Teaching Large Classes

Wayne Hall

Vice Provost for Faculty Development (for now), and Professor of English & Comparative

Literature

Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning – July 2011

Who’s here today?

• Roster as of 4:00 PM yesterday:– 8 colleges represented, 27 participants

• A&S: 9• DAAP: 4

– 16 tenured or tenure track– 7 adjunct faculty– 1 grad student– 3 academic staff/administrators

And what do you teach? (from the survey as of 4:00 PM yesterday,

with 17 responses):

• 13 (81%) teach undergrad courses• 10 teach grad courses• 4 teach intro courses• 3 teach labs• 2 teach clinicals• 1 teaches capstones

So how long have you been teaching at the college level?

• 1 for one or two years• 3 for three to five years• 2 for six to ten years• 2 for eleven to fifteen years• 3 for sixteen to twenty years• 3 for twenty to thirty years• 2 for over thirty years

In large-enrollment classes?

• 44% yes, ranging from 10 students on up to 333 students

• Average seems to be right around 70 - 80

So what are you after today?• More student engagement• Managing the grading• Managing the time in class• Individualizing the class• Putting more emphasis on active learning• Managing the class (and preventing cheating)• Learning/using new technologies

• Main thing: develop materials today that you can use tomorrow

Our primary goal: to improve student learning in large-enrollment classes

Secondary (but still overarching) goals:

• Improve the quality of the teaching-learning experience for the instructor of large-enrollment classes

• Streamline the time required to design and conduct large-enrollment classes

Resources at webh.wordpress.com

What will I get out of this morning’s workshop?

• Broad-strokes / fire-hose approaches to large-enrollment classes based on:– Two case studies (winter quarter 2010 and spring

quarter 2011)– Current research within the national

conversations

• Q&A identification of individual problems and general approaches to solutions

What will I get out of this afternoon’s workshop?

• One five-word answer to these questions:– Diversity within the classroom (that is, how can I deal with such different

levels of preparedness and different learning styles?) – High-volume communication (that is, how can I respond efficiently to all

that email?)– Student collaboration (that is, how can I manage student groups,

including the “free rider” syndrome?) – The volume of grading (that is, how can I manage all that paper?)

• Development of individual solutions / resources– Course redesign of large-enrollment courses– Other as-needed take-aways

What’s our schedule time-wise?• 8:30 to 9:00 – overview and introduction• 9:00 to 10:00 – fire-hose mode• 10:00 to 10:20 – break• 10:20 to 11:00 – fire-hose mode• 11:00 to 12:00 – small groups around the tables• 12:00 to 12: 40 – lunch • 12:40 to 1:00 – small-group reports• 1:00 to 1:40 – fire-hose mode• 1:40 to 2:00 – break• 2:00 to 4:00 – individual project development

What if I just start to feel totally overwhelmed?

• Think balance:– Introduce changes gradually– Some risk taking, some tried & true approaches– Use reflective assessment re the future

• Think communication:– Articulate strategies to students– Provide rationales for whatever you do

Case studies• English Department pilot (100-120 students)

– 200-level literature (non majors)– Tues/Thurs class, winter 2010

• Follow-up version (35 students)– MWF class, spring 2011

• My pedagogy priorities: – small-group learning– not a lecture class– heavy use of technology

Curricular priorities:

• General Education / Integrated Core Learning– Critical Thinking– Effective Communication– Knowledge Integration– Information Literacy

• Semester Conversion / course redesign

Braunstein 300 (cap. 136)

How hybrid?

• Weeks 3 – 9: Tues / Thurs split• Attend one class, complete one online

assignment– Advantage: only one class prep– Disadvantage: lots of online assignments to grade

• Main advantage: only 60 students in a room that holds 135

Student evals for this feature:

How hybrid for MWF?

