teaching a large class in technological setting - People.stat.sfu.ca

"ICME 11 - TSG 22" Theme 1
_______________________________________________________________________
TEACHING A LARGE CLASS IN TECHNOLOGICAL
SETTING
Prof. Inder K. Rana
Department of Mathematics
I. I. T. Bombay, Powai
Mumbai 40076, India
Email: ikrana@iitb.ac.in
Abstract
In this paper, I will discuss the challenges faced in designing and implementing a Calculus class with
strength of about 300 students at I. I. T Bombay in July-November 2007. Teaching a large class
necessitates the use of technology. The use of technology, where on one hand facilitates the ease of
instruction transmission, it raised some vital issues of pedagogical importance, which will be discussed.
The challenges faced in the preparation of the course material, mode of instructions, course administration,
student management, etc., will be deliberated in comparison with that of a small class. Managing and
regulating two different sections of the same class, coordinating 20 different “tutorial batches”, mode of
evaluation, and other issues underlining the course will be discussed. We will also analyze the issue of
“loss in student’s learning” in large classes. Based on the feedback and the lessons learnt, the changes made
to teach another course to the same set of students in January 2008, and the lessons learnt, will be
discussed.
Introduction
In the recent years, there has been an increasing need to teach large classes in higher
education. This need has arisen due to many reasons, the prominent of them being the
increase in number of students in higher education on one hand and reduction in funding
for higher education on the other. Of course, sometimes, the non availability of teachers
also contributes to the creation of large classes. Before we proceed further, let me clarify
that by a large class I mean a class containing 120-500 students. The lower limit is the
best possible, beyond which there is every possibility that the basic fabric of lecture to
breakdown.
Large courses verses small courses
The earliest study that deals with the issue of teaching large class is probably Stockton
[16] in 1960. In 1975, Mackenzic ,et all [11] observed that there is little interest in
analyzing the issue of teaching large classes. The situation has not changed in the last 30
years, as it is observed by Jungic et all in [8]. A comprehensive study and resources for
teaching large classes can be found in the report of Australian University Teaching
Committee project [1 ]. Some other references are Carbon [2] and Gedalof [5]. As is
observed by Mackenzic [11] , “large classes should be seen as having a valuable, a bit
limited role, complementary to other forms of teaching mathematics and thus we should
aim to make them as effective as possible.” My reason for discussing the issue of
teaching large classes is not because I am a researcher in ‘math education’, but as a
practitioner of math education. I will share with you my experiences of teaching large
classes recently.
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Lectures compose the main tool of teaching. The role of a lecturer is to introduce students
to new concepts and their applications. Lecturer should stimulate student’s independent
thinking. Lectures are more effective when there is a two way communication between
the teacher and the students. This is the main place where the large class lectures differ
from small class lectures. In small class lectures (classical chalk- blackboard) teaching,
students hear the lecture and see the arguments unfolding on the blackboard. This
presents the human face of the subject to them. There is a sense of involvement. They see
how mathematician thinks and how concepts evolve. This helps in building student’s
confidence in developing the arguments. The large class lecture is essentially a one way
communication process. It can reduce to achieving only the minimum aim of teaching:
transmitting the bare fact to enable students to handle routine examination problems.
There are other aspects of teaching a large class that, though applicable to small classes
also, are more important in a large class. Of course, a condition that is of prime
importance is ‘thorough preparation’ of the subject matter. This is a necessary condition
for a good lecture, but not sufficient. Both, Mackenzic [11], and Jungic [8] compare
lecture of a large class to theatrical event: “ …an instructor of a large class is much like
an actor on a stage. In fact, it is a one man show.” Thus, there is a much bigger
responsibility on his shoulders to make the show a success. He has to be well prepared to
maintain the purpose and achieve it in the face of unexpected difficulties. Lecturing to a
large class can be both physically and mentally exhausting, much more than that of a
small class. Learning to use technology itself may be time consuming and frustrating.
Galbraith [4] states that “Results suggest, teaching demands are increased rather than
decreased by the use of technology, …” The problem of managing a large class is also
difficult as compared to that of a small class. Lecturer cannot afford to be informal, as in
a small class. Small human errors (such as calculation mistakes on getting stuck in an
explanation, etc.) can lead to uncontrolled interruptions in a large class. However, such
incidents (if not frequent), can help students to inculcate a critical attitude for the lecturer.
