Effective Teaching

KAMPALA UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL

Masters of Education

Management and

Administration

EFFECTIVE METHODS OF

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Prince Jamil Wasajja

EFFECTIVE METHODS OF TEACHING

INTRODUCTION

Teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes

Teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes are important for

understanding and improving educational processes. They are closely

linked to teachers’ strategies for coping with challenges in their daily

professional life and to their general well-being, and they shape

students’ learning environment and influence student motivation and

achievement.

Furthermore they can be expected to mediate the effects of job-related

policies – such as changes in curricula for teachers’ initial education or

professional development – on student learning. While examining a

variety of beliefs, practices and attitudes in previous research, these

have been shown to be relevant to the improvement and effectiveness

of schools.

Effective teaching as a result of professional development

Professional development is generally associated with more (reported)

use of specific instructional practices. This means that teachers who

engage in professional learning tend to use specified practices more

often.

• The kind of professional development a teacher participates in is

more important than the amount of time invested. The net effects of

days of professional development are small and only significant in a

few countries, whereas indicators of participation in networks and

Prince Jamil Wasajja 1

mentoring (and in some countries also in workshops and/ or courses)

have significant and stronger net associations with teaching practices

in a majority of countries.

• Professional development activities that take place at regular

intervals and involve teachers in a rather stable social and

collaborative context (i.e. networks or mentoring) have a significantly

stronger association with teaching practices than regular workshops

and courses.

• Student-oriented practices and enhanced activities are more strongly

associated with professional development than structuring practices.

Net effects of indicators of attendance at professional development

activities are stronger and significant in a larger number of countries

for student-oriented practices and enhanced activities than for

structuring practices.

It should be noted that, although teacher background variables

(gender, experience, level of education and subject taught in the

target class) are controlled for, the associations found here should not

be interpreted as causal effects of professional development on the

respective teaching practices. Results may indicate that professional

development – particularly mentoring and networks for professional

development – are effective in instructing and inspiring teachers to use

modern and multifaceted practices, especially student-oriented

practices and enhanced activities. But it may just as well be that

teachers who report using student-oriented practices and enhanced

activities relatively often are generally more motivated to learn and

apply innovative teaching strategies and thus engage in more

professional development.

In many countries, professional development is more and more

implemented at the school level, with in-house training addressing the


teaching staff as a group rather than individual teachers. It is thought

that – besides changing teachers’ personal beliefs and individual

practices directly – professional development can help foster

collaboration and co-operation among teachers and have indirect

effects on beliefs and practices and a more general impact on school

quality. Table 4.8 provides data that help judge the realisation of this

goal.

Professional Competences

Instructional practices, in turn, depend on what teachers bring to the

classroom. Professional competence is believed to be a crucial factor in

classroom and school practices (Shulman, 1987, Campbell et al., 2004;

Baumert and Kunter, 2006). To study this, a number of authors have

used, for example, measures of the effects of constructivist compared

with “reception/direct transmission” beliefs on teaching and learning,

developed by Peterson et al. (1989). Teachers’ professional knowledge

and actual practices may differ not only among countries but also

among teachers within a country. To gain an understanding of the

prevalence of certain beliefs and practices it is therefore important to

examine how they relate to the characteristics of teachers and

classrooms. For example, previous research suggests that the beliefs

and practices of female and male teachers may systematically differ

(e.g. Singer, 1996).

From the perspective of education policy, however, it is even more

relevant to look at the impact on teachers’ beliefs, practices and

attitudes of professional background factors such as type of training,

certification and professional development, subject taught,

employment status (part-time versus full-time) and length of tenure. It

is important to note that any of these relationships can have different


causal interpretations. For example, professional development

activities may change beliefs and attitudes, but participation in such

activities may itself be due to certain beliefs. Good instruction, of

course, is not determined just by the teacher’s background, beliefs and

attitudes; it should also be responsive to students’ needs and various

student, classroom and school background factors. We can look at

whether teaching practices “adapt” to students’ social and language

background, grade level, achievement level, and class size. For

example studies on aptitude-treatment interactions suggest that

students with low intellectual abilities profit more from structured,

teacher-centred instruction, while students with high intellectual

abilities may gain more from less structured and more complex

instruction (Snow and Lohman, 1984).

Teachers do not act only in the classroom where they instruct students

more or less in isolation from other classes and teachers. A modern

view of teaching also includes professional activities on the school

level, such as co-operating in teams, building professional learning

communities, participating in school development, and evaluating and

changing working conditions (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005). These

activities shape the learning environment on the school level, i.e. the

school climate, ethos and culture, and thus directly and indirectly (via

classroom-level processes) affect student learning. Research

distinguishes between two kinds of co-operation by a school’s teaching

staff: exchange and co-ordination for teaching (e.g. exchanging

instructional material or discussing learning problems of individual

students) versus more general and more innovative kinds of

professional collaboration (e.g. observing other teachers’ classes and

giving feedback). It is assumed that both kinds of co-operative

activities will be influenced by school-level context variables such as a

school’s teacher evaluation policies and the school’s leadership, which


are covered in chapters 5 and 6 respectively of this report. As is known

from research on the effectiveness of schools (Scheerens and Bosker,

1997; Hopkins, 2005; Lee and Williams, 2006; Harris and Chrispeels,

2006), the quality of the learning environment is the factor affecting

student learning and outcomes that is most readily modified, given

that background variables such as cognitive and motivational

capacities, socio-economic background, social and cultural capital are

mostly beyond the control of teachers and schools. Research captures

students’ background by asking teachers and principals about the

social composition and the relative achievement level of the student

population they serve. A more important task for our research is to

assess quality, as perceived by teachers, at the classroom as well as

the school level. However, as the environment generally varies

between subjects and teachers, it is not easy to identify domain-

general indicators. Also, classroom climate is used because of its

strong impact on cognitive as well as motivational aspects of student

learning in different subjects. The method used here is adapted from

PISA and focuses on the disciplinary aspect. For example, the

statement “When the lesson begins, I have to wait quite a long time for

the students to quiet down” indicates a low level of classroom

discipline. It has been shown that classroom discipline, aggregated to

the school level, is a core element of instructional quality.

In PISA, it is positively related to the school’s mean student

achievement in many participating countries (Kliemeand Rakoczy,

2003). Also, it has been shown that – unlike other features of

classroom instruction – there is a high level of agreement about this

indicator among teachers, students and observers (Clausen, 2002). In

addition to the environment at the classroom level, school climate is

used as an indicator for the school environment. Here, school climate

is defined as the quality of social relations between students and


teachers (including the quality of support teachers give to students),

which is known to have a direct influence on motivational factors, such

as student commitment to school, learning motivation and student

satisfaction, and perhaps a more indirect influence on student

achievement (see Cohen, 2006, for a review of related research). The

triarchic model of instructional quality mentioned above (Klieme et al.,

2006; Lipowsky et al., 2008; Rakoczy et al., 2007) suggests specific

relations between teaching practices and the two climate factors:

structure-oriented teaching practices should primarily relate to high

levels of classroom climate, while student-oriented practices should be

linked with positive social relations.

BELIEFS ABOUT THE NATURE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

The beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning which are the

focus of our discussion include “direct transmission beliefs about

learning and instruction” and “constructivist beliefs about learning and

instruction”. These dimensions of these beliefs are well established in

educational research at least in Western countries and have also

received support elsewhere (e.g. Kim, 2005).

The direct transmission view of student learning implies that a

teachers’ role is to communicate knowledge in a clear and structured

way, to explain correct solutions, to give students clear and resolvable

problems, and to ensure calm and concentration in the classroom. In

contrast, a constructivist view focuses on students not as passive

recipients but as active participants in the process of acquiring

knowledge. Teachers holding this view emphasise facilitating student

inquiry, prefer to give students the chance to develop solutions to

problems on their own, and allow students to play active role in

instructional activities. Here, the development of thinking and


reasoning processes is stressed more than the acquisition of specific

knowledge (Staub and Stern, 2002).

It is important to note the difference between beliefs on the one hand,

and practices, on the other. Both practices and beliefs are shaped by

pedagogical and cultural traditions. They represent different though

related parts of the pedagogical context for student learning.

The two indices for teachers’ beliefs about teaching comprise the

following questionnaire items:

Direct transmission beliefs about teaching

• Effective/good teachers demonstrate the correct way to solve a

problem.

• Instruction should be built around problems with clear, correct

answers, and around ideas that most students can grasp quickly.

• How much students learn depends on how much background

knowledge they have; that is why teaching facts is so necessary.

• A quiet classroom is generally needed for effective learning.

Constructivist beliefs about teaching

• My role as a teacher is to facilitate students’ own inquiry.

• Students learn best by finding solutions to problems on their own.

• Students should be allowed to think of solutions to practical

problems themselves before the teacher shows them how they are

solved.

• Thinking and reasoning processes are more important than specific

curriculum content.

Learning Styles as a factor in Effective Teaching and Learning


Learning Styles. Learning styles are “characteristic cognitive,

affective, and psychological behaviors that serve as relatively stable

indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the

learning environment”. The concept of learning styles has been

applied to a wide variety of student attributes and differences. Some

students are comfortable with theories and abstractions; others feel

much more at home with facts and observable phenomena; some

prefer active learning and others lean toward introspection; some

prefer visual presentation of information and others prefer verbal

explanations. One learning style is neither preferable nor inferior to

another, but is simply different, with different characteristic strengths

and weaknesses. A goal of instruction should be to equip students with

the skills associated with every learning style category, regardless of

the students’ personal preferences, since they will need all of those

skills to function effectively as professionals.

