Do Teachers Read Essays on Large Classes

Teaching Large Classes

Cite this guide: Wilsman, A. (2013). Teaching Large Classes. Vanderbilt University Center for Didactics. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-large-classes/.

Education a large course poses many challenges, both in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, large enrollments can promote student disengagement and feelings of breach, which can erode students' sense of responsibility and pb to behaviors that both reverberate and promote lack of appointment.  Logistics tin can also be a challenge when teaching a big class. How does 1 best manage the daily administration of what can ofttimes feel similar a pocket-sized urban center?

Here, nosotros nowadays strategies to assistance instructors bargain with some of the challenges associated with teaching large classes:

Promoting Educatee Engagement

Promoting Student Date

What causes students to not participate?

While encouraging form participation can be challenging in any class, it can be especially difficult for instructors of large classes. To finer evoke participation in such education contexts, it is helpful to understand the factors that discourage involvement. In the article, "Putting the Participation Puzzle Together," Dr. Maryellen Weimer attempts to uncover precisely what motivates students to be agile participants in the classroom.  Weimer does this past analyzing a contempo report that tests common hypotheses almost the nature of educatee participation. The study found that while a multitude of problems affect student participation levels, a few emerge as particularly important. Kickoff, students' perception of faculty authority can make a substantial departure in determining whether or non students participate. 2d, students' perceptions of the teacher, developed through interactions exterior of the grade, accept a big impact on student participation. Finally, student fears of peer judgment explain why many students choose not to participate.

Kinesthesia Authority: Combatting perceptions of the teacher equally fount of noesis

The effect of faculty dominance requires detail attention. In our frequently freshmen-heavy big classes, many students feel that the instructor is the arbiter of noesis. To these students, the ideas and arguments of the instructor are non meant to be challenged. Certainly, students like this are more probable to sit silently in class and take it all in.  If, as instructors, nosotros hope to avoid this, nosotros must make sure that our courses are content-centered, not instructor-centered. How does i practice this? We can model the kind of questioning inherent in our disciplines and ask students to practice those questioning skills through exercises, in-class and out. Nosotros tin can also be careful to underscore the degree to which knowledge in our fields is contested and constantly evolving.

To permit students to practice the skills they should develop, it can be helpful to break up the form into x-20 minute segments, incorporating a specific question or exercise that requires student participation in each segment. The question or exercise can have several forms.

Think-pair-share – In this unproblematic exercise, the instructor poses a question or problem to the grade. Afterward giving students time to consider their response (recall), the students are asked to partner with another pupil to discuss their responses (pair). Pairs of students can then be asked to study their conclusions and reasoning to the larger grouping, which can be used every bit a starting point to promote discussion in the course as a whole (Angelo and Cross, 1993). This exercise helps promote engagement considering students feel greater responsibility for participation when paired with one other student; lack of participation becomes obvious and problematic. In improver, the inclusion of "think" time and the initial opportunity to talk most a response with a single peer reduces the anxiety some students feel about responding to instructor prompts.

Minute paper – This classroom cess technique (Classroom Assessment Technique Teaching Guide) can also be used to promote student date (Angelo and Cross, 1993). At the end of a form segment, students are asked to spend 1 to 3 minutes writing the main point of the class to that point too as questions that remain. These papers can serve multiple purposes: they tin can exist used by the instructor every bit a formative cess technique; they serve as a tool to promote metacognition, asking students to consider what they exercise and don't understand; they can be used as the basis for small or large group discussion. As with the recall-pair-share technique, the minute paper gives students time to etch and clear their thoughts, increasing their comfort with asking questions or entering give-and-take.

Muddiest point newspaper – This modified version of the infinitesimal paper asks students to articulate the point that is most unclear to them at a given point (Angelo and Cross, 1993). Information technology serves the same functions as has the same potential uses described for the infinitesimal paper.

Clicker questions – Questions that can be presented as multiple option questions are specially amenable to utilize with "clickers," or classroom response systems. All students in the class are asked to choose a response to the question, and the results can exist displayed in real time. If the instructor wishes, student responses can be tracked, either to serve as an attendance measure or as a determinative assessment tool. This approach has the benefit of broad student participation in the mental work of answering the question. In addition, clicker questions can exist used to foster discussion very effectively (Crouch and Mazur, 2001); if a significant fraction of the class answers incorrectly, then student groups can be asked to hash out before re-voting.