Another issue which is almost nonexistent in small class is that of use of technology in
preparing and delivering lectures. The need for the lecturer to be conversed with the use
of technology (hardware and software) is of paramount importance and adds a new
dimension in qualities required of teachers of large classes. Mackenzie [11], in 1975
purposed effective use of television (technology at that time ). In the present scenario,
there are multiple options available for all aspects of teaching large classes. I will discuss
some of them in the next section.
Issues like that of advance, detailed planning of the courses, contents, preparation of
‘course slides’, coordination of tutorial batches, planning and conducting assessment are
various issues that assures more importance in large classes.
Working Model (Calculus Course )
The course:
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) is one of the premier institutes in India.
One of the main aims of IITB if to educate engineering students. Each of the about
(approximately 580) students is expected to undergo 2-3 semester of “core courses” in
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asic sciences: mathematics, physics and chemistry. IITB offers three core courses in
Mathematics for engineering (B.Tech.) students. The first course on calculus is offered in
the first semester with three 55 minutes lectures per week for 13-14 weeks. Till April
2007, the students were divided into four sections, each of approximately 140 students.
Each section had an instructor for lectures. For tutorials, each section was divided into 5
batches of approximately 25-30 students. Each batch used to be assigned a course
associate. The mode of instruction used to be classical blackboard –chalk method. In the
beginning of 2007, it came to be known that the student strength may have to be
increased as much as by 20% in the next academic year beginning in July 2007. It was
felt that it may not be possible to increase faculty strength at such a short notice. Thus it
was decided to experiment teaching of the first year calculus course in large class. For
this, all the students were divided into two divisions of approximately 290 students each.
We will discuss the planning, execution, and outcomes of teaching this course. A similar
experiment ([7]), was conducted in 1997and the system was reverted to the classical one
after two years.
The students:
The students for B. Tech. courses at I.I.T. Bombay have almost uniform mathematical
ability. They are selected through a tough entrance examination, and are supposed to be
‘best’ in the country.
The course preparation:
The course had two instructors, one for each division of 290 plus students. Both the
instructors jointly prepared the following:
• A detailed outline of the course contents. List of the specific topics to be covered
in each lecture and the reference from the prescribed textbook. This helped in
keeping pace of the instructors uniform in both the divisions.
• Details of the various policies regarding attendance rules, missing of a test/ quiz,
etc., to be told to students.
• Detailed set of problem sheets (one for each week) to be covered in the tutorial
classes.
• Detailed solutions of problem sheets for the course associates (TAs) in charge for
conducting tutorial classes.
• Detailed assessment procedures, scheduling of class tests, quizzes and their
weightages towards the final grades.
All this material was prepared in the form of a booklet and distributed to the students on
the first day of the instructions.
Lectures:
The course was assigned three 55 minutes lectures per week and a tutorial of one hour per
week. All the lectures were held in an auditorium with audio-visual support. Since LCD
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projection was available, it was decided to prepare electronic slides of lectures.
Advantages of electronic slides are that they can be prepared in advance improving
organization of the presentation. Also they provide a means of showing information-rich
content: formulas, graphs and diagrams is an effective way. Further, they afford
instantaneous display and the advantage of being flexible in term of ease of preparation,
sharing, and modification after presentations. For this, the lecture material was typeset in
Latex. It helped in preparing lecture notes for printing and preparing slides for lectures.
For preparing slides using LaTex, many options are available: Prosper, Beamer, Seminar,
Foiltx, etc. All these are ‘add-ons’ which help to produce beautiful slides in PDF format
with incremental display. We selected Prosper [14]. A typical snapshot of the lecture
slide is as below:
The incremental display helped to control the display. For the delivery of the lectures,
each instructor had his own Tablet PC. The idea was that the instructor can use it to
display lectures and the Tablet facility (Windows journal), can be used to explain
additional items not covered in the slides. The use of Tablet PC and other audio-visual
support needed that the instructors got used to their use. Also, it (use of technology)
needed the instructors to arrive at the lecture hall at least five minutes early (to hook up
the Tablet PC, start it up and for other technical setting). However, this had a positive
effect on the students as they found the teacher present before they arrived. It also gave
instructors sometime to interact with some students.