Approaches to Learning and Orientations to Studying.

Students may be inclined to approach their courses in one of three

ways. Those with a reproducing orientation tend to take a surface

approach to learning, relying on rote memorization and mechanical

formula substitution and making little or no effort to understand the

material being taught. Those with a meaning orientation tend to adopt

a deep approach, probing and questioning and exploring the limits of

applicability of new material. Those with an achieving orientation tend

to use a strategic approach, doing whatever is necessary to get the

highest grade they can, taking a surface approach if that suffices and a

deep approach when necessary. A goal of instruction should be to

induce students to adopt a deep approach to subjects that are

important for their professional or personal development.


Intellectual Development. Most students undergo a developmental

progression from a belief in the certainty of knowledge and the

omniscience of authorities to an acknowledgment of the uncertainty

and contextual nature of knowledge, acceptance of personal

responsibility for determining truth, inclination and ability to gather

supporting evidence for judgments, and openness to change if new

evidence is forthcoming. At the highest developmental level normally

seen in college students (but not in many of them), individuals display

thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers.

A goal of instruction should be to advance students to that level by the

time they graduate.

Learning and Teaching Styles:

A Perspective of Language Education

Students learn in many ways—by seeing and hearing; reflecting and

acting; reasoning logically and intuitively; memorizing and visualizing.

Teaching methods also vary. Some instructors lecture, others

demonstrate or discuss; some focus on rules and others on examples;

some emphasize memory and others understanding. How much a

given student learns in a class is governed in part by that student’s

native ability and prior preparation but also by the compatibility of his

or her characteristic approach to learning and the instructor’s

characteristic approach to teaching.

The ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains, and

retrieves information are collectively termed the individual’s learning

style. Learning styles have been extensively discussed in the

educational psychology literature (Claxton & Murrell 1987; Schmeck

1988) and specifically in the context of language learning by Oxford

and her colleagues (Oxford 1990; Oxford et al. 1991; Wallace and

Oxford 1992; Oxford & Ehrman 1993), and over 30 learning style


assessment instruments have been developed in the past three

decades (Guild & Garger 1985; Jensen 1987).

Serious mismatches may occur between the learning styles of students

in a class and the teaching style of the instructor (Felder & Silverman

1988; Lawrence 1993; Oxford et al. 1991; Schmeck 1988), with

unfortunate potential consequences. The students tend to be bored

and inattentive in class, do poorly on tests, get discouraged about the

course, and may conclude that they are no good at the subject of the

course and give up (Felder & Silverman 1988; Godleski 1984; Oxford et

al. 1991; Smith & Renzulli 1984).

Instructors, confronted by low test grades, unresponsive or hostile

classes, poor attendance, and dropouts, may become overly critical of

their students (making things even worse) or begin to question their

own competence as teachers.

In this paper, we will explore the following questions:

1. Which aspects of learning style are particularly significant in foreign

and second language education?

2. Which learning styles are favored by the teaching styles of most

language instructors?

3. What can be done to address the educational needs of all students

in language classes?

Dimensions of Learning Style

In the sections that follow, we describe five dichotomous learning style

dimensions derived from work of Felder et al. (1988, 1993), indicating

the ways in which the educational needs of students with strong

preferences for certain poles of the dimensions are not met by

traditional approaches to language instruction.


The concluding section offers a summary of suggestions for meeting

the needs of those students.

The proposed learning style dimensions may be defined in terms of the

answers to the following five questions:

1. What type of information does the student preferentially perceive:

sensory—sights, sounds, physical sensations, or intuitive— memories,

ideas, insights?

2. Through which modality is sensory information most effectively

perceived: visual— pictures, diagrams, graphs, demonstrations, or

verbal—written and spoken words and formulas?

3. How does the student prefer to process information: actively—

through engagement in physical activity or discussion, or reflectively—

through introspection?

4. How does the student progress toward understanding: sequentially

—in a logical progression of small incremental steps, or globally—in

large jumps, holistically?

5. With which organization of information is the student most

comfortable: inductive— facts and observations are given, underlying

principles are inferred, or deductive—principles are given,

consequences and applications are deduced?

Sensing and Intuitive Learners

In his theory of psychological types, Jung (1971) introduced sensation

and intuition as the two ways in which people tend to perceive the

world. Sensing involves observing, gathering data through the senses;

intuition involves indirect perception by way of the subconscious—

accessing memory, speculating, imagining. Everyone uses both

faculties constantly, but most people tend to favor one over the other.

The strength of this preference has been assessed for millions of

people using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers &

McCaulley 1985; Myers and Myers 1980), and the different ways in


which sensors and intuitors approach learning have been characterized

(Lawrence 1993). Sensor–intuitor differences in language learning have

been explored by Moody (1988) and Ehrman and Oxford (1990).

Sensors tend to be concrete and methodical, intuitors to be abstract

and imaginative. Sensors like facts, data, and experimentation;

intuitors deal better with principles, concepts, and theories. Sensors

are patient with detail but do not like complications; intuitors are bored

by detail and welcome complications. Sensors are more inclined than

intuitors to rely on memorization as a learning strategy and are more

comfortable learning and following rules and standard procedures.

lntuitors like variety, dislike repetition, and tend to be better equipped

than sensors to accommodate new concepts and exceptions to rules.

Sensors are careful but may be slow; intuitors are quick but may be

careless.

Moody (1988) administered the MBTI to 491 college language students

at the first- and second-year levels. Fifty-nine percent of the students

were intuitors, substantially more than the 40 percent found for a

sample of 18,592 general college students (Myers & McCaulley1985).

This pattern is not altogether surprising if one presumes that a

substantial number of the students were either majoring in a language

or taking the courses as electives. As Moody notes, language is by its

nature symbolic, which would tend to make it more attractive to

intuitors than to the more concrete and literal minded sensors.

Ehrman and Oxford (1990) studied learning strategies and teaching

approaches preferred by sensors and intuitors in an intensive language

training program. The sensors used a variety of memorization

strategies like internal drills and flash cards, liked class material that

might better be described as practical than fanciful, and liked highly


structured and well organized classes with clear goals and milestones

for achievement. Intuitors preferred teaching approaches that involved

greater complexity and variety, tended to be bored with drills, and

were better able than sensors to learn independently of the instructor’s

teaching style.

Basic language instruction that involves a great deal of repetitive drill

and memorization of vocabulary and grammar (the sort of teaching

style often found in pre-college and community college classes) is

better suited to sensors than intuitors. If there is too much of this sort

of thing without a break, the intuitors— who constitute the majority of

the class, if Moody’s results are representative—may become bored

with the subject and their course performance may consequently

deteriorate. On the other hand, strongly intuitive language instructors

may tend to move too quickly through the basic vocabulary and rules

of grammar in their eagerness to get to “the more interesting

material”—grammatical complexities, nuances of translation, linguistic

concepts, and cultural considerations. While the intuitive students may

enjoy these topics, overemphasizing such material may result in

insufficient grounding in the building blocks of the language.

The sensors, in particular, maythen start to fall behind and do poorly

on homework and tests.

Effective instruction reaches out to all students, not just those with one

particular learning style. Students taught entirely with methods

antithetical to their learning style may be made too uncomfortable to

learn effectively, but they should have at least some exposure to those

methods to develop a full range of learning skills and strategies (Smith

& Renzulli 1984).


To be effective, language instruction should therefore contain

elements that appeal to sensors and other elements that appeal to

intuitors. The material presented in every class should be a blend of

concrete information (word definitions, grammatical rules) and

concepts (syntactical and semantic information, linguistic and cultural

background information), with the percentage of each being chosen to

fit the level of the course (beginning, intermediate, or advanced) and

the age and level of sophistication of the students.

Visual and Verbal Learners

We propose to classify the ways people receive sensory information as

visual, verbal, and other (tactile, gustatory, olfactory). Visual learners

prefer that information be presented visually—in pictures, diagrams,

flow charts, time lines, films, and demonstrations—rather than in

spoken or written words. Verbal learners prefer spoken or written

explanations to visual presentations. The third category (touch, taste,

smell) plays at most a marginal role in language instruction and will

not be addressed further.

This categorization is somewhat unconventional in the context of the

learning style literature (e.g., Barbe & Swassing 1979; Dunn, Dunn, &

Price 1978), in which sensory modalities are classified as visual,

auditory, and kinesthetic. Since the five human senses are seeing,

hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, we suggest that “kinesthetic”

does not properly belong on a list of sensory input modalities. A

student’s preference for motion or physical activity of some sort during

the learning process belongs in a separate learning style category: our

proposed system and Kolb’s (1984) model place it in the

active/reflective dimension, and the familiar model based on Jung’s

typology (Lawrence 1993) includes it in the extravert-introvert

dimension.


The distinction between the visual-auditory and visual-verbal

classifications has to do with whether reading prose is more closely

related to seeing pictures (which leads to the visual auditory contrast)

or to hearing speech (visualverbal). Three mechanisms have been

proposed for the process of extracting lexical significance from written

words (Martin 1978): direct access (the reader jumps directly from the

printed form of the word to its lexical meaning), indirect access (the

printed words are translated internally into sounds before information

about their meaning can be located in lexical memory), and dual

encoding (lexical memory can be reached either directly or indirectly).