• Weeks 2 – 9: Wednesday as the “starter” class in a week-long unit

• Attend Wednesday plus either Monday or Friday, complete one online assignment– Advantage: no new class prep on Mondays– Disadvantage: lots of online assignments to grade

• Main advantage: only 15 - 25 students in a room that holds 40

Student evals remained positive:

Foundational concept: SLO’s

• Articulate the Student Learning Outcomes

• Align those SLO’s with –course pedagogy,–assignments, and –assessment

Resources at uc.edu/cetl:

Assessment/Course Evals

As instructors report on the course evaluation data that they have received, as a way to document their teaching, they may consider contextualizing the data within the framework of these three inter-related questions:

1. What is the nature of the feedback you have gathered from students about your teaching?2. What did you do with this feedback to improve or change your teaching?3. What evidence do you have that demonstrates that these changes were effective in improving student learning?

Five main rooms to be developed in a large-enrollment house:

1.Lecture modules 2.Collaborative learning3.Instructional technology4.Rubrics5.Reflection

1. Lecture modules• No lecture segment longer than 15 minutes• Break up with active-learning

– Think-pair-share– Minute paper– Small-group project– IF-AT’s – PRS questions

Instant Feedback Assessment Technique

(IF AT)The star indicates a “correct” answer.

Uses for IF-AT’s

• Conducting multiple-choice quizzes• Taking attendance• Focusing ideas towards a discussion

– Individual answers, then– Group-based consensus answers

http://eclassroom.uc.edu/ucit/eclassroom/prs.asp

2. Collaborative Learning

• Teachers who use collaborative learning approaches tend to think of themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge to students, and more as expert designers of intellectual experiences for students – as coaches or mid-wives of a more emergent learning process. – Smith & MacGregor (see “Works Cited”)

Structuring Collaborative Learning

• Fixed groups after Week Two (4 to 6 students per group)

• Specific assignments for the groups, ideally different from one group to the next

• Groups create content for the course that has benefits for the whole class

• At least one shift into small-group mode per class meeting after Week Two

What worked particularly well?

• 40 Tues/Thurs responses, 6 positive mentions about the small-group structure and discussions

• 21 MWF responses, 8 positive mentions

• Stray negatives: corral the individuals within the groups and make them more accountable

3. Instructional technology

• Blackboard – Quizzes– Discussion board

• PowerPoint (then posted to Bb)• WordPress blog• Twitter

http://www.udeducation.org/

Just In Time Teaching

• Quizzes to be completed via Bb in advance of a class meeting

• Review a sample for fine-tuning a presentation

• Motivation to complete reading in advance of a class discussion

All those disruptive snow days!!!

• Miss Tuesday? Come on Thursday.• Add another online assignment like the others• Hold class within Blackboard

160 plus a dozen

The final posting:

Evals of electronic communication

NPOView.Wordpress.com

One student example:

37 comments by the end of the quarter

Evals of the WordPress blog:

Students liked the online textbook:

MWF responses look similar:

Twitter.com

4. Rubrics (and their advantages): • Communicate to students the key issues with the

major project– More up-front explanation for that assignment– Improved student learning and performance

• Streamline the evaluation/grading process for instructor– More extensive feedback to students about their

performance– More uniform evaluation/grading standards by

the instructor• Foster deep learning when built upon reflection

Evals of rubric-based assignment:

Similar responses from MWF class:

Return rate for online course evals?

• Around 78% (TH), 83% (MWF)• Incentives: Minor boost to class-participation

grade following:– Email confirmation that the eval was completed– The class as a whole achieving at least a 75%

completion rate

• Recommended: midterm course evals

Simple rubric for blog postings (by Mark Sample):

Rubric for student behavior:

More on rubrics at:

Day-long workshop on

Grading Large Classes

August 10, 2011

More of the pedagogy of reflection:

• “[R]eflection entails a looking forward to goals we might attain, as well as a casting backward to see where we have been. When we reflect, we thus project and review, often putting the projections and the reviews in dialogue with each other, working dialectically to discover what we know, what we have learned, and what we might understand.” (Kathleen Yancey).

Heuristics for student reflection (fairly simple but still useful ones):

• One model (modified from U of Akron):• What do you know?• How do you know that?• What if you argued with yourself?

• Or another:• What?• So what?• Now what?

Rubrics for reflection:

What will I get out of this afternoon?