Time and student management is a challenge in a large class. Making students come in
time, settle down quickly, avoid talking to each other and so on are the issues that the
instructor has to manage. Though each instructor has his own way of finding solutions, I
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found that setting the rules of the game in the beginning and letting the student know that
what is expected is a good idea. This worked in my case.
Of course, there is the issue of occasionally ‘academic slip’, during the lectures, which
can cause ‘unrest’ in the class. This did happen to me once or twice, but was managed by
accepting the mistake and correcting it in the class itself. I tried in our own way, to
induce student participation in the class. Occasionally, students were asked to do ‘small
exercises’ in the class, or their suggestions were asked about solving a particular point.
Since instructors had a wireless ‘Collar-microphone’, they could move in the hall during
these academic breaks. Another way of giving short ‘academic breaks’ was the use of
‘Java Applets’ and ‘Flash Animations’ to illustrate a concept (some of these are available
at www.math4all.in, www.mathresource.iitb.ac.in).
In the large class it is difficult to entertain individual questions. Also in large classes,
many students tend to remain anonymous. I really had no way of tackling this issue. To
enable students to be able to refer to the material of the course, sufficient copies of the
text/reference books were made in available in the library. Since the lecture hall had dim
lights and seats had no side support for written, it was decided to make detailed lecture
notes available to the students (at a low cost). These notes had essentially the content
covered in the lectures.
The issue of attendance in a large class remained unresolved. No effective
methodology could be evolved. It was decided not to take attendance in the class, but
implement strict attendance rules for ‘tutorial classes’. No attendance during lectures and
the availability of complete lecture notes was a daring step. However, I found that
attendance in the class was about 80%, most of the time. This also strengthened the belief
that human interaction is needed for learning.
Tutorials:
In large class scenario, it is important that there should be strong tutorial support. Each
division was divided into 5 batches of size 25-30 students. Each batch was assigned a
course associate (a research scholar in the department). To ensure that all the course
associates are clear about the material being taught, a copy of lecture plan and lecture
notes were given to them. Further, a weekly meeting of the associates was held to discuss
the problems to be done in that week’s tutorial class. The methodology adopted in the
tutorial class prompted students to discuss problems among themselves and with the
course associates.
Outside classroom support:
In addition to give students support outside the classroom, office hours were fixed for
both the instructors as well as all the course associates. During these hours students
could contact the instructors and the course associates to clarify their doubts. To give
online support and to provide a medium to raise and discuss their doubts ‘Moodle’ was
used. (Moodle [13] is a free, Open Source software package designed using sound
pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.)
Students did make an extensive use of it and it was also useful for the instructors to put
notices, assignments, and solutions for tests and so on.
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At the end of the course, to obtain students feedback, a set of 20 questions were asked
in an online anonymous survey. For this we used FAST-The Free Assessment Summary
Tool developed by Mount Royal College [5]. We list below the questions and survey
results which are important from pedagogy point of view:
Survey (118 respondents) questions:
1) I liked the LCD/PowerPoint mode of lectures as compared to traditional chalkblackboard
method.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Agree Strongly
Applicable
Agree
56 (47%) 34 (29%) 6 (5%) 14 (12%) 8 (7%)
2) LCD /PowerPoint mode of lectures is reasonably interactive.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Agree Strongly
Applicable
Agree
50 (42%) 40 (34%) 8 (7%) 17(14%) 3(3%)
3) PowerPoint is an effective tool for helping me understand the course content.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
46(39%) 38 (32%) 13 (11%) 17(14%) 4(3%)
4) Animations/visualizations in the lectures were good and they helped in
understanding the concepts.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
8(7%) 15 (13%) 18(7%) 57(14%) 17(3%)
5) Giving detailed lecture notes is a
good idea.
6) Availability of complete lecture notes prompted to miss classes.
Yes No
97(82%) 21 (18%)
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
19(16%) 38 (32%) 13(11%) 32(27%) 16(14%)
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7) Because of PowerPoint mode, instructor went fast.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
5 (4%) 6 (5%) 2 (2%) 52 (44%) 53 (45%)
8) Though complete notes were available, lectures were useful in understanding the
concepts.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
15(13%) 24 (20%) 14(12%) 56 (47%) 9 (8%)
9) Instructor encouraged students to interact , ask questions in the lectures, and
established rapport with students during the lectures.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Agree
17 (14%) 32 (27%) 20 (17%) 40 (34%) 9 (8%)
10) Instructor was approachable and
provided opportunities for help
(e.g. office hours, emails, web-
site).