An extensive body of research supports a form of the dual encoding

hypothesis.

Direct access is possible when words are familiar or when artificial

conditions imposed in a research setting make speech encoding

inefficient; however, when material is unfamiliar or difficult, lexical

memory is speechaccessed (Crowder & Wagner 1992). The implication

is that expository prose of the sort one finds in books and on classroom

chalkboards is much more likely to be speech-mediated than directly

accessed when silently read, and so belongs in the verbal rather than

the visual category.

Most people extract and retain more information from visual

presentations than from written or spoken prose (Dale 1969), while

most language instruction is verbal, involving predominantly lectures,

writing in texts and on chalkboards, and audiotapes in language

laboratories. Given the preference of most students for visual input,

one would expect the last of these modes of presentation in particular

to be unpopular, an expectation borne out in research cited by Moody

(1988). When community college students were asked to rank-order 13


instructional modes, including lectures, discussion, slides, field trips,

and audiotapes, audiotapes ranked at or near the bottom for the

overwhelming majority of students surveyed.

Recent studies of learning styles in foreign language education (e.g.,

Oxford & Ehrman 1993) consistently place reading in the visual

category, implying that instructors can meet the needs of visual

learners solely by relying on written instructional material. Certainly

visual learners learn better if they see and hear words in the target

language, but so do auditory learners: presenting the same material in

different ways invariably has a reinforcing effect on retention. The

challenge to language instructors is to devise ways of augmenting their

verbal classroom presentation with nonverbal visual material—for

example, showing photographs, drawings, sketches, and cartoons to

reinforce presentation of vocabulary words, and using films,

videotapes, and dramatizations to illustrate lessons in dialogue and

pronunciation.

Active and Reflective Learners

The complex mental processes by which perceived information is

converted into knowledge can be conveniently grouped into two

categories: active experimentation and reflective observation (Kolb

1984). Active processing involves doing something in the external

world with the information—discussing it or explaining it or testing it in

some way—and reflective processing involves examining and

manipulating the information introspectively.

An active learner is someone with more of a natural tendency toward

active experimentation than toward reflective observation, and

conversely for a reflective learner. Active learners learn well in

situations that enable them to do something physical and reflective


learners learn well in situations that provide them with opportunities to

think about the information being presented. The more opportunities

students have to both participate and reflect in class, the better they

will learn new material and the longer they are likely to retain it (KoIb

1984; McCarthy 1987).

Language classes in which all students are relegated to passive roles,

listening to and observing the instructor and taking notes, do little to

promote learning for either active or reflective learners. Language

classes should therefore include a variety of active learning

experiences, such as conversations, enactment of dialogues and

minidramas, and team competitions, and reflective experiences, such

as brief writing exercises and question formulation exercises. Small-

group exercises can be extremely effective for both active and

reflective learners (Johnson et al. 1991). Pose a question or problem

(“Translate this sentence.” “What’s wrong with what I just wrote?”

“How many synonyms for ‘happy’ can you think of in 30 seconds?”

“What question do you have about what we covered today?”) and have

students come up with answers working in groups of three, with one

group member acting as recorder. Such exercises engage all the

students, not just the small minority who typically participate in class,

and are a rich source of responses and material for subsequent

discussion. The exercises also relieve the monotony of continuous

lectures. In our experience, as little as five minutes of group work in a

50-minute period can be enough to maintain the students’ attention for

the entire class.

Group work must be used with care, however: simply telling students

to work together on problems or projects can do more harm than good.

Most references on cooperative learning (e.g., Johnson et al. 1991)

point out that students often respond negatively to group work at first,


and that the benefits of the approach are fully realized when the group

work is structured to assure such features as positive interdependence,

individual accountability, and appropriate uses of teamwork and

interpersonal skills. Reid (1987) studied students from a variety of

ethnic backgrounds and found that every background expressed a

minor or negative preference for group work, with English speakers

giving it the lowest rating. When language students have been taught

cooperative skills, however, they showed positive results in both

language skill and altruism (Gunderson & Johnson 1980; Jacob &

Mattson 1987).

Sequential and Global Learners

Sequential learners absorb information and acquire understanding of

material in small connected chunks, and global learners take in

information in seemingly unconnected fragments and achieve

understanding in large holistic leaps. on homework and tests until they

grasp the total picture, but once they have it they can often see

connections that escape sequential learners. On the other hand,

sequential learners can function with incomplete understanding of

course material, but they may lack a grasp of the broad context of a

body of knowledge and its interrelationships with other subjects and

disciplines.

Many authors who have done research on cognitive or learning styles

have noted the importance of this dichotomous pairing, and various

terms have been used to describe categories that appear to have

points in common with what we term the sequential and global

categories: analytic and global (Kirby

1988; Schmeck 1988); field-independent and field-dependent (Witkin &

Goodenough 1981); serialistic and holistic (Pask 1988); left-brained

and right-brained (Kane 1984); atomistic and holistic (Marton 1988);


sequential and random (Gregorc 1982). Luria’s (1980) working brain

model postulates successive and simultaneous modes of processing,

and Pask (1988) similarly distinguishes between stringing and

clumping modes of coding information and structuring responses.

Schmeck (1988) believes that the analytic/global dimension

encompasses all other cognitive styles, a belief shared by Oxford et al.

(1991).

Oxford (1990) proposes that this learning style dimension can be

tapped through studies of brain hemisphericity. She cites studies of

Leaver (1986) suggesting that left-brain (sequential) thinkers deal

more easily with grammatical structure and contrastive analysis, while

right-brain (global) thinkers are better at learning language intonation

and rhythms. Sequential learners gravitate toward strategies that

involve dissecting words and sentences into component parts and are

comfortable with structured teaching approaches that stress

grammatical analysis; global learners prefer holistic strategies such as

guessing at words and searching for main ideas, and may respond well

to relatively unstructured approaches like community language

learning that might not appeal to sequential learners.

Pedagogical Implications and Potential Misuses of Learning

Styles

Studies have shown that greater learning may occur when teaching

styles match learning styles than when they are mismatched but the

point of identifying learning styles is not to label individual students

and tailor instruction to fit their preferences. To function effectively as

engineers or members of any other profession, students will need skills

characteristic of each type of learner: the powers of observation and

attention to detail of the sensor and the imagination and abstract

thinking ability of the intuitor; the abilities to comprehend information


presented both visually and verbally, the systematic analysis skills of

the sequential learner and the multidisciplinary synthesis skills of the

global learner, and so on.

If instruction is heavily biased toward one category of a learning style

dimension, mismatched students may be too uncomfortable to learn

effectively, while the students whose learning styles match the

teaching style will not be helped to develop critical skills in their less

preferred learning style categories.

The optimal teaching style is a balanced one that sometimes matches

students’ preferences, so their discomfort level is not too great for

them to learn effectively, and sometimes goes against their

preferences, forcing them to stretch and grow in directions they might

be inclined to avoid if given the option.

The preceding paragraph suggests what we believe to be the most

important application of learning styles, which is to help instructors

design a balanced teaching approach that addresses the learning

needs of all of their students. Designing such an approach does not

require assessing the students' learning style preferences: it is enough

for instructors to select a model and attempt to address all of its

categories (in Kolb model terms, to teach around the cycle), knowing

that every class probably contains students with every preference [14].

Assessing the learning style profile of a class with an instrument such

as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Kolb Learning Style Inventory,

or the Index of Learning Styles—without being overly concerned about

which students have which preferences— can provide additional

support for effective instructional design. For example, knowing that a

large majority of students in a class are sensing and visual learners can

—and should—motivate the instructor to find concrete and visual ways

to supplement the presentation of material that might normally be

presented entirely abstractly and verbally. Many specific suggestions


for designing instruction to address the full spectrum of learning styles

are given by Felder and Silverman

What about identifying individual students' learning styles and sharing

the results with them? Doing so can provide them with valuable clues

about their possible strengths and weaknesses and indications of ways

they might improve their academic performance. Precautions should

be taken if students are told their learning styles, however. The

instructor should emphasize that no learning style instrument is

infallible, and if the students’ perceptions of how they learn best differ

from what the instrument says, they should not discount their own

judgment. They should also be assured that their learning style

preferences are not reliable indicators of what they are and are not

capable of doing, and that people with every possible learning style

can succeed in any profession or endeavor. If a student is assessed as,

say, a sensing learner, it says nothing about his or her intuitive skills

(or sensing skills, for that matter); it does not mean that he or she is

unsuited to be an engineer or scientist or mathematician; and it does

not excuse the low grade he or she made on the last exam. Instructors

or advisers who use learning styles as a basis for recommending

curriculum or career choices are misusing the concept and could be

doing serious disservices to their students and advisees.

Questions about learning styles

As previously noted, learning styles are controversial, with questions

commonly being raised regarding their meaning and even their

existence. Much work needs to be done to resolve these questions and

also to determine the validity of different learning style models for

engineering students and to confirm or refute claims regarding the

effectiveness of a balanced teaching approach. The following questions

merit investigation:


1. Does an assessed learning style preference indicate (a) the type

of instruction a student is most comfortable with or (b) the type

of instruction most likely to lead to more effective learning? To

what extent are the two coincident?

2. Do any learning style preferences depend on students’ ethnic

and cultural backgrounds? Which preferences, and what are the

nature and extent of the dependences?