When planning these questions or activities, proceed in mind that large classes present advantages as well as special challenges. In these big classes, recollect of students as a diverse homo resources to be drawn upon in pursuit of our learning goals. To assistance ensure that the students serve every bit this resources, information technology is vital that we set the right tone from the beginning. Make it articulate during the first weeks of class that we expect students to question us and interact during course, and introduce questions or exercises that make that interaction both expected and condom.

These approaches are particularly effective when they accept advantage of the opportunity for minor-group work. Studies propose that small-group activities promote educatee mastery of cloth, heighten disquisitional thinking skills, provide rapid feedback for the teacher, and facilitate the evolution of affective dimensions in students, such equally students' sense of self-efficacy and learner empowerment (Cooper and Robinson, 2001).[1] Assigning group members roles (similar facilitator, recorder, divergent thinker, etc.) or distributing a group assessment rubric can keep groups relatively balanced and fair and help ensure participation by all group members.

Teacher demeanor

Student perceptions of the teacher tin be particularly challenging to deal with given that in large classes, it is more difficult to have meaningful exchanges with each and every pupil. However, in that location is much that we can exercise to projection a demeanor that promotes educatee participation.

Make information technology a priority to acquire and use student names. Some instructors apply "equity cards", which are generated from students' pictures (from the class curl). Instructors call on people at random from the card pile. This ensures that the instructor uses students' names, helps ensure a broad base of participation, makes students less likely to undo during class, and can be a helpful tool in learning students' names. Other instructors accomplish the same goals by gathering student ID cards at the get-go of class and choosing students at random to reply questions.

Establish a rapport. At the beginning of each semester, Andy Van Schaack of the HOD section at Vanderbilt asks students to fill out note cards describing some of their interests.  By looking over these notation cards and memorizing student names, Dr. Van Schaack gets to know his students and tries to greet them by proper name and speak with them every bit they enter the classroom.  Such efforts frequently result in a better rapport between professor and student, and as a result, a more engaged classroom.

Be patient and affirmative with students in class and out. These behaviors tin can bolster educatee confidence, and more confident students are much more likely to participate in class. Many students will close downwards in a form when they perceive an instructor as harsh. In such cases, the fear of instructor disapproval becomes more pronounced.

Develop strategies to encourage students to use office hours. Dr. Andy Van Schaack requires students to come across with him in groups of 4 during the get-go few weeks of the semester. He finds that the cursory social interaction (generally, most 5 minutes per student) helps him recollect students' names and makes the students more comfortable with him and a small group of their colleagues.

Peer judgment

Fear of peer judgment is a disincentive for many students, specially in large classes where students fright existence embarrassed in front of dozens or even hundreds of their peers. To all-time deal with student fears of peer judgment, it's critical that instructors promote an environment of trust and common respect from the very beginning of a course. In such an environment, students are more likely to feel rubber to actively participate in course. Try to foster a sense of personal connectedness betwixt students and instructors through grouping and partner activities that help students go ameliorate acquainted. The resulting feelings of cohesiveness are specially valuable considering students who feel that connection are far less probable to go confronting their classroom community's norms. Finally, be certain to remainder educatee voices by not allowing whatever students to dominate discussions and by protecting students from interruption.

All of the approaches described above permit students the opportunity to engage with class questions and challenges anonymously or in modest groups instead of or prior to large form give-and-take. These tools tin can therefore reduce pupil fears and thereby promote participation. In addition, online discussion boards can provide structured opportunities for students who are otherwise too shy to participate in class discussion.

Handling Pupil Grades

Handling Student Grades

Grading in Large Courses:
Common Problems

Large courses come up with grading issues familiar to instructors across a range of disciplines. On the i hand, we don't want to have then many graded assignments that we bog ourselves down with incessant grading. On the other, nosotros exercise want to take enough assessments that we have a fair grading system for our students and ourselves. Is at that place a mode to strike a rest between these two things without relying entirely upon multiple choice exercises? Absolutely.

Rethinking Formative Assessments

In that location are several ways to contain more determinative assessments into our class that do non add significantly to our workload, but give students and instructors the critical feedback that they need. Word-oriented activities in the classroom enable students to practice grade-related skills and demonstrate comprehension of the material, while not requiring formal grading. For these kinds of activities, students can receive valuable verbal (and sometimes written) feedback from professors, TAs, and other students. The incorporation of polling technologies like "clickers" or Tiptop Hat can as well serve to engage students while giving students a sense of how they're doing in the form, and giving instructors an opportunity to assess educatee-learning.  These types of feedback-providing activities are especially valuable in classes in which the start graded assignments are not returned to students for several weeks.

