Teaching Large Classes

From “Strategies for Teaching Large Classes”, Faculty Focus


Imagine 90 veterinary students singing “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Rabies.” Deb Wingert and Tom Molitor, University of Minnesota, report that in their large science classes (more than 50 students) student groups are assigned a virus family to research and then teach to the rest of the class. Frequently they use well-known songs and other memory devices.  Can students deeply learn complex content this way? Based on their experience, they say, “You betcha!”

Interactive strategies used in their large science classes:
• Interactive Lecture — Short lecture segments alternated with group work.
• Cooperative Learning Groups — Stable groups meet throughout the course to work on problems, case studies, and research projects.
• Jigsaws — Each learner teaches content to other group members.
• Games — Competitive games enthusiastically engage learners, i.e., Jeopardy and Monopoly- like games. Winners earn course points.
• Constructive Controversies — Groups prepare positions on polarized topics, and then debate the issue during class.
• Group Tests — Learners take the test individually, and then they take it again as a group. Students receive an average of their own individual and the group’s score as their grade for that test.