially beginning students, need consistency in courses. It helps them manage the anxiety that college-level learning experiences provoke. The masses quickly become negative if an instructor starts fussing around with a course policy, especially if that policy pertains to evaluation or grading criteria. Things go much more smoothly if changes are implemented between semesters rather than midsemester.

Put it in writing. This bit of advice relates to the previous suggestion. It makes students accountable even if they weren’t in class when something was discussed, even though “a classmate said” that they only needed three references, even though a student is “sure” the teacher said chapter five would not be on the exam. Besides giving the instructor a way to deal with the plethora of student excuses, this practice helps the instructor because it forces decisions about policies and procedures before problems emerge.

Heppner ends his book with this observation, “Teaching large classes well is the most difficult and challenging task in academia and offers the fewest tangible rewards. Knowing, however, that you have a real, positive, and inspiring effect on hundreds or thousands of young people will more than compensate for the liabilities. Do it right, and you will have former students all over the world who will be grateful to you for the wisdom you gave them.” (p. 150)

Reference: Heppner, F. Teaching the Large College Class: A Guidebook for Instructors with Multitudes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007.

Excerpted from A Guidebook for Instructors with Multitudes, The Teaching Professor, December, 2007.

The author acknowledges that active learning is a movement and describes how faculty will experience it—through workshops that address how to incorporate writing and discussion in large classes. “You’ll also be exposed to vast numbers of books and articles promoting active learning, including an international journal with the straightforward title of Active Learning in Higher Education. The movement has thus acquired academic and professional legitimacy.” (p. 24)

Recognizing the origins of active learning in theories of education like that proposed by Dewey, the author notes, “There are some good ideas among the reams of articles and books about active learning.” (p. 26). But he contends active learning is a smoke screen designed to cover deeper problems in higher education—like class size, where if active learning principles are used, they can make the large class seem smaller and therefore make large classes more likely.

The logic is convoluted, and the case supporting a connection between increasing class sizes and the interest in active learning rests more on correlation than causation. It is not substantiated with evidence. Even more distressing is the author’s ignorance of the research that justifies approaches that engage students in learning. The author makes one reference (two studies) and then objects to educational jargon. Would you presume to read a research journal in physics, sociology—name a discipline—and then decry the author’s use of language?

I know; subscribers to a newsletter like this don’t need to be persuaded. But we do need to be reminded that much of what we believe and take for granted is still up for grabs in other sectors of the academy. Reading an article like this behooves and prepares us. You never know when you might be called upon to answer objections like these.

Reference: Mattson, K. (2005, January–February). Why “active learning” can be perilous to the profession. Academe, 23–26.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, March 2006.

I have found that paired collaboration consistently produces better results than small group discussions do. Having students engage a question in a one-on-one exchange encourages stronger participation by both parties. Rarely do small groups generate equal contributions to the dialogue or problem solving, while pairing creates an intellectual partnership that encourages teamwork.

After a period of time, usually 15 or 20 minutes, each pair reports its findings to the larger group. Even if some of the pairs end up answering similar questions, they rarely have similar answers. And, if by chance each member of the pair has radically different interpretations, they are invited to share their individual responses. The exercise can actually be helpful in illustrating the variety of critical readings that one literary work can engender. And, depending on the direction that discussion takes, it can provide the foundation for discourse on a number of theoretical approaches to the text.

Experience has convinced me that the benefits of pairing are numerous. Working together provides an opportunity for problem-solving on a more intimate scale than small groups allow. Students tend to form an alliance as they work together to compare—and share—their interpretations. They are more likely to come to class prepared to engage the reading, as they know that they might be called upon at any time to share their knowledge. Finally, a paired model not only allows shy students to find—and use—their voices, but it also teaches mutual respect and cooperation. Paired collaboration is a small adjustment to the typical group discussion that can yield big results.

Denise D. Knight, PhD. is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at State University of New York College at Cortland.

Excerpted from Pairing vs. Small Groups: A Model for Analytical Collaboration, The Teaching Professor, February 2007.

Don’t overuse text. “If you can replace text with an image, replace it with an image. If you can communicate effectively with a movie, communicate with a movie. I tend to see a lot of online textbooks used, but really, if you don’t provide additional interaction, they might as well be a standard textbook.”

Anticipate students’ questions. “I knew from earlier endeavors in online teaching that the types of questions I was likely to get would be very predictable. So the design comes in doing simple things like confirming that you received a submission. You need to give feedback that says something like, ‘Thank you for the submission.’ (This can be automated in most course management systems.)”