3. To what extent does teaching exclusively to a student’s learning

style preference lead to (a) greater student satisfaction, (b)

improvement in skills associated with that preference, (c) lack of

improvement in skills associated with the opposite preference?

4. Does a curriculum heavily biased toward a particular learning

style increase the incidence of dropouts of students with conflicting

styles? To what extent does more balanced instruction reduce

attrition and improve academic performance of those students?

5. Is the provision of choice over learning tasks an effective strategy

for accommodating different learning style preferences? How much

choice should be provided and what kind?

6. How effective is instructional technology that provides alternative

pathways through a body of material, with the pathways being

designed to appeal to different learning style preferences?

7. How should learning style preferences be incorporated in

advising? How effective are interventions that take learning style

into account?

8. Does mixing learning styles when forming project teams lead to

better team products? Does it lead to increased interpersonal

conflict? If the answer to each question is “yes,” do the improved

products compensate for the greater conflict risk? Do making team

members aware of their learning style differences lower the

potential for conflict?

9. How helpful to students is discussion of learning styles in class?


10. To what extent are preferences on comparable scales of

different instruments correlated?

11. To what extent do the answers to any of the preceding

questions depend on the strength of students’ learning style

preferences?

APPROACHES TO LEARNING AND ORIENTATIONS TO STUDYING

A. Definitions and Assessment

Marton and Säljö [64] define three different approaches to learning—a

surface approach, a deep approach, and a strategic approach.

Students who adopt a surface approach to learning memorize facts but

do not try to fit them into a larger context, and they follow routine

solution procedures without trying to understand their origins and

limitations. These students commonly exhibit an extrinsic motivation to

learn (I’ve got to learn this to pass the course, to graduate, to get a

good job) and an unquestioning acceptance of everything in the

textbook and in lectures.

To them, studying means scouring their texts for worked-out examples

that look like the homework problems so they can simply copy the

solutions. They either ignore the text outside of the examples or they

scan through it with a highlighter, looking for factual information that

the instructor might consider important, which they will attempt to

memorize before the exam. Students who take a deep approach do not

simply rely on memorization of course material but focus instead on

understanding it.

They have an intrinsic motivation to learn, with intellectual curiosity

rather than the possibility of external reward driving their efforts. They

cast a critical eye on each statement or formula or analytical

procedure they encounter in class or in the text and do whatever they


think might help them understand it, such as restating text passages in

their own words and trying to relate the new material to things they

have previously learned or to everyday experience. Once the

information makes sense, they try to fit it into a coherent body of

knowledge. Students who adopt a strategic approach do whatever it

takes to get the top grade. They are well organized and efficient in

their studying. They carefully assess the level of effort they need to

exert to achieve their ambition, and if they can do it by staying

superficial they will do so, but if the instructor’s assignments and tests

demand a deep approach they will respond to the demand.

A student may adopt different approaches to learning in different

courses and even for different topics within a single course. An

orientation to studying is a tendency to adopt one of the approaches in

a broad range of situations and learning environments. Students who

habitually adopt a surface approach have a reproducing orientation;

those who usually adopt a deep approach have a meaning orientation;

and those inclined to take a strategic approach have an achieving

orientation. The Lancaster Approaches to Studying Questionnaire

(LASQ) is a sixty-four-item questionnaire that involves twelve subscales

relevant to the three orientations and four additional subscales.

Shorter forms of the LASQ that provide less detailed information are

referenced by Woods et al., and an alternative to the LASQ is the Study

Process Questionnaire developed by Biggs .Woods et al. Report on a

study in which one of the short forms of the LASQ was administered to

1,387 engineering students.

The strongest inclination of the students was toward a strategic

approach, followed in order by a surface approach and a deep

approach. Bertrand and Knapper report LASQ results for students in

other disciplines. Bertrand and Knapper also report on three groups of


students in two multidisciplinary curricula—students in the second and

fourth years of a project-based environmental resource studies

program and students in a problem-based program on the impact of

new materials. All three groups showed relatively strong inclinations

toward a deep approach. There was little difference in the profiles of

the second- and fourth-year students, suggesting that the results

might reflect the orientations of the students selecting into the

programs more than the influence of the programs.

There are similarities between orientations to studying and learning

styles. Both represent tendencies that are situationally dependent, as

opposed to fixed traits like gender or handedness that always

characterize an individual. Just as a student who is a strong intuitor

may function like a sensor in certain situations and vice versa, a

student with a pronounced meaning orientation may under some

circumstances adopt a surface approach to learning, and a strongly

reproducing student may sometimes be motivated to dig deep.

Similarly, just as students may be reasonably balanced in a learning

style preference, frequently functioning in ways characteristic of, say,

both sensors and intuitors, some students may be almost equally likely

to adopt deep and surface approaches.

Deep Approach to Learning

The teacher’s job is to create conditions that lead students to construct

accurate representations of the concepts being studied, first

abandoning prior misconceptions if any exist.

Certain features of classroom instruction have been found to be

constructively aligned with the adoption of a deep approach to

learning, while other features have the opposite effect:


1. Interest in and background knowledge of the subject encourage a

deep approach; lack of interest and inadequate background discourage

it.

2. Clearly stated expectations and clear feedback on progress

encourage a deep approach; poor or absent feedback discourages it.

3. Assessment methods that emphasize conceptual understanding

encourage a deep approach; methods that emphasize recall or the

application of routine procedural knowledge discourage it.

4. Teaching methods that foster active and long-term engagement

with learning tasks encourage a deep approach.

5. Opportunities to exercise responsible choice in the content and

method of study encourage a deep approach.

6. Stimulating and caring teaching encourages a deep approach;

apathetic or inconsiderate teaching discourages it. A corollary is that

students who perceive that teaching is good are more likely to adopt a

deep approach than students with the opposite perception.

7. An excessive amount of material in the curriculum and an

unreasonable workload discourage a deep approach.

8. Previous experiences with educational settings that encouraged

deep approaches further encourage deep approaches. A similar

statement can be made regarding surface approaches.

Well-established instructional strategies can be used to achieve these

conditions. Inductive teaching methods such as problem- based and

project-based learning can motivate students by helping to make the

subject matter relevant to their prior experience and interests and they

also emphasize conceptual understanding and de-emphasize rote

memorization . An excellent way to make expectations clear is to

articulate them in the form of instructional objectives —statements of

observable actions students should be able to do (define, explain,


calculate, derive, model, design) once they have completed a section

of a course.

Several student-centered teaching approaches accomplish the goal of

actively involving students in learning tasks , notably active learning

(engaging students in class activities other than listening to lectures)

and cooperative learning (getting students to work in small teams on

projects or homework under conditions that hold all team members

accountable for the learning objectives associated with the

assignment). Trigwell et al. found a positive correlation between an

instructor’s use of such instructional methods and students’ adoption

of a deep approach to learning.

Other references provide numerous examples of teaching in a

stimulating caring manner , providing clear feedback by, among other

ways, designing appropriate tests , and providing choice in learning

tasks. Several of the references cited in this paragraph and the

preceding one also summarize research connecting the instructional

methods mentioned with a variety of positive learning outcomes.

Inductive and Deductive Learners:

A Perspective on the Language

Learning/Acquisition Dichotomy

Induction is a reasoning progression that proceeds from particulars

(observations, measurements, data) to generalities (rules, laws,

theories). Deduction proceeds in the opposite direction. In inductive

presentation of classroom material, one makes observations and infers

governing or correlating principles; in deductive presentation one

starts with axioms, principles, or rules, deduces consequences, and

formulates applications. As with the previous dimensions, students

may have moderate or strong preferences for one or the other


presentation mode; in particular, they may prefer deductive

presentation because of its relatively high level of structure.

A large percentage of classroom teaching in every subject is primarily

or exclusively deductive, probably because deduction is an efficient

and elegant way to organize and present material that is already

understood. However, there is considerable evidence that

incorporating a substantial inductive component into teaching

promotes effective learning. Inductive reasoning is thought to be an

important component in academic achievement (Ropo 1987). Current

cognitive research emphasizes the importance of prior knowledge in

learning (Glaser 1984); introducing new material by linking it to

observed or previously known material is essentially inductive. The

benefits claimed for inductive instructional approaches (e.g., discovery

or inquiry learning) include increased academic achievement and

enhanced abstract reasoning skills (Taba 1966), longer retention of

information (McConnell 1934; Swenson 1949), and improved ability to

apply principles (Lahti 1986).

Insofar as foreign languages are concerned, we propose that the

distinction between induction and deduction is akin to the distinction

between language acquisition and learning. To acquire a language

means to pick it up gradually, gaining the ability to communicate with

it without necessarily being able to articulate the rules. Individuals

absorb what they can from the abundant and continuous input that

bombards them; they cannot grasp all they hear, but each day

increases their ability to understand, retain, and use in conversation

what they have taken in. Throughout the process they gain in their

ability to transfer strategies, make assumptions about the new

language system, formulate and test rules, and either keep or abandon

them. They continue this process (most of which is subconscious) until


they fossilize, which they may do as soon as they feel they have

learned what they need to in order to communicate in the language

(Coulter 1983). In its progression from specifics to generalizations,

acquisition is an inductive process.

On the other hand, language learning is a largely conscious process

that involves formal exposure to rules of syntax and semantics

followed by specific applications of the rules, with corrective feedback

reinforcing correct usage and discouraging incorrect usage. The flow of

the learning process from general to specific suggests its

characterization as a deductive process.