The Value of Group Projects and Papers

What of summative assessments? We will need to grade some homework, papers, and exams, and then how do we best grade 200 students? One choice is to split students into groups.  In a course of 200, organizing our class into l groups of four students to work on weekly homework assignments or papers reduces our grading load by 75% while notwithstanding giving students a hazard to practice their skills and receive feedback. This substantial departure in workload may make collecting homework assignments or additional newspaper assignments feasible in these big classes. Such group piece of work besides has value in promoting the kinds of communication skills that correspond critical learning goals in so many of our classrooms. However, grouping projects too raise dissimilar challenges in cultivating fair and equitable groups that nosotros volition demand to address. To help promote active contribution by all group members, there are a number of tactics that we tin can attempt, such as

• Assigning each member of the grouping a part in the group.
• Building a peer review element into the group work and then students feel accountable to one another.
• Offering minor bonuses on exams for those groups whose members all maintained a certain boilerplate, in order to promote positive interdependence.

Light Grading on Curt Assignments

Another way to build a steadier stream of graded feedback into our courses without making grading a full-fourth dimension task is to maintain a unproblematic grading organization for curt assignments. For instance, we can grade papers on a three-to-five point scale, with specific pieces of information required for each indicate. A cheque/check-minus/check-plus arrangement as well makes our task as a grader quicker and easier while providing feedback to instructor and educatee alike. Information technology'due south of import to realize that we need non course everything on a 100-point scale with copious comments.

The Value of Grading Rubrics

Finally, by utilizing a detailed grading rubric for papers and other assignments, we can streamline the grading process and reduce the need for extensive written comments. Rubrics tin as well obviate issues of inconsistency when nosotros're dealing with more than one TA grader. Effective rubrics tin thus facilitate a faster grading organisation that is also fairer for students.

Newspaper Comments

1 of the most fourth dimension-consuming aspects of grading in whatsoever classroom is providing comments on educatee papers.  How do we provide worthwhile comments to students while protecting our time? There are a few ways to approach this problem. Many professors use shorthand comments on papers and hand dorsum papers with a guide to that shorthand. Indeed, often we make the same comments over and over again on many papers. Rather than repeating those comments in total sentences, a shorthand comment of mayhap a word or acronym, keyed to a guide can salve considerable time for professors. That'south non to say either that all comments should be "cookie-cutter" in this way, but using this technique for half of one's written comments can shave hours off the grading process. For more information on such shorthand paper feedback, please come across a recent Professor Pedagogy post, entitled, "A Mountain of Grading," which discusses a CFT workshop from August 21^st, 2012, "Effective and Efficient Grading," led by Assistant Managing director Nancy Chick, and Graduate Teaching Fellow Beth Koontz.

Robo-graded homework

It can besides be valuable to have advantage of automated online homework services. Some examples:

The publishing company Pearson offers Mastering Biological science, an online, robo-graded homework and testing system that includes multiple option questions that are coded to Bloom'southward taxonomy and normed to nationwide answers as well every bit ordering and sorting activities, several of which are associated with elaborate and informative animations. In addition, the organisation includes Socratic questions and hints to assistance students recall through processes they are misunderstanding likewise as opportunities for multiple trials at difficult concepts. The company offers similar programs for a diversity of disciplines, including

• Mastering A&P
• Mastering Astronomy
• Mastering Chemistry
• Mastering Engineering
• Mastering Genetics
• Mastering Geography
• Mastering Microbiology
• Mastering Physics

A series of case studies on the utility of the system can exist found here.

Many science textbook publishers offer like systems; instructors should consider these systems when choosing a textbook.

• Sapling Learning is a textbook-independent, interactive homework and assessment system that can be used in conjunction with classes in
  • Full general chemistry
  • Organic chemistry
  • Biochemistry
  • Belittling chemistry
  • Chemical technology
  • Introductory physics
  • Economics

ALEKS is a textbook-contained cess and learning system that relies upon bogus intelligence techniques to assess students' agreement of key form concepts and track them to learning activities that help motion their understanding forwards. Built on the principle of hierarchical concept organization in chemistry and math, the system asks students diagnostic questions to locate their areas of mastery and then tailors subsequent steps to build on existing knowledge.

This list, while far from exhaustive, is intended to suggest starting points for online tools that may improve learning in large classes.

Decision

Ultimately, we practise not need to cull between superficial or minimal grading and a grading organization that leaves us and our TAs overwhelmed. With the right strategies and techniques, we can both requite our students frequent feedback, graded and ungraded, while still maintaining some semblance of a social life. For more than information on grading, please see our didactics guide entitled, "Grading Student Work."

