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Paul Atchley (see sidenote) asks an important question regarding teaching a large class: How does a teacher offer meaningful instruction in a large lecture class? Faculty members who teach large classes face other issues, as well, such as:
Instructors of large classes have found ways to meet some of the challenges this particular teaching situation presents. Val Smith, KU ecology and evolutionary biology/environmental studies, offers these ideas: “Large classes present a special teaching challenge. Making consistent eye contact while lecturing is much more difficult, except with students in the first few rows, and the likelihood of students using their laptops for instant messaging and Web surfing (rather than taking notes) is greatly enhanced. How do you keep a large classroom audience engaged and actively interested in material? My solution to this dilemma in Biology 152 reflects two key goals derived from my own early classroom experiences with Clark Bricker, who for decades excelled at teaching large sections of introductory Chemistry at KU. (continued)
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"Sometimes you have to teach a big class, even if the class should be much smaller. When I arrived at KU, there was no Research Methods in Psychology course. A methods course is typically taught as a lecture course with lab sections. The size of the lecture course varies depending upon the institutional resources, but the lab sections are usually in the 20-30 student range. |
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