Three well-known approaches illustrate deductive and inductive

approaches to language instruction. The first is the grammar

translation method, rooted in the formal teaching of Latin and Greek

that prevailed in Europe for many centuries (Rivers 1968). This method

involves the translation of literary texts followed by explanation (in the

students’ native language) of rules of grammar. As Corder notes,

grammar-translation is “the most deductive approach” (Allen & Corder

1975,13). A later approach is the direct method, in which classes are

taught entirely in the target language; grammar is taught inferentially

and plays a secondary role to oral communication. This approach,

which was in vogue in many countries throughout the nineteenth

century (Allen & Corder 1975, 18), is almost purely inductive.

The third approach is the audio-oral method, according to which

language is a set of habits with vocabulary being of secondary

concern. In this method, which was influenced by behavioral

psychology and structural linguistics, students learn by repeating

structural patterns and eventually automatize the structures, aided by

positive reinforcement provided by the teacher. This approach


combines acquired verbal skills (inductive) with learned reading and

writing skills (deductive), with emphasis on the former. As Allen and

Corder point out, “Advocates of the oral method have assumed that

language learning is an inductive rather than a deductive process.”

(Allen & Corder 1975, 46). Many common instructional techniques

(e.g., the silent way, suggestopaedia, community language learning,

the total physical response, the communicative approach) essentially

fall into this category, although all may involve some deductive

elements.

A long-standing controversy in language education has to do with

whether languages can be acquired in the classroom or only learned.

Brown (1980, 7), McLaughlin (1987, 20), and

Gregg (1987) believe that both learning and acquisition may go on in

classrooms. Krashen and Terrell (1983, 18) hold that acquisition can

only occur in natural settings, but later admit that “despite our

conclusion that language teaching is directed at learning and not

acquisition, we think that it is possible to encourage acquisition very

effectively in the classroom” (Krashen & Terrell 1983, 27). We agree,

and believe that the key question facing language educators is, what

classroom conditions and procedures facilitate the occurrence of

language acquisition?

An important consideration in attacking this question has to do with

the use to which an acquired or learned language is likely to be

applied. By its very nature, language acquisition is more likely to

manifest in oral fluency than in correct utilization of the written

language and conversely for language learning.

Complete command of a language thus involves both acquisition—an

inductive process, required to speak fluently—and learning—a

deductive process, required to write grammatically. The two processes


are not competitive but complementary, just as inductive and

deductive reasoning are essential and coequal components of the

scientific method. By analogy, it would appear that an ideal classroom

setting for teaching a foreign language would be one that stimulates

and facilitates both inductive and deductive learning processes, both

acquisition and learning. We return to this theme in the concluding

section of the paper.

Collaborative Learning

“Collaborative learning” is an umbrella term for a variety of

educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by students,

or students and teachers together. Usually, students are working in

groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding,

solutions, or meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning

activities vary widely, but most center on students’ exploration or

application of the course material, not simply the teacher’s

presentation or explication of it.

Collaborative learning represents a significant shift away from the

typical teachercentered or lecture-centered milieu in college

classrooms. In collaborative classrooms, the lecturing/ listening/note-

taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other

processes that are based in students’ discussion and active work with

the course material. 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.


Assumptions about Learning

Though collaborative learning takes on a variety of forms and is

practiced by teachers of different disciplinary backgrounds and

teaching traditions, the field is tied together by a number of important

assumptions about learners and the learning process.

Learning is an active, constructive process: To learn new

information, ideas or skills, our students have to work actively with

them in purposeful ways. They need to integrate this new material with

what they already know-or use it to reorganize what they thought they

knew. In collaborative learning situations, our students are not simply

taking in new information or ideas. They are creating something new

with the information and ideas.

These acts of intellectual processing- of constructing meaning or

creating something new-are crucial to learning.

Learning depends on rich contexts: Recent research suggests

learning is fundamentally influenced by the context and activity in

which it is embedded (Brown, Collins and Duguid, 1989). Collaborative

learning activities immerse students in challenging tasks or questions.

Rather than beginning with facts and ideas and then moving to

applications, collaborative learning activities frequently begin with

problems, for which students must marshal pertinent facts and ideas.

Instead of being distant observers of questions and answers, or

problems and solutions, students become immediate practitioners.

Rich contexts challenge students to practice and develop higher order

reasoning and problem solving skills.

Learners are diverse: Our students bring multiple perspectives to

the classroom-diverse backgrounds, learning styles, experiences, and

aspirations. As teachers, we can no longer assume a one-size-fits- all


approach. When students work together on their learning in class, we

get a direct and immediate sense of how they are learning, and what

experiences and ideas they bring to their work. The diverse

perspectives that emerge in collaborative ‘activities are clarifying but

not just for us. They are illuminating for our students as well.

Learning is inherently social: As Jeff Golub points out,

“Collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows

for student talk: students are supposed to talk with ach other....and it

is in this talking that much of the learning occurs.” (Golub, 1988)

Collaborative learning produces intellectual synergy of many minds

coming to bear on a problem, and the social stimulation of mutual

engagement in a common endeavor. This mutual exploration,

meaning-making, and feedback often leads to better understanding on

he part of students, and to the creation of new understandings for all

of us.

Goals for Education

While we use collaborative learning because we believe it helps

students learn more effectively, many of us also place a high premium

on teaching strategies that go beyond ere mastery of content and

ideas. We believe collaborative learning promotes a larger educational

agenda, one that encompasses several intertwined rationales.

Involvement. Calls to involve students more actively in their learning

are coming from virtually every quarter of higher education (Astin,

1985; Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Kuh, 990; Study Group on the

Conditions of Excellence in Higher Education, 1984).

Involvement in learning, involvement with other students, and

involvement with faculty e factors that make an overwhelming

difference in student retention and success in college. By its very


nature, collaborative learning is both socially and intellectually

involving. It invites students to build closer connections to other

students, their faculty, heir courses and their learning.

Cooperation and teamwork. In collaborative endeavors, students

inevitably encounter difference, and must grapple with recognizing and

working with it. Building the capacities for tolerating or resolving

differences, for building agreement that honors all the voices in a

group, for caring how others are doing -- these abilities are crucial

aspects of living in a community. Too often the development of these

values and skills is relegated to the “Student Life” side of the campus.

Cultivation of teamwork, community building, and leadership skills are

legitimate and valuable classroom goals, not just extracurricular ones.

Civic Responsibility: If democracy is to endure in any meaningful

way, our educational system must foster habits of participation in and

responsibility to the larger community. Collaborative learning

encourages students to acquire an active voice in shaping their ideas

and values and a sensitive ear in hearing others. Dialogue,

deliberation, and consensus-building out of differences are strong

threads in the fabric of collaborative learning, and in civic life as well.

Collaborative Learning Approaches

Collaborative learning covers a broad territory of approaches with wide

variability in the amount of in-class or out-of-class time built around

group work. Collaborative activities can range from classroom

discussions interspersed with short lectures, through entire class

periods, to study on research teams that last a whole term or year. The

goals and processes of collaborative activities also vary widely. Some

faculty members design small group work around specific sequential

steps, or tightly structured tasks. Others prefer a more spontaneous


agenda developing out of student interests or questions. In some

collaborative learning settings, the students’ task is to create a clearly

delineated product; in others, the task is not to produce a product, but

rather to participate in a process, an exercise of responding to each

other’s work or engaging in analysis and meaning-making.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning represents the most carefully structured end of

the collaborative learning continuum. Defined as “the instructional use

of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own

and each other’s learning” (Johnson et al. 1990), cooperative learning

is based on the social interdependence theories of Kurt Lewin

andMorton Deutsch (Deutsch, 1949; Lewin, 1935). These theories and

associated research explore the influence of the structure of social

interdependence on individual interaction within a given situation

which, in turn, affects the outcomes of that interaction (Johnson and

Johnson, 1989). Pioneers in cooperative learning, David and Roger

Johnson at the University of Minnesota, Robert Slavin at Johns Hopkins

University, and Elizabeth Cohen at Stanford, have devoted years of

detailed research and analysis to clarify the conditions under which

cooperative, competitive, or individualized goal structures affect or

increase student achievement, psychological adjustment, self-esteem,

and social skills.

In cooperative learning, the development of interpersonal skills is as

important as the learning itself. The development of social skills in

group work-learning to cooperate – is key to high quality group work.

Many cooperative learning tasks are put to students with both

academic objectives and social skills objectives. Many of the strategies

involve assigning roles within each small group (such as recorder,

participation encourager, summarizer) to ensure the positive


interdependence of group participants and to enable students to

practice different teamwork skills. Built into cooperative learning work

is regular “group processing,” a “debriefing” time where students

reflect on how they are doing in order to learn how to become more

effective in group learning settings (Johnson, Johnson and Holubec,

1990).

Problem-Centered Instruction

Problem-centered instruction, widely used in professional education,

frequently is built around collaborative learning strategies. Many of

these spring from common roots, especially the work of John Dewey in

the early part of this century. Dewey endorsed discussion-based

teaching and believed strongly in the importance of giving students

challenges to own discovery.

EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN LARGE CLASSES

Introduction and General Objectives

Introduction

The expansion in enrolment in higher institutions in Africa in the midst

of limited resources translated in the 1980s and 1990s into more

numbers in classes. The phenomenon of large classes is

fast becoming one to be contended with in most higher

institutions in the region. The outlook for the future?