Working with Teaching Assistants

Working with Didactics Assistants

Another common challenge for instructors pedagogy large classes is the management of graduate instruction administration. These teaching administration are oftentimes tasked with grading in large classes, simply they come up to that activity with vastly different conceptions of what effective grading looks like and how 1 can grade effectively in a reasonable amount of time. Too, didactics assistants come to our classes with dissimilar instruction skill sets and life experiences.  Some of them are mature, effective teachers, while others are preparing to teach their outset course.  In our big classes, these issues are often amplified by the large number of TAs that nosotros may require.  How practise we ensure that our TAs are all on the same folio and doing their jobs well?

Grading

One common undergraduate complaint in large classes is with regard to inconsistency in grading.  Most instructors will recognize the refrain, "My TA is an unfair grader! Tin can I change sections?" Indeed, it can be frustrating for undergraduates who believe that they are the victim of the "tough grader," and are receiving worse grades than their friends despite handing in comparable work. So how exercise we ensure consistency and mitigate undergraduate charges of unfairness?

Take regular grading meetings! The best style to promote grading consistency among our TAs is to meet every bit a group soon after collecting an exam or paper. If one is grading essays, place and photocopy an exemplary essay, a few mediocre essays, and a poor essay and distribute these essays to each fellow member of the group. Prior to the meeting, have each TA grade and comment upon these essays. At the meeting, go through each essay one-past-one. Ask each person what grade they gave to each essay and why.  Inquire them about the best and worst aspects of each piece of writing. Such a meeting provides a wonderful opportunity for our graders, especially our inexperienced graders, to think about how they're approaching their grading. Information technology can serve to calibrate expectations for the exam or paper. The meeting can likewise serve equally a forum for us to explain our expectations for the exams or papers. It is unfair to assume that our TAs will simply know what we're looking for on any given exam question or paper topic.

Utilise grading rubrics. A carefully designed grading rubric can both minimize the corporeality of time spent grading, an important consideration in large classes, and serve as a common standard for our TAs. We tin can even enlist TA support in amalgam a grading rubric. Such an exercise can be valuable to TAs considering it facilitates the grading process, but it besides gives them an opportunity to play a major role in educatee cess, a valuable feel for those TAs who hope to teach courses of their own at some future fourth dimension. It also gives u.s.a. a new and unique perspective on form exams, papers, and assignments that may ultimately enrich the class.

Dissever upwards grading sections. We can better ensure consistency by assigning unlike grading sections to dissimilar TAs. This is more than challenging with essays, merely is a common approach for test-grading.  What this technique entails specifically depends on the makeup of our test, but for example, perhaps ane TA grades the brusque-reply section, a second TA grades the outset essay, and a third TA grades the second essay.  While there still may be some inconsistency in the "harshness" of grading betwixt sections, with this method, students tin can hardly contend that their particular grader is tougher: anybody's exam is graded by the same graders!

Handling Class Complaints

In nearly classes, big or small-scale, course complaints are inevitable. However, the issue can get more than pronounced when a couple of upset students becomes a dozen or more. How can we all-time deal with grading complaints?

Have a formalized organisation in place. Instructors of big classes approach grade complaints in a diversity of means. Some insist that undergraduates come directly to them with their concerns. Others suggest that undergraduates speak to their TAs first before consulting the professor. Even so others requite full authority to their TAs to handle all form complaints. The of import thing is that we have a formalized system, preferably outlined in our syllabus. Students should know what is expected of them, and what their options are if they experience that they accept been graded unfairly. Tell students upfront what the protocol volition be.

Require complaints to be written out and submitted. One mutual technique to avoid frivolous grade complaints is requiring a written explanation of the complaint at an early stage in our protocol. Oftentimes, upon starting this piece of writing, undergraduates with a visceral reaction to a bad grade will see that the grade was deserved. By requiring this piece of writing, we're also forcing students to face up the written comments on their exam or paper. Sometimes, students simply come across the bad mark and seek out the instructor, rather than reading and mulling over grader comments.

Institute a 24-hour rule. Some other manner to ensure that students are carefully considering the grade and comments and aren't but going with a visceral reaction is to have a 24-60 minutes rule. What that means is that students are required to accept 24-hours before contacting the TA or professor with a grade complaint.  This 24-hour period frequently serves every bit a "cooling off" period in which students can read and retrieve most grader comments.