Yes No
97(82%) 21 (18%)
Conclusions:
In my view, LCD-PowerPoint method of delivering lectures from premade slides is a
good idea as it saves time in writing, and time can be effectively used to explain
concepts. Also since the students were given complete notes, it was felt that students will
be spared from the dual task of writing and understanding. However, teaching from preprepared
electronic slides comes at the expense of the ability to freely interact with
students during the lectures and to adjust the lecture at the request of the students. This
was confirmed by students opinions (Questions 1, 2 and 3), despite of the fact that the
efforts were made to have interaction (Question 9) , and that they had complete set of
notes (Question 5). Students attitude can only be rationalized by the fact that these
students are getting taught in this mode for the first time (all school education in India is
in blackboard-chalk method). Also this mode of teaching puts a greater responsibility on
the students. It is worth pointing that the final results of the students : based on two class
tests (30% weight age), mid-semester examination (30% weight age) and end-semester
examination (40% weight age) , only 6% students failed the course. Response to
Question 4 also strengthened the belief that animations and visualizations give needed
break in the lectures and they do help students in understanding concepts.
Working Model (Linear Algebra Course)
Based on the feedback received from the students, I wanted to modify my mode of
instructions and test it impact. I offered to teach next course (Linear Algebra) to same set
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of students with same strength in the same LCD setting. It was clear that electronic slides
tend to be rigid and do not provide flexible mechanisms to adapt the lectures on demand .
An important part of lecturing is to have the ability to adjust material in response to
student reactions and developing spontaneous examples and explanations to clarify and
expand on topics. I wanted a presentation system that will provide a dynamic and
interactive learning environment which fully engages students. I realized that I am not
effectively using the technology. Tablet function allows for the interaction with
audiences during lectures through on-screen annotation with handwritten electronic
inking. This brings classroom setting more closer to the classical blackboard-chalk setup.
Combining electronic slides and digital ink using the Tablet PC are also possible. In the
teaching model that I will discuss, an instructor loads a presentation composed of a deck
of electronic slides onto a tablet computer. The instructor writes on the slides with the
tablet’s pen and control the presentation by invoking controls that are displayed on Tablet
PC. The usefulness of electronic ink for lecture delivery has been discussed in a number
of educational research papers: Simon et al [15], Loch [9], Loomes et al [10]. For the
electronic slides I selected Classroom Presenter [8]. It is a presentation system that
combines the advantages of existing computer-based systems with the handwriting
flexibility of manual systems. As described by its developers, on a Tablet PC, Classroom
Presenter allows the instructor to handwrite over computer-projected slides. It is available
free for educational and research use and can be downloaded from [3]. The electronic
slides prepared for Classroom Presenter had only the outlines of the topics with sufficient
blank space to be filled with digital ink during the lectures.. Rest of the setup for this
course was same as in earlier model.
At the end of the course (this was only for six weeks), students were again asked their
opinions about the course. The results are as follows:
Survey (94 respondents) questions:
1) I liked the LCD-PowerPoint
mode of lectures as compared to
that of MA 105 last semester.
2) This LCD -PowerPoint mode of
lectures is reasonably interactive.
3) This mode of lectures is an
effective way to understand the
course content.
4) Even though the mode of
instruction was of PowerPoint ,
pace of the lectures was not fast.
Yes No
80(85%) 14 (15%)
Yes No
67 (71%) 27 (29%)
Yes No
61 (65%) 33 (35%)
Yes No
41 (44%) 53 (56%)
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5) Giving detailed lecture noted is a
good idea.
6) Availability of complete lecture
notes prompted to miss classes.
7) Though complete notes were
available, lectures were useful in
understanding the concepts.
8) I attended more than 75 %
lectures (even though the
attendance was not compulsory).
Yes No
74 (79%) 20 (21%)
Yes No
27 (29%) 67 (71%)
Yes No
64 (68%) 30 (32%)
Yes No
82 (87%) 12 (13%)
9) Given that future class strength is likely to be 300, do you think this mode of
lectures is best suited?