Many more large classes. But of course, large classes

are found in institutions the world over. Since we cannot

wish large classes away, we have to devise techniques

for delivering good quality education in such settings.


What counts is not the size of the class, but the quality of the teaching. Research suggests that the key to effective instruction and student learning, regardless of class size, is engaging students in active learning.

This module is to assist those teachers who have responsibility for

teaching large classes to do so with a smile!

We often think that learning occurs in proportion to class size:

the smaller the class, the more students learn. However, while

research shows that small classes provide more opportunities for

feedback and discussion than large classes, as well as greater student

satisfaction, it does not suggest that class size is necessarily a

correlate of student learning. What counts is not the size of the class,

but the quality of the teaching. Research suggests that the key to

effective instruction and student learning, regardless of class size, is

engaging students in active learning.

At the end of this module, you should have:

developed a working definition of a large class; and

acquired basic techniques of teaching large classes

for optimal learning.

What is a Large Class?

Putting first things first, the question to be addressed as we start our

study of this module is “what is a large class?” This question was put

to some senior academics attending a UNESCO Regional Workshop on

Teaching and Learning in Higher Education at Moi University, Eldoret,

Kenya. Here are excerpts of views expressed.

“There is nothing like a large class. The large class is only in the

mind of the orthodox teacher”

“A large class is one with more students than available facilities can

support”

“Large classes have more than 100 students enrolled”


GENERAL OBJECTIVES

“There is no fixed number. The large class depends on the

discipline- smaller number for engineering, science and medicine

and larger number for the arts, humanities, and social sciences”

What are other views on large classes? There is no agreed definition of

a large class in the literature, nor should there be. One person’s large

class is what some others consider as ‘regular’, ‘small’ or ‘normal’.

Some teachers simply define "large" as "too many students to learn

names by the end of the term or semester." Whether something feels

like a large class is partly a matter of the resources put into teaching it

and of the skill employed by the teacher. For example, a social science

lecturer who works alone with a class of 40-50 and who grades

students on coursework essays and essay-type examinations finds this

to be a large class. However, a language lecturer may not think 50

students makes for a large class. So, let’s say that a large class is one

that feels large and that a sign of this will often be that you feel that

the size of the class stops you from working in your preferred way. This

module is about making large classes feel smaller; about weakening

feelings that the number of students is disempowering the professor;

and about helping students to feel better about the large classes that

are likely to greet them in their first year at the higher institution.

For our purpose, we suggest that a large class is one that feels large.

Signs that the class is ‘large’ can be:

The class is significantly larger than you are used to.

The resources can no longer cope with the number of students if

you desire individual attention for the students.

One thing is sure. Whether we have a working definition or not, the

phenomenon exists. Since we have identified some of the

characteristics, we should now proceed with how to cope with it.


Reflect on the concept of a large class. Organise a discussion in your department on the meaning of a large class. What are the main similarities and differences in the definitions provided during the discussion?

How Does Class Size Make a Difference?

Studies on the effects of class size have been conducted since

the 1920's. Results have often been mixed, with some methods of

instruction favouring small classes and other methods being as or

more effective in large classes. Large classes are as effective as small

classes when the goals involve learning factual information and

comprehending that information. When traditional achievement tests

are used to measure learning, large classes compare well with smaller

classes.

Smaller classes have been found more effective when

instructional goals involve higher level cognitive skills including

application, analysis, and synthesis. Smaller classes provide for greater

contact between students and lecturer, which appears to be most

needed for students with low motivation, those with little knowledge of

the subject matter, or those who have difficulty grasping conceptual

material. Smaller classes are also more effective than large ones in

affecting student attitudes. In sum, the optimal size of a class depends

on the instructional goals being pursued. The main advantage smaller

classes have over larger ones is that they provide students with

greater opportunities for interaction with subject matter, with the

professor and with one another.

Now to the down side of large classes. Teaching large classes

has been found to adversely affect morale, motivation and self-esteem

of teachers. Although many teachers could manage a class of almost


Activity 5.1

any size successfully, this could often be at the expense of the

teacher's own well being and the range of learning experiences offered

to students. Many teachers of large classes feel they spend too much

time on organising and managing class activities and not enough on

meeting the needs of individual children. Large classes and

overcrowded classrooms have negative effects on students' behaviour

and learning.

Some other problems with large classes are:

Students become faces instead of people

It is harder to give individual advice and guidance to students

Organisational problems are compounded, making it difficult to

schedule tutorials, laboratory sessions, and fieldwork

There can be technical problems working with large classes e.g.

difficulties in projecting slides that are clearly visible to all

students.

Monitoring of attendance can be difficult, thus encouraging

students to cut classes

Coping with large numbers of assignments and examination

scripts is a source of difficulty

The quality of feedback to students can be much reduced in

large classes.

Table 5.1 gives some comparison between small and large classes.

Table 5.1 Comparing Large and Small Classes

Teachers' views on teaching larger and smaller classesLarger classes Smaller classesStudents receive less individual attention

Students receive more individual attention

A more restricted range of teaching and learning activities

Flexibility to vary teaching and learning activities

Whole-class teaching sometimes employed for control and keeping students on task

Whole-class teaching employed when appropriate to the activity

Group work hard to manage because Group work can be employed effectively and


of too many or too large groups flexiblyRestricted opportunities for student assessment and individual feedback

Better quality assessment and feedback to students

Limitations to practical activities More opportunities for active learningTeachers work extremely hard to offset the effects of larger class size

More reasonable workloads enabling teachers to put their energies into meeting the needs of students

No doubt these obstacles are numerous. Since we cannot wish large

classes away, we have to devise techniques for coping and ensure that

our students benefit from participation in a large class. Let us now

examine how we go about this.

Introduction

Should we organise learning experiences for small classes and large

ones in the same way? Clearly not. Since the demands of large classes

are different from those of small classes, we need to prepare our

programme to take the differences in demands into consideration.

What demands are we talking about here? We are referring to the

demands of space, equipment, and the demands of evaluation. We are

proceeding with the assumption that our objectives for the course or

programme are the same irrespective of whether or not we are faced

with a large class or a small class.

At the end of this Unit, you should be able to:

plan a course of work for students in a large class


Developing and Implementing Curriculum for Large Classes

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

considering the demands of space, equipment and evaluation;

organise practical work for students in large classes; and

recognise the need for equity in implementing a programme for

large classes.

Taking Demand of Space into Consideration

The learning experiences we have planned for our students in a course

for example in science or the languages need not be watered down on

account of presentation to a large rather than to a small class when

space comes in as a limitation. Space here could mean lecture room,

laboratory or workshop space. Our institution probably has room to

accommodate 50 students for the course. In the next several years, we

have been compelled to enrol 300 students for the same course. Or we

have been asked to prepare a new programme for a course which has

an outlook of high enrolment, yet space in our institution is limiting.

Taking another example, a rather common one, how do we plan for

many of our introductory courses that have high enrolment but whose

space allotment for lectures and practicals is tight and choked? In all of

these, we should not take any activity out of the normal programme of

work. What we need to tinker with is how we take full advantage of the

space limitation. But how do we do this?

How should we plan for introductory courses that have high enrolment but whose space allotment for lectures and practicals is tight and choked? How do you take full advantage of space limitation in your institution to

address the space requirements of large introductory classes?

Taking Demand of Equipment into Consideration

So we probably have ample space but equipment is short and unable


Activity 5.2

to go round the large number of students. For example, we have 120

language students for equipment fitted for 35 students in a language

laboratory. Also an engineering workshop with equipment for 30

students; but here we are with 75 students. As we agreed, course

content remains the same.

How do you organise and implement learning experiences when your class is large and equipment is in short supply?

Taking Demand of Evaluation into Consideration

We expect that the progress of students in a large class should be monitored and reported upon with a rigour that is similar to that of students in a relatively small class. We expect that every student in the large class should have opportunities of doing assignments, of doing tests and of asking questions in class and of having a feedback on his or her performance.

How do we plan our programme to take the large number of students into consideration while evaluating large classes?

Organising Practical Work for Large Classes

If there is one issue that keeps teachers in higher institutions nervous

when confronted with large classes, it is how to run practical sessions

with the same fervour as they do for small classes. It is sad to note

that many give up and do either of two things. One, skip the practicals

entirely. The second option is to run what is commonly called “theory

of practicals” sessions. In these sessions, students go through ‘dry

labs’ and learn only the theoretically underpinnings of the scheduled

practical work. These two approaches kill the inquiry spirit of science


Activity 5.3

Activity 5.4

and fail to guarantee Africa the development of a crop of high-quality,

Nobel prize-winning scientists. In one breath, we want to advance

rapidly in science and technology, in another breath, we ask our higher

institution teachers to teach science to large numbers of students in

laboratories that cannot accommodate large numbers. How do we

maintain a balance in this context? Experts at the Regional Workshop

on Higher Education at Moi University in Kenya and at a similar

workshop in Lagos State University, Nigeria reached agreement on

these strategies:

Cooperative Group Work

In a large class, assigning a set of materials to individual students for

practical work is hardly feasible. Grouping students in the laboratory or

workshop becomes an attractive option. Setting up groups is not as

easy as some think. It is not enough to randomly assign students to

groups without some defined criteria. Studies e.g. Okebukola (1992);

Johnson and Johnson (1996) have shown that cooperative-learning

groups perform better in science practical skills than individualistic and

competitive groups. In setting up cooperative-learning groups,

researchers have suggested mixing on the basis of ability level, gender

and other discriminating variables. How do you achieve this? The

following steps could serve as a guide.