Managing TAs Who Atomic number 82 Discussions, Lab Sessions, and Review Sessions

Know Your TAs. But as with grading, TAs come to discussion-leading with different levels of expertise.  Some will exist at domicile in the classroom. Others will exist terrified to speak in front of their students.  It'southward a good thought to get a gauge on this in the weeks preceding the semester so that we tin give our TAs the appropriate level of support. Some may exist independent-minded and volition desire considerable control over what happens in their classrooms, and others may crave strong guidance. Thus, before nosotros get to know our undergraduates, we ought to become to know our TAs.

Hold regular meetings. Should we accept TAs that require a potent back up arrangement or even if we don't and we want to maintain some control over discussions, lab sessions, and review sessions, regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings can be valuable. These meetings can serve many purposes. We can utilize this time to go over of import concepts and course content with our TAs who likely don't have our expertise.  We can besides use this fourth dimension equally a "check-in" period to get a sense of how the course is going for our TAs and undergraduates alike. Professor/TA meetings can also be a forum in which nosotros provide TAs with handouts or discussion guides to help facilitate their class time. Ultimately, how much control we want to exert over our word sections, lab sessions, or review sessions is upwardly to us, but setting aside a time to meet with our TAs is valuable because it provides professor and TA alike with a support structure in which everyone can talk through issues relating to the class.

Dealing with Adulterous

Dealing with Cheating

Adulterous is a common problem in college courses big and small, but in large courses, it tin be particularly difficult to identify adulterous when it happens.  That's considering we're grading such a high volume of exams, essays, and assignments that the kind of careful analysis often necessary to identify cheaters is more difficult.  We might not know our students and their piece of work also, and it's that knowledge that typically helps college instructors identify adulterous when information technology is going on.  As anyone who has proctored an exam for 100+ students can adjure, information technology can exist very hard to proceed upwards with everything that'south going on in our pocket-size city-sized courses.  Then what can we do?

Exist upfront with our expectations. Having been to graduate school, the average college instructor is well-versed in what "plagiarism" entails.  Withal, not a year goes by without a professor at a major American university being accused of plagiarism. Certainly, sometimes it's deliberate. Ofttimes it'south not.  That'south because what constitutes things like "plagiarism" and "cheating" is non always articulate to many of higher education's professional person academics.

Given that fact, the students in our often freshmen-heavy large courses are fifty-fifty less clear on what we mean when nosotros speak of these concepts. Sure, our students may have read the Vanderbilt Honor Code at some point in the distant by, but while they are probable familiar with black and white scenarios (copying answers off of their neighbor's exam is adulterous), exercise they know what constitutes an honor code violation in those grayness and murky scenarios that sometimes confront them?

• What are our expectations for "open up book" exams?
• If students are allowed to work on homework assignments in pairs or groups, are they allowed to hand in comparable or identical assignments?
• How do we want students to cite sources in their papers?  Is a works cited page required?

Equally the teacher, we need to anticipate such questions.  Upon handing out a paper or homework assignment, we ought to have a conversation with students about our expectations. Ideally, we should put those expectations in writing on the syllabus or handout sail, and so that students have something to which they can frequently refer.  Putting those expectations in writing also helps should we ever need to charge a student with an Laurels Lawmaking violation to the Award Council.  Some instructors even choose to dedicate early class time to giving their students a tutorial on cheating and plagiarism.

Dealing with cheating on exams

Trying to grab an individual or a pocket-sized group of cheaters in an exam of 100+ students can be a difficult chore, simply there's a lot that we can practise to make cheating more difficult.

Proctoring effectively. Proctoring can seem basic: watch the students as they take the exam and make sure they're non chatting or looking at one another's tests.  All the same, at that place are some aspects to proctoring that are hands disregarded.  For instance, it can be difficult to notice students when they are wearing a hat that covers their optics, then many professors require that students either remove their hats, or put their hats on backwards.  Another often overlooked feature of proctoring is the demand for at least ii proctors.  Part of the proctor's role is often to field student questions regarding the exam, simply while the instructor is answering that question, who is observing the students?

Randomize the blue books. In many of our big classes, students use bluish books for exams.  Students are typically asked to bring these blueish books with them to class on exam day, especially in big classes where the teacher would have to pay a considerable corporeality of money to provide all students with examination booklets.  Some students see this as an piece of cake way to cheat: write answers in the blue book and refer to those answers throughout the exam menstruation.  Of course, there is an easy manner around this problem. Ask students to manus in their bluish books as they walk in the classroom. Shuffle the blue books, and then re-distribute them to students randomly.