Use the announcement page. “I do it in a silly way. My image might be upside down. On Halloween, it’s a negative image of me. One week I’ve got green hair. Tell them what the expectations are that week, what you’re covering, and how it fits [with the rest of the course].”

Manage expectations. “If it’s going to take a week to do the grading, tell them it’s going to take a week and a half.”

Provide regular feedback. “Students want to feel that they’re progressing, and how you communicate that to them is quite important,” Mathews says. Students in Mathews’ course receive three grades in a typical week, more than in most courses. He feels the frequency of feedback is important. Also important is the students’ progress in relation to the other students, so Mathews regularly ranks students and provides them with estimated final grades based on current performance.

Teach students to be successful online learners. Much of Mathews’ communication with students is related to course management (grades, technical issues, team processes, etc.). “I want to teach them how to be successful in teams. I want to teach them how to be successful online. Down the list is teaching them my material. It used to be the other way around. Now, it’s much more that I’m trying to promote doing well in the medium and understanding the medium as opposed to understanding the content. It’s because, as a group of educators, we’re not teaching students how to be successful online. It should be a universal goal of the university not only to teach students subject matter but also to teach them how to be successful in the online medium. It’s not something you can get in one class.”

Excerpted from Tips from the Pros: Managing a High-Enrollment Course, Online Classroom, April 2006

Faculty authors of the study referenced below had students in their large classes tell them that discussion was a waste of time. “I’m not going to be tested on what other people in class think!” (p. 125) This kind of resistance can quickly dampen faculty commitments to active learning strategies. The authors honestly reported that they wondered if it might just be easier to return to straight lectures.

Large Classes and Passive Learning
A number of interesting results emerged from the data. For example, the researchers compared the answers given by students in their first semester of college with those of students who had already taken large courses at that institution. They found that those students who had already experienced large courses “were more likely to prefer and expect passive-learning approaches in large courses.” (p. 130)

More troubling, experienced students were less committed to their large courses. Researchers support this conclusion by pointing to data indicating that these students more strongly preferred lectures, were more likely to skip large classes, wanted to be told what to do in large classes, didn’t want to work in groups, were less willing to do ungraded work, and had less interest in large classes that offered a mix of classroom activities.

Both new and experienced students expected that lower skill levels would be important to success in large courses. For example, more than 90 percent in both groups expected that they would be given multiple choice exams in large courses. Very few expected that they would have to write essay exams.

If large classes challenge students less and if students resist being involved in them, then the authors worry about those beginning students who take mostly large courses. Given all the research that establishes a connection between involvement and retention, they question the viability of making all introductory courses large courses, wondering if class size might not contribute to students’ decisions to drop out.

Their findings helped to explain the student responses they were seeing in large courses. The findings also rejuvenated their commitment to use strategies that involved students in these courses. In addition to a number of other helpful strategies the researchers are now using successfully in their large classes, they conclude with an important reminder: “Not all students are prepared for active learning experiences. … Therefore, we are very open at the beginning and throughout the semester in discussing our expectations for the course, the teaching, learning, and assessment methods planned for the course, and how to be successful in the course.” (p. 132)

Reference: Messineo, M., Gaither, G., Bott, J., and Ritchey, K. (2007). Inexperienced versus experienced students’ expectations for active learning in large classes. College Teaching, 55 (3), 125-133.

Excerpted from The Teaching Professor, November, 2007.

Maryellen Weimer is the editor of The Teaching Professor, and a Penn State Professor Emeritus of Teaching and Learning.

Strategies for Teaching Large Classes

Large classes create enormous challenges for the faculty who teach them. From reducing anonymity to incorporating active learning activities, there’s a reason why large classes are considered the most difficult to teach … so much of what we know about effective instruction is all that much more difficult with a large class. If teaching large classes is a part of your life, you’ll want to download our new Special Report: Strategies for Teaching Large Classes.

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Sometimes you look out from the podium at the sea of faces looking back at you, and you wonder: Is this a class or a rock concert?

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• Large Courses and Student Expectations
• Tips for Using Questioning in Large Classes
• Virtual Teams With Fluid Membership
• Actively Engaging Large Classes in the Sciences
• What Do Students Think About Active learning?
• Large Classes: Approaches Taken in One Discipline
• Strategies for Large Classes

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