From the class list, group the students into high, average and low

ability in terms of performance in your subject. The ability levels can

be determined using previous test scores and labelling those

students who are in the upper third as high ability, those in the

bottom third as low ability and the middle two-thirds as average

ability. Indicate H, A, and L to representing high, average and low,

in front of the names of the students on the class list.


Indicate M and F in front of every name on the class list.

Compose the groups to include (as much as possible) at least one

high ability, two average ability and one low ability student. Also

have at least one female student in the group.

Give students the guidelines for group work. These should include

asking every member of the group to contribute his or her idea to

experimental work and to decision making in the group. Inform

them that it is a ‘sink or swim together’ situation and that group

reward is for all and not for individual members. A score of 5 for the

group will be the score for each and every member.

Use of the stations approach

This technique assumes that materials and equipment are available

only for a small fraction of the students and that all experiments for

the semester should be carried out by every student. After checking

out the functioning equipment for each experiment, the teacher

proceeds to set these up as “work stations”. Thus, every station is

dedicated to a specific experiment. If there are seven experiments

listed for the semester in say, a physics course, there will be seven

stations, clearly labelled in the physics laboratory. What next? The next

thing is to prepare a practical time-table for the use of the laboratory.

If each station is to be used by three students, only 21 students are

then scheduled for practical work at a time. Two of such sessions can

be held in a day. Thus, 42 students will have practical experience in a

day. Yet, we have 75 students. This means we have to run the sessions

on two days. The third thing to do is to assign students to stations and

to sessions and to paste the roster. The station’s approach is ready to

run! Will the sessions run automatically? Definitely not. The teacher

and the technicians need to set up every station before the start of

every practical session. They also need to monitor progress of the


students during the practical sessions. And of course, grade lab notes

of the students after each practical session.

The Rotary Approach

This is similar to the station’s approach except that the same set of

experiment is carried out every practical session. The rotating aspect

is the student group. In the engineering workshop with equipment for

10 student groups, but with 30 student groups to contend with,

students will do the same experiment in three groups. Time-table

schedule will need to be developed by the teacher indicating student

allotment to groups and when which group will undertake their

practicals in the workshop. It is often useful to keep a set of equipment

as backup in an event of breakage or damage. The number of students

in each group should be small (between 2 and 4) to enhance greater

student contact with experimental materials. The advantage of the

rotary approach over the stations’ approach is the greater ease of set-

up and monitoring. In the rotary approach, the lecturer and technical

assistants deal with a uniform set of equipment at a time and are able

to follow progress of students in the groups using the same set of

criteria. Independent work is fostered in the stations approach. This

gives it an edge over the rotary approach.

Use of Projects

Practical work for a large number of students can be turned into a good

avenue for enquiry and for developing scientific skills. Rather than run

all the practicals designed for a course in a straight-jacket, cookbook-

like way, we can denote some of the experiments as projects. In this

case, students have to proceed in an open-ended way using problem-

solving approaches. They design and implement their own plans for


addressing the research questions and take ownership of their

procedures and results. Students have to look for their materials and

may acquire improvisation skills in the process. Thus, while some of

the experiments for the course can be designed by the teacher and

implemented using the co-operative-learning group, station and rotary

approaches, some others can be in the form of projects assigned to

students.

Sharing Resources with Nearby Institutions

If there is a neighbouring institution with facilities that can be used for

your practicals, then collaboration will be the answer to running

practicals for your large class. Collaboration requires agreement on

time-tabling and the terms of use of space and equipment. If the

collaborating institution is also battling with large classes in the course,

then mutual benefit results. They share what you have and you share

what they have. What will need to be worked out include when to use,

what to use, how to use, how to transport students to the laboratory or

workshop in the nearby institution, and inventory taking. If cost is

involved (usually the case) for the use of the facility, then this needs to

be sorted out during the planning process.

Demonstration

With acute shortage of equipment and materials in the face of large

numbers of students, demonstration is an option for practical work,

maybe not the best. There could be four types of demonstration-

teacher demonstration, student demonstration, teacher-student

demonstration, student-student demonstration and guest

demonstration. In teacher demonstration, it is the teacher that

presents the experiment to the class while a student who had


practised the experiment conducts the student demonstration. You

may wish to consider asking a woman in the class to lead the

demonstration. Or a disabled student who has agreed to lead. In the

teacher-student model, two people are on stage - the teacher and a

student; while two students (male and female preferably) conduct the

student-student demonstration. A guest teacher can also be requested

to present the demonstration of the experiment to the class.

Try out the approaches to practical work suggested above. From your record of the effectiveness of the approaches, rank them in the order of suitability for your needs, objectives

of the course and preference of your students.

Promoting Equity in Large Classes

When conducting large classes, we should give consideration to

promoting equity along the lines of gender and physical and learning

disabilities. More often than not, inequity is accentuated in large

classes and disadvantaged groups tend to suffer inattention leading to

learning problems. In a large class with few women, the sheer number

of men tends to reduce to the barest minimum, the chances of class

participation of the women if not deliberately induced by the lecturer.

Disabled students are often sidelined and given scant attention in a

large class of ‘normal’ students. Low ability students can also be buried

in the crowd. The message here is that the lecturer needs to recognise

that his or her class is mixed in terms of student characteristics and

efforts need to be made to engender participation of all categories of

students. This will mean identifying such groups and making deliberate

efforts to involve them in class work- in asking and answering

questions, in group work and in leading discussions. (Please refer to

Modules 9 and 10 for techniques for empowering women and students


Activity 5.5

with special learning needs).

Introduction

Large classes are not necessarily less effective than smaller

ones, but they do require more conscious effort and planning. Like

other classes, large classes work best when students take an active

interest in the subject, and when teachers personalise their

presentation. However, while these basic principles of good teaching

apply in large as well as small classes, the sheer number of students in

a large class can magnify some problems that might be much more

manageable in a smaller class. For example, an occasional late student

or two in a class of forty is not a big problem--and if one student comes

late to class repeatedly, it is easy for the teacher to initiate a

conversation after class to find a way to resolve the problem. In a class

of four hundred, however, late students can be more plentiful and

disruptive. They could also be more elusive after class.

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

provide a variety of experiences for students in a large-class setting;

acquire skills of making a large class more interactive;

present a lecture in a productive way to a large class; and

evaluate a large class with little stress.


Teaching Large Classes

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

Teaching Large Classes

A teacher with responsibility for teaching a large class, will find the

following tips useful.

Be organised

Large classes require more advance preparation and structure than

small classes. Lapses in the flow of the class, while collecting thoughts

or locating instructional materials, can result in loss of student

attention. Before the course begins, prepare or identify a variety of

instructional aids, demonstrations, and activities to support each

meeting of the class. Prepare a syllabus that includes outlines for each

class meeting, all project and activity descriptions, and handouts for

the entire course. Provide structure to the content, and use the

structure to organise each lesson. Inform the students of that

structure. Taking roll or distributing materials during class is not

recommended for large class situations. Student materials or

instructions needed for a specific class should be made available prior

to class or located so that students may obtain them with as little

disruption as possible.

Connect with your students

It is important to appear approachable in large classes. Build rapport

with your students, and recognise the individuality of each student.

Move among them when talking. Increase student access to you by

getting to class early to listen to their questions, comments, or

complaints. Begin by inviting students to call out something they know

or recall about a topic. Display the responses as an introduction to the


day's activities. Address some of the anonymity students feel in large

classes. Try to learn some names, and call on those you know by

name. Learn something about as many students as possible. Ask for a

few volunteers each day to help with demonstrations and activities and

throughout this process learn some student names.

Provide a variety of experiences

It is appropriate to vary the type of instruction in large classes to

encourage discussion, interaction, and involvement. Do not attempt to

lecture the entire period. Actively involve students during at least a

small part of every class meeting. Form groups of three or four to

discuss a problem or work on a task for a few minutes. Have a question

and answer period at the beginning or end of each class.

Encourage participation

Be aware that students are often reluctant to ask or respond to

questions in large classes, and it is often very difficult to hear their

comments in large lecture halls. Try to be accepting of all questions

and responses from students, and paraphrase or repeat every question

or response. Provide hand-held microphones if acoustics are poor.

Invite students to write questions or comments on index cards and

give them to you at the end of class. Increase the wait time after you

ask a question. Encourage students to indicate in some way when the

pace of the class is too fast or too slow.

Obtain and use feedback

Students in large classes are often reluctant to communicate

difficulties they are having with a course or the teaching strategies.


Employ informal assessment techniques frequently to obtain student

perceptions and suggestions. Use this information as a basis for

making small changes in your teaching behaviour before the course is

completed. Inform your students if you make a change as a result of

their suggestions. Hold weekly meetings with teaching assistants, or

small groups of students, to discuss student reactions to your teaching

and the course. Ask individual students after each class meeting how

the course is progressing. Provide a suggestion box, or have an

envelope attached to your office door where students may leave

comments about you or the course.