Randomize the exams. Mayhap the most traditional way to cheat on an examination is for a pupil to copy off of his or her neighbor. The easiest mode to avoid this is to manus out different versions of the exam. Some professors hand these exams out on different color sheets of paper to further confuse a student who might like to re-create his or her neighbor'due south exam.

Randomize the seating. In our teeming large classes, it isn't always possible to get out spaces in-between each exam-taker.  We tin can, still, milkshake upwardly the seating arrangement. For example, one common technique is to crave students seated in the back few rows to switch with those students seated in the front few rows. This can evidence logistically challenging with a large class and a limited amount of time, but if we accept a couple of minutes to milkshake the students up, it can do a lot to prevent exam takers from cheating.

Switch upwardly our exams each semester. Designing tests tin can be a fourth dimension-consuming thing. For that reason, some instructors use the same exam questions twelvemonth later year. While this is tempting, it is not advisable if we hope to forestall cheating. Some fraternity and sorority houses, in particular, go on files of past exams for a variety of courses. Change exam questions upward each semester to preclude some students from having an unfair advantage.

Dealing with adulterous on papers

Identifying cheating on papers frequently requires noesis of a pupil's writing abilities.  Information technology'due south oft when students who really struggle with writing hand in flawless masterpieces that instructors are tipped off to a student's quack tactics. In large classes, we may not have as adept of a sense of our students and their writing, and so what can nosotros do to stop plagiarism?

Provide students with clear instructions. Many of our students are inexperienced when it comes to citing sources.  How do we want them to cite their sources? How thoroughly? Will parenthetical citations suffice?  What citation mode is preferable? Exercise we require a bibliography or works cited page? Answer these questions in a handout or in the syllabus.

Use Turnitin.Brightspace allows users to choose whether or not to run educatee assignments through "Turnitin," a program that checks for plagiarism, generates feedback for students on revision strategies, and serves every bit an online platform for instructors to provide electronic feedback to students. To use Turnitin, instructors must select the selection to "enable Turnitin" for each individual consignment that they would like to run through Turnitin. Learn how.

Then we caught a student cheating.  Now what?

At that place are a number of ways that nosotros can approach an Accolade Code violation.

Have the effect to the laurels council. Simply visit the Vanderbilt Honor Council'south page (Vanderbilt Honor Quango) and click "Written report a Violation." There are many advantages to this option. The Vanderbilt Laurels Quango has vast experience dealing with violations and handing the issue over to them takes what can be a substantial weight off our shoulders.

Meet with the student. Once one turns the issue over to the Honor Council, 1 should not hash out the incident with the student. Before one goes to the Accolade Quango, still, meeting with the educatee and request them nearly what happened can be valuable. Students often appreciate the opportunity to discuss the alleged violation and such a coming together provides the instructor with an opportunity to admission the veracity of the educatee's claims. Sometimes the issue is simply a miscommunication or misunderstanding.  If that's the case, it's better to avoid triggering the Laurels Council process, which is oft long and involved for the student.

Ask the student to re-practice the exam, paper, or consignment. It is within our rights equally the teacher to ask students to re-do an assignment if the violation is pocket-sized. Information technology is, however, strongly discouraged to only give the student a zero on the exam, newspaper, or assignment. The pupil may file a complaint against us if they're denied whatever kind of due process in an accusation of cheating.

For more data on dealing with cheating, please consult our teaching guide entitled, "Cheating & Plagiarism."

Managing Logistical Problems

Managing Logistical Issues

Our large courses come with an assortment of logistical bug that can plow into a nightmare if we are non prepared to handle them. How do we forestall our e-mail boxes from inundation with student eastward-mails the 24 hours before an exam? How do nosotros manage that line that sometimes develops around the edifice during our office hours?

Taking Course Attendance

While many instructors exercise not take course attendance in their big classes, some exercise.  But how can one best take attendance in a class of 200 students?  Certainly, many instructors rely upon a omnipresence sheet that is passed around the room, but this is often a headache with the sheet being lost or students signing in for one some other.  Many instructors take attendance through the use of clickers. Brief in-class assignments or quizzes can as well be valuable in taking attendance.  I can require that students reply a class solar day-related prompt on a notecard at the finish of grade, sign it, and hand it in before leaving.  This notecard can be graded or non.  Another mode to ensure that class omnipresence remains high is by giving pop quizzes periodically.

Managing Pupil Email

When we teach a seminar class, we can await a small percentage of students to electronic mail the states regarding the coming exam the 24-hours preceding it. When we have 100+ students, withal, that same modest pct tin overwhelm our electronic mail box. What can we do?

