Teaching Large Lecture Classes
As faculty members, we all want to help our students learn material, express their ideas
well, and hone their critical thinking skills. Teaching can be a rewarding experience in a
small class where we have the luxury of working closely with individual students. But, in
a class of over 100 students, effective teaching poses certain challenges. Some of these
challenges include: comportment, participation, attendance, creativity and critical
thinking.
Our Faculty Learning Community has endeavored to articulate the challenges endemic to
large lecture classes and to recommend strategies for meeting each of these challenges.
1. Student Comportment
Some students inadvertently disrupt the class by holding private conversations during a
lecture, entering and leaving the classroom at will, text-messaging and surfing the
internet. The perpetrators do not consider this inappropriate or disrespectful behavior.
It is crucial for us to examine the students’ perspective. Renowned anthropologist
Conrad Kottak describes contemporary students as teleconditioned. That is, their social
and academic behavior has been cultivated by years of watching television and
interacting with others via computer screen. Thus, they feel unobserved. They expect a
good instructor to be not only a teacher but also an entertainer.
Many of the students do not understand what is expected of them in a university
classroom or even how to address the professor or write a proper email. Part of educating
is teaching them what counts as acceptable behavior in the professional world. The
professor should explain the rules on the first day of class. One needs to emphasize to the
students that rules of comportment are not meant to be punitive, but instead to foster a
respectful learning environment.
Recommended Practices:
1. The syllabus should be implicitly understood to be a contract between the
instructor and the student.
2. The syllabus should include a section on expected behavior:
a) In the classroom
b) Communication protocol with the instructor
c) Communication protocol with fellow students
Syllabus Statement Example:
Classroom Behavior
Disruptive and discourteous behavior (such as talking, reading a newspaper,
listening to a radio/CD player/iPod, coming in late or leaving class early in a
conspicuous manner, talking or text messaging on a cellular phone, etc.) will
NOT be tolerated. Any student who exhibits such inappropriate behavior and
is disruptive during class time will be warned once verbally. For subsequent
misbehavior, the student will be told to leave the classroom and will be
punished by a reduction in the student=s grade. This will be strictly enforced.
3. Recommended Consequences:
a) Ask the disruptive student their name
b) Take away their CRS (classroom response system) points
c) Ask the student to leave the classroom
d) Take away their cell phone until class is finished
4. Include questions about the syllabus on your quizzes and tests.
5. Important Note: Never assume that information announced in class, even if
announced repeatedly is heard by your students. Announcements in your CMS in
addition to verbal announcements and syllabus statements may help
communication with your students.
2. Attendance
Enforcing and encouraging attendance in a large classroom is important since students
who come to class regularly perform better than students who miss class.
Recommended Practices:
1. Low-impact grading assignments.
Example: short quiz that counts for 1% of a student’s grade.
2. CRS (classroom response system). These systems keep track of attendance by
recording students’ responses to questions.
Example: Earn points for answering all questions asked (right or wrong)
Earn points for answering questions correctly.
3. New Material
Example: Present material that cannot be found in your text or poweroints and
include questions on this material in quizzes/tests
3. Student Participation in the Classroom
Students in large classrooms feel anonymous and part of a crowd. In order to get
them involved in the learning experience we need to give them a sense of identity
in the classroom.
Recommended Practices:
1. Webpages in the CMS (classroom management system)
Example: students each construct their own webpage with pictures and personal
information for the class to view. Great way for the class and the instructor to get
to know one another.
2. Learn Names
Example: Learn the names of as many students as possible.
Ask for the name of those who participate.
3. Small Group Work
Example: Use simulation games
Example: Ask students to discuss an assigned topic
4. Extra Credit
Example: If a student is willing to solve a problem in front of the class, they will
receive extra credit.
4. Critical Thinking and Creativity
We all want our students to learn to think creatively and critically, not merely to
memorize facts. This can be especially difficult in a large classroom setting. As
Plato reminds us, a dialogue can force us to see a problem from new angles and to
think more analytically.
Recommended Practices:
1. Ask questions using:
a) CRS (classroom response system)
Example: Start the class with a question from a current event or previous class
subject. Use the CRS to poll students on their opinions.
b) Discussion Board within CMS (classroom management system)
To initiate a discussion or get candid student response to class material, use a
CMS Discussion Board.
Example:
In Music Appreciation, students watched video presentations of two operas:
Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Bizet’s Carmen. Each discussion forum included
targeted threads that were used to assess student understanding of the individual
operas, and the forums also included comparison questions, i.e. Gender Reversal:
Were Don Giovanni and Carmen really the same character represented in
opposite genders?
Student post:
“Although they both use manipulative means in achieving what they want, they
are not the same. The reason they are different is because they have different
motives for their use of manipulation. Carmen is obsessed with making people
fall in love with her, while Don Giovanni is obsessed with sex. Seduction for love
and seduction for sex are completely different.”
Students were required to respond to each other and encouraged to continue
exploring or creating new threads. Most threads posted had 10-20 student
responses. The professor was able to view a wide range of candid student view
points, and students were able to present thoughtful and articulate responses to
several discussion points. Students also created interesting new threads, i.e.
Would the characters Don Giovanni and Carmen go out with each other? At first,
the question seems frivolous, but the students who contributed to that thread
demonstrated thorough knowledge of character motivation and were able to
support their examples by providing descriptions of a specific scene and music
that proved their points.