Teaching resources may not address the logistics of managing large groups of students at one time. What can you do when you have large classes to promote quality instruction?
- Learn as many names as possible: Encourage students to use name tents. Ask students to lead off with their names when contributing to class. Use the ID photo roster feature in Canvas to match student faces with names.
- Use accessibility equipment: You can’t see students with hearing loss or auditory processing disorders. If you are in a room with accessibility equipment such as microphones, please use the microphone. It will feel awkward to begin with and become natural with practice and make your voice both amplified and more clear.
- Consider incentivizing attendance at office hours with small amounts of extra credit or other rewards to help students realize that they do have instructor support, even in large classes.
- Use small group and pair share activities to break up class time and encourage students to interact with each other. Use interactive tools – such as a One Drive document that students can edit – to have groups report in their results and observations so that you can hear from more students. Use activities such as Poll Everywhere and Mentimeter to check in with students and for realtime in-class formative assessment on difficult points. Active learning techniques are still both doable and essential, even in large classes.
More thoughts and tips on managing large classes can be found here from UM Boston and the article Tips for Teaching Large Classes from the University of Texas; you can build community and connection in classes or any size.