Be upfront about how ofttimes we volition check and answer pupil e-mails. Our undergraduate students have grown up in an age of due east-postal service in which many of them await immediate responses to their e-mailed questions, big or small. This, however, is an unreasonable expectation for those of us not attached to our smart phones, and fifty-fifty for some of us who are, and students demand to be made aware of this early on in the semester. Many instructors discuss their rules for email in their syllabus. For example, "I will read and respond to educatee east-mails one time per 24-hour interval, each morning" or "Delight give me 24 hours to respond to each e-mail service." Such rules can help avert rapid-burn due east-mails from students, many of which may ask why it's taking so long for us to respond to their question. Students will also exist more inclined to think ahead with their questions and concerns: the professor will not go back to students immediately simply because they waited until the terminal minute on a given assignment.

Consider placing limits on student eastward-mails. Some instructors give students a line or give-and-take limit for their e-mails.  Some propose that students keep emails to iv lines or less, while others have more than stringent requirements. Andrew Van Schaack, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Human being and Organizational Evolution at Vanderbilt, limits the trunk of student emails to 140 characters, the length of a Tweet. Such rules aid ensure that educatee e-mail is clear and concise.

Constitute rules about the kinds of questions we will respond to via east-post. Some questions lend themselves to quick east-mailed responses, others don't. It may be valuable to tell students what kinds of questions nosotros will reply via eastward-mail service and which are ameliorate left for office hours or in-class Q&Equally.

Avoid the pre-exam e-mail deluge. The 24 hours prior to an examination is often a time when panicked e-mails flood into instructor inboxes. Likewise, the 24 hours prior to a paper due date is also a decorated time, as students often scramble for extensions. Again, clarity with expectations is important. One ought to notify students when ane will finish responding to e-mails regarding the exam, whether it'southward 24 hours, 12 hours, or two hours in advance, and how long one requires to provide feedback on a rough typhoon of a paper. Clear and consistent rules tin can be helpful and may encourage students to recollect ahead.

Managing Function Hours

Create an office 60 minutes sign-upward sheet. Beingness an instructor of a large class sometimes means managing dozens of eager office 60 minutes visitors each week. However, having students manufacturing plant around exterior our part during our office hours isn't only a nuisance for our office neighbors, it'due south not a valuable use of our students' time. Consider implementing a formal scheduling system for our function hours, perchance one publicly bachelor to our students such as Scheduly, so they know when they ought to programme their visit.

Encourage students to utilize their TAs. TAs are capable of handling many student issues, and there are some issues for which our TAs are actually better suited than instructors (for example, for discussion section questions or lab questions). Make sure that our TAs are available for function hours and encourage students to visit TAs with their issues, peculiarly when nosotros are unavailable or otherwise too decorated.

Lay some ground rules. Sometimes, in the days preceding an exam, in particular, students volition visit our office hours expecting to hold an hour-long one-on-ane study session. This could certainly exist valuable for the student, but tin nosotros manage such a session given the time constraints that come up with beingness an teacher of a large course? If the respond is no, we may want to organize a dedicated review session or simply tell students in advance that nosotros cannot be their "written report buddy." Other times students may come by to chat. While there is value in cultivating cordial relationships with our students, if this is not something that we tin bide in our schedule, instruct students to simply driblet by office hours if they take specific questions.

Re-conceptualize our office hours. Office hours tend to be one-on-i meetings with students. However, in that location are some situations in which meeting with students in a group can be just equally effective and a fourth dimension-saver as well. Do three students want to meet with united states of america regarding the makeup of the test? Assure that they're comfortable coming together as a group, and so schedule them together.

Consider belongings online part hours. If our schedules make fulfilling our weekly part hours difficult, or if we are interested in holding extra office hours in a given week, we tin always agree remote role hours.  If nosotros are interested in conducting office hours online, Brightspace provides a mechanism to exercise and so. The virtual classroom characteristic lets yous live-broadcast and collaborate with students online.

Integrating Engineering

Integrating Technology

Brightspace – At that place's a great deal that nosotros can practise with Brightspace to organize and maintain our large classes, and even advance our learning goals. Certainly, we can utilize the service to distribute grade content like readings and syllabi. We tin use the class middle to go on track of pupil grades. We can besides use Brightspace to deport office hours online through it'south virtual classroom role, as discussed in the "Managing Logistical Issues" section of this guide.