Strongly Disagree Not Applicable Agree Strongly
Disagree
Agree
23 (23%) 18 (19%) 9 (10%) 36 (38%) 9 (10%)
Comparison of the two models:
From the responses to Questions 1 to 4, it is clear that the mode of lecture presentation as
adopted in the second model is more acceptable to majority as compared to the earlier
model. Still, the pace of lectures seemed fast. The conclusion that lecture notes lend
great support is again reiterated as in responses to questions 5 to 8. However, majority of
the students is still not convinced that given class strength of about 300, this is a good
way of transmitting lectures. At this stage it is interesting to point out that though this
system of lectures was more acceptable to students, the final results indicated that 9.5%
students failed the course, as compared to 6% for the earlier course.
Overall conclusions:
• Many faculty members and education planners feel that that large classes mean a
loss in the learning processes of students. However, as is mentioned in AUTC
[1], under Institutional Policies,“…there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that
reduction of class size, by itself, has any significant positive effects on student
performances” At the same time Maxwell and Lopus [12] say “…increase in size
resulted in substantial monetary savings without loss in learning,…students in
large classes experienced greater dissatisfaction with the learning experience”.
This is also supported by the results of earlier model.
• From student’s point of view, large classes, though not very satisfactory, are not a
real hindrance in learning. It is only getting used to the new mode (as is indicated
by student’s responses in question 9 in second model).
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• Pure pre-made electronic slides give teacher little room for extrapolation and for
students it is passive learning. Partially outlined slides with room for annotation
(with Classroom Presenter) were found satisfactory for both the instructor and the
students.
• Availability of lecture notes give students much needed support outside the class
room (Question 5 in both the working models).
• Technology has a positive role to play both in the processes of delivering the
lectures ( Tablet PC, LCD projection, electronic slides, Classroom Presenter) and
making it more illustrative by including Java applets and Flash animations (as is
clear by student’s responses to Question 4 in first working model).
• The issue of taking attendance in large class remains unanswered.
References:
[1] AUTC Teaching Large Class Project(2001), http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/largeclasses/
[2] Carbon,E. “Teaching Large Classes: Tools and Strategies” SAGE Publications,
California (1998).
[3] Classroom Presenter http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/presenter.
[4] Galbraith, Peter (2002). "Life wasn't meant to be easy": Separating wheat from chaff
in Technology Aided Learning . Proceedings of the second international conference on
the teaching of mathematics, Crete,
http://www.math.uoc.gr/~ictm2/Proceedings/ICTM2_Proceedings_Table_of_Contents.ht
ml
[5] Gedalof, A. “Green Guide: Teaching Large Classes”,
http://www.uwo.ca/tsc/theguide.html
[6] FAST http://www.getfast.ca
[7] Ghorpade, Sudhir R.“Teaching Calculus using Internet: Some Experiments and
Experiences” Proceedings of the CASTME-UNESCO-HBCSE International Conference
Science, Technology and Mathematics Education for Human Development, Eds., S. C.
Agarkar and V. D. Lale , Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Vol. 1,(2002), pp. 219-223.
[8] Jungic, Veselin, Deborah Kent, Peter Menz “Teaching Large Classes: Three
Instructors, One Experience “ IEJME 1(2006), pp. 1-15
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[9] Loch, B. “Tablet Technology in First Year Calculus and Linear Algebra Teaching”
Proc. of the Fifth Southern Hemisphere Conference on Undergraduate Mathematics and
Statistics Teaching and Learning (Kingfisher Delta’05), 231-237.
[10] Loomes, M., Shafarenko, A., and Loomes, M. “Teaching mathematical explanation
through audiographic technology”, Computers & Education, vol.38 (2002), 137-149.
[11] Mackenzie, D.E, Gary, J. D., Prokhovnik, S. J. “Large Group Lecturing in
Mathematics” Educational Studies in Mathematics 6(1975), pp. 293-309.
[12] Maxwell, N & Lopus, J. “ A cost effectiveness analysis of large and small classes in
the university” ducational Evaluation and Policy Analysis” 17(1995) pp. 167-178.
[13] Moodle http://moodle.org/
[14] Prosper: http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/667/
[15] Simon, B., Anderson, R., and Wolfman, S. “Activating computer architecture with
Classroom Presenter”, WCAE2003.
[16] Stockton, D. S. “An experiment with a large class”, Amer.Math. Monthly, 67(1960),
1024-1025.
[17] Townsley, L. “Multimedia Classes: Can there ever be too much technology?” Proc.
of the Vienna International Symposium on Integrating Technology into Mathematics
Education (2002), Vienna, Austria.
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