How do instructors help students to learn in large classes? Here is a list of ideas generated by UC Davis faculty members:
- Coverage of material shouldn’t be your only goal during a class session.
- PowerPoint can be the problem as often as it can be the solution.
- You don’t have to be an entertainer. A good way to keep their attention is through the use of variety.
- Help them take notes. Give them some signposts.
- On getting some discussion going during class:
- Select some students (say, 4-5 of them in a given row) and alert them in advance that you’ll have a couple of questions for them.
- Prepare your discussion questions in advance. Use at least as much care here as you would in preparing your lecture material.
- Start with safe questions, not ones that they expect will have right or wrong answers.
- Do this every class session.
- Look at your students. Listen to them. Convey respect.
This information was compiled by John Vohs, Department of Comunication, UC Davis, from ideas generated at “Humanizing Large Classes,” a faculty round table.
For more on teaching large classes, watch the video of Don Strong’s Faculty Mentoring Faculty Program talk “Large Lecture Classes: Struggling into the Future.”