However, one of the about useful features of Brightspace is also amid the least utilized: the discussion board feature. Integrating an online give-and-take board into the classroom experience is a smashing manner to provide structured opportunities for our quieter students to participate in the course. While this is a valuable tool in small courses, information technology'south specially valuable in large courses because and then many students might accept wonderful things to contribute, even so receive comparatively fewer opportunities to do so as i of many students.  Consider posing online discussion questions before lessons to get students thinking about the material before class, or request students to reply to word questions afterwards grade to demonstrate their synthesis of the material.

Twitter – Many university professors accept utilized Twitter in their classrooms to great result.  Perhaps the most well-known example of this is Dr. Monica Rankin'south "Twitter Experiment" in her introductory history class at UT Dallas.  In this course, Rankin lectures on Monday and Midweek, and organizes a small group give-and-take on Fri in which Twitter is used as a backchannel where students share questions and ideas between groups.  Y'all can find an excellent v-minute video on Dr. Rankin's "Twitter Experiment" here: The Twitter Experiment – Twitter in the Classroom.  For a brief, critical discussion of Dr. Rankin'due south use of twitter, you can find a good article on CFT Manager Derek Bruff'southward "Agile Learning" web log here: Backchannel via Twitter.

Clickers – Equally discussed in the "Promoting Student Date" section, classroom response systems or "clickers" are a great way to become students involved in classroom discussions. One popular technique is to pose a question, ask students to consult their classroom neighbor, ask them to submit their answer as a pair, and then ask some students to share out their responses.

Clickers work for a multitude of reasons. Clicker responses are bearding, so they embolden students to participate. Even if students, upon seeing the results, notice that their answer is non the nearly popular, past seeing that others got the same question wrong, it is oft easier for students to try to defend and explain their incorrect reply: a starting point for some valuable teaching moments. Clickers are besides a nifty way to get everyone involved in the class and not just the students who are willing to speak out loud.  Finally, clickers are fun!  For some ideas on how to best integrate clickers into our classrooms, i resource is this quick and easy guide, written by Vanderbilt University CFT Manager, Derek Bruff, "Multiple-Choice Questions We Wouldn't Put on a Examination: Promoting Deep Learning Using Clickers." For additional data, delight meet our teaching guide entitled "Classroom Response Systems."

Elevation Chapeau – Clickers can be a wonderful classroom resources, but they're not without their bug. The biggest problem for many is that they're not free, and they're non even cheap. Superlative Chapeau is a "bring your own device" (BYOD) classroom response system that makes use of students' personal mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) equally response devices. BYOD systems offering a number of logistical and pedagogical advantages over traditional, "clicker"-based systems.

Top Hat is the first classroom response system to be adopted campus-wide at Vanderbilt. It is available to kinesthesia, students, and staff across campus at no cost. Instructors didactics with "clickers" are invited to consider Top Chapeau for in-class student polling.

VoiceThread.com – Another tool that can be used to promote learning in a large form is plant at VoiceThread.com. With VoiceThread, nosotros can post an image, document, or video online and take our students comment on it. Students can add a video annotate, audio comment, or a text comment to whatever we or our students post. What results is often a rich, multimedia chat between instructors and students. In her volume, Best Practices for Instruction with Emerging Technologies, Dr. Michelle Pacansky-Brock outlines how she regularly integrates VoiceThread into her Art History classes. For an example of how one might use VoiceThread, visit one of Dr. Pacansky-Brock's real VoiceThreads.

Online learning and assessment tools —Several online homework/learning tools are described under the Handling Student Grades tab above. In large courses, such interactive technologies can prove a critical resource for students who want frequent feedback, but can't afford to visit instructor part hours each week.

Some Recommended Readings

• Carbone, Elisa Lynn. Instruction Large Classes: Tools and Strategies.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, c1998.
• Cooper, James Fifty. and Pamela Robinson.  "The Argument for Making Large Classes Seem Pocket-size." New Directions for Pedagogy and Learning 81 (2000): 5-16.
• Heppner, Frank. Teaching the Big College Class: A Guidebook for Instructors with
• Renaud, Susan, Elizabeth Tannenbaum, and Phillip Stantial. "Student-Centered Teaching in Large Classes with Express Resource." English Teaching Forum Number 3 (2007).
• Stanley, Christine A. and M. Erin Porter. Engaging Large Classes: Strategies and Techniques for Higher Faculty.  Boston: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2002.

References

Angelo TA and Cantankerous KP (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for Higher Teachers, two^nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cooper JL and Robinson P (2000). The Argument for Making Large Classes Seem Pocket-size. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 81: 12.

Crouch CH and Mazur E (2001). Peer instruction: 10 years of feel and results. American Journal of Physics 69: 970-977.

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Source: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-large-classes/

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