• One five-word answer to these questions:– Diversity within the classroom (that is, how can I deal with such

different levels of preparedness and different learning styles?) – High-volume communication (that is, how can I respond efficiently to

all that email?)– Student collaboration (that is, how can I manage student groups,

including the “free rider” syndrome?) – The volume of grading (that is, how can I manage all that paper?)

• Somewhat longer answer to this question:– How do I get my skeptical program director on board with a lot of this

active-learning stuff?

• Hands-on work on this question:– What’s a useful take-away for your own course?

What will I get out of this afternoon?

• One five-word answer to these questions:– Diversity within the classroom (that is, how can I deal with such

different levels of preparedness and different learning styles?) – High-volume communication (that is, how can I respond efficiently to

all that email?)– Student collaboration (that is, how can I manage student groups,

including the “free rider” syndrome?) – The volume of grading (that is, how can I manage all that paper?)

• Somewhat longer answer to this question:– How do I get my skeptical program director on board with a lot of this

active-learning stuff?

• Hands-on work on this question:– What’s a useful take-away for your own course?

Discuss, explain, have your reasons, offer assessment data, address The

Coverage Question

How can I cover what I need to cover?

• Lecture in modules

• Provide content outside of class– Reading assignments + quizzes– Podcasts of lecture material– Background resources on an as-needed basis

• Deep learning (aka significant learning) is preferable to new knowledge

More coverage isn’t necessarily better coverage

Maybe we should do some assessment here

What about that five-word answer?

• Get the students to help.

All that diversity in the classroom!!

• Such a liability!!– Turn it into a resource– Create space for different perspectives &

experiences

• All those different learning styles!!– Worry about content, not learning styles– Practice universal design and create a variety of

approaches to the content

All that email!!

• Guidelines you can live with• Bb discussion board for Q’s & A’s

– FAQ’s– Students answering each other’s questions

• Small-group structure as a filter

All those free riders!!

• Combination of group-based and individual assessment– Group for support, individual for the grade– Random individual to report on behalf of group

• Students in a group do self assessment• Students in a group do peer assessment

But I still can’t grade everything!!

Overview of solutions• Rubrics (of all kinds)

• Random sample

• One random representative for the group

• Checklist grading

• Students grade each other (via rubrics)

But what about FERPA?

• “Peer grading does not violate FERPA” because “the grades on students’ papers would not be covered under FERPA at least until the teacher has collected them and recorded them in his or her grade book.”

• “FERPA does not prevent teachers from allowing students to grade a test or homework assignment of another student . . . so long as those individual grades have not yet been recorded by the teacher.”

One option for a take-away: Develop/redesign an assignment

• What does the assignment most need?– Linkage to SLO?– Description / explanation for students?– Expansion into a series?– Rationale for students?– Assumptions about how students would

prepare for this assignment?– More engaging description generally?

Other possible next steps:

• Creating a rubric for one or more assignments• or maybe some “engaging language” syllabus

guidelines for – how some assignment(s) will work– how small groups will operate– how you will manage email– how you will use short writing exercises to break

lectures into modules no longer than 15 minutes

Works Cited• Bruce Giffin PrAISE podcast:

https://wiki.ucfilespace.uc.edu/groups/uc_cetl/weblog/4f014/ • Barbara Leigh Smith and Jean T. MacGregor, “What Is Collaborative

Learning?” in Anne S. Goodsell, Michelle R. Maher, Vincent Tinto, Barbara Leigh Smith, and Jean MacGregor, Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education. National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, 1992; p. 11.

• Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Utah State UP, 1998; p. 6.

• “Reflection image” -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/sierraromeo/2758998396/

• Mark Sample’s ProfHacker column, “A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs” (from the Chronicle of Higher Education, September 27, 2010)

• Rubric for student behavior: Claudia J. Stanny (2010), Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, U of West Florida -- http://uwf.edu/cutla/rubricexamples.cfm

Other relevant websites:

• http://wordpress.com• http://webh.wordpress.com• http://npoview.wordpress.com• http://twitter.com• http://podnetwork.org/ (for search engine)• http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ (for rubrics)• http://www.rcampus.com/ (for the “rubrics”

section)