Create a Small-Class Atmosphere in a Large-Class Setting

One of the challenges of large classes is overcoming the anonymity

and distance that can exist between teacher and students. If students

are to be actively involved in and feel personal accountability for the

learning process, they must be more than anonymous spectators and

passive recipients of information. In order to facilitate discussion,

feedback, and active learning, the teachers of large classes can work

to create the kind of group identity and individual rapport that make

smaller classes so effective and enjoyable. The following techniques

can foster a more comfortable and productive learning environment in

large classes.

Learn students' names. You may not be able to learn all the

names, but even learning some will help.

Use a microphone. Not being able to hear clearly will exclude

students from the lecture.

Move around the classroom or lecture hall. Standing behind

a podium emphasises the distance between you and the class.

On the other hand, moving into the aisles and around the room

makes the class seem smaller and encourages student


involvement.

Elicit student feedback about the course. Have students

meet in groups to provide feedback about the course. Other

options include using a mid-semester student feedback activity

or informal discussions with students to learn their reactions to

and suggestions for the class.

Personalise: Learn and use the names of your students, even in a

large class. As difficult as this is, it goes a long way toward

personalising the class.

Include Active Learning Strategies: This can be done by using 2-

minute dyad discussion groups, asking students to share personal

experiences related to course content, formalising study groups, giving

group assignments, using peer feedback groups, and asking students

to write answers to discussion questions before class begins.

Give feedback early and often: Students need to know how they

are doing, particularly in a large class. After every fifteen minutes of

lecturing, ask students to discuss a thought question with the person

next to them and have two or three students tell their response to the

whole class. After lecturing for half the class, ask students to write the

most important themes you have mentioned; write your answers on

the overhead and let them compare their lists with yours.

In a large class, the teacher must change the method of teaching to

accommodate the number of students. Here are some suggestions to

make large classes more interactive:

Present the subject in a way that it will be of lasting

interest to students. Use examples students will


understand e.g. examples that involve current issues or

situations they can relate to.

Have students make group presentations on a topic

covered in class or of particular interest to them, followed

by questions and discussion. Encourage creativity and

originality.

Lecturing Large Classes

Many teachers settle for the lecture method when faced with a large

class. To them, it is the line of least resistance! While some present the

lecture in a rather dull manner, some make their lectures exciting.

Here are a few things teachers who succeed with lecturing large

classes do.

Plan the lecture so that you do not talk for the whole time:

twenty-minute spells are quite long enough. Intersperse your

presentation with active learning techniques; questions for the

students to talk about with their neighbours; two-minute ‘stand

up, stretch and breathe’ sessions; time for students to review

their notes (or perhaps to review each other's notes); Use a

variety of media: e.g. slides overhead projector, handouts, and

video clips. All of these help to break up the monotony that

accompanies even the best presenter who talks too long.

Students like lecturers who explain things clearly. So:

Don’t rush.

Do repeat yourself, preferably varying the words.

If possible use examples, similes and metaphors.

Make connections with ‘real life’, if possible.


Humour is appreciated. This is a hard one to get right, but is -

thankfully - not compulsory. Some people begin presentations with a

couple of prepared jokes or stories.

Unless the projection of your overhead transparencies is so poor,

assume students can read. You do not have to read out all the

words on your transparency.

Keep the number of transparencies small rather than large, and

try to limit the number of points on each transparency - a rule of

six slides, each with no more than six points, has been

suggested.

It is possible, even with 800 students, to ask and to invite

questions. Some lecturers plant questions in the audience so as

to ease things along.

When asking, wait for answers, look around the audience, repeat

the question, ask the questioner’s name and thank him or her.

When receiving questions, again repeat them for all to hear.

Taking and asking questions means less information can be

covered although better understanding should result. Have some

sense of what you might do if questioning throws you seriously

off-course.

Handouts and support materials can list key points and

connections; contain an outline of the lecture; draw attention to

terms to be learned and to recommended reading.

Implementing good practices in teaching large classes


Organise your lectures carefully, but try to deliver them

without detailed notes so that you can maintain eye contact

and get cues from students as to their understanding.

Give students frequent short assignments and quizzes so that

you and they will know whether they are understanding the

material.

Do not make assumptions. Write out and define not only

technical terms but other words or expressions with which the

students may not be familiar.

Try to refrain from such comments as, "Now, I know you all

know this" (many of them do not). Or "You do not know this?"

(which makes them feel stupid).

Intersperse your lectures with questions to students; this

makes them active participants in learning.

Leave the last five minutes for student questions; try taking

several questions at once and responding to them with a mini-

lecture.

Return papers and marked examination scripts promptly and

review them at the next class meeting.

Keep a journal or log of what explanations, techniques, or

assignments worked well and share these with colleagues

teaching the same or similar courses.

Get feedback from students once or twice during the

semester by asking them to write on two or three questions,

such as "What is the most significant thing you have learned

in this course so far?" "What, if anything, is still unclear?" or

"What suggestions do you have for improving the course?"

Acknowledge student feedback at the next class meeting and

indicate which changes you can and which you cannot make

and why.

Sit in on courses taught by those of your colleagues you know


to be especially effective teachers to see what other ideas or

techniques you can pick up.

Making Exercises Count in Large Classes

A technique you can count on when teaching a large class is the

in-class exercise. As you lecture or go through a problem solution,

instead of just posing questions to the class as a whole and enduring

the ensuing time-wasting silences, occasionally assign a task and give

the students anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes to come up

with a response. Anything can serve as a basis for these exercises,

including the same questions you normally ask in lectures and perhaps

some others that might not be part of your current repertoire.

In the exercises you might sometimes ask the students to write

responses individually, sometimes to work in pairs or groups of three,

and sometimes to work alone and then to form pairs and combine and

improve their individual responses. ("think-pair-share"). The more you

vary your methods, the more interesting the class tends to be.

Whichever approach you use for the exercises (individual, pairs,

groups, or think-pair-share), at least some of the time you should call

on groups or individuals to present what they came up with, perhaps

landing disproportionately on students near the back of the room so

they know they cannot hide from you there. If you never do this,

students will have little incentive to work on the exercises when you

assign them and many would not, but if they think they may be called

on, they would not want to be embarrassed and so you will get 90+

percent of them actively involved in what you are teaching.

The principal benefit of these exercises is that they get students

acting and reflecting, two important ways by which we learn. The

students who succeed in a task will own the knowledge in a way they

never could if you simply handed it to them, and those who try and fail


will be receptive to discovering what they did not know. Group

exercises have the added benefit of giving students an opportunity to

meet and work with one another, a good first step towards building a

sense of community. (You can augment this benefit by periodically

asking the students to sit in different locations and work with students

they have not been with before.)

You can also use in-class exercises to wrap up a lecture period.

Ask the students to write down and hand in a brief statement of the

main point of the lecture, or come up with two good questions or test

problems related to what you just presented, or tell you how they think

you could improve the class. You can scan their responses and quickly

see if they got the main idea you were trying to present, identify their

main points of confusion, or discover things you could do that would

make the class better for them, like giving more examples or leaving

material on the board longer or speaking more slowly.

Other Techniques

Prepare handouts far enough ahead of time to make sure that

they will be ready for the class in which they will be used.

After you have taught the course enough times to be

comfortable with your lecture notes, consider having them

duplicated and bound and given out to students. You need to

ensure periodic updates of the notes. Leave gaps in the notes

to be filled in during class or by the students in or out of class,

sprinkle the notes with questions about the contents, promise

the students that some of the gaps and questions will show up

on the tests, and keep your promise. The students will then

actually read the notes.


If you hand out notes or provide a coursepack, do not spend

the lecture hours simply going over all the derivations,

explanations, etc., for the students to follow along. You are

guaranteed to put them to sleep like that. Instead, use the

time to go over the conceptually difficult points, provide

additional examples, fill in some of the gaps and answer some

of the questions in the notes, and carry out some of the active

learning exercises.

To minimise the number of times you have to answer the

same questions, encourage students to come to your office

hours in groups. If you find yourself answering the same

questions repeatedly, create FAQ (frequently asked questions)

file with your responses and insert it in subsequent replies.

Make sure that each part of an assignment or test is graded

by only one grader so you do not have to deal with two

students getting different grades for the identical response.

Out-of-class Group Assignments

When you are teaching a class of 160 students and you give

individual homework weekly, that's 160 papers to grade every week. If

the students complete the assignments in teams of four and only one

solution is handed in by each team, that is 40 papers to grade every

week. The difference has a major impact on the feasibility of collecting

homework at all. Unless you have a squadron of teaching assistants,

there is no good way to deal with 160 papers every week, and most

lecturers in this situation either give up on collecting homework (which

is a pedagogical disaster), confine themselves to multiple-choice

problems that require either memorisation or rote substitution, or


grade superficially enough for the homework to lose most of its

educational value. Even if there are enough teaching assistants to do

the job, maintaining quality control on the grading of hundreds of

assignments is next to impossible.

Getting students to work on assignments in fixed teams relieves

the grading problem but introduces another set of problems, most of

which have to do with the fact that the students in a group may have

widely varying levels of ability, work ethics, and sense of responsibility.

If a lecturer simply tells students to get into groups and do the work,

more harm than good may result. In some groups, one or two students

will actually do the work and the others will simply go along for the

ride. In other groups, the students will parcel out the work and staple

the individual products together, with each student understanding only

one-fourth of the assignment.

To minimise the likelihood of these situations occurring, the

lecturer must structure the assignments to assure that the defining

conditions of cooperative learning are met: (1) positive

interdependence (if one team member fails to meet his or her

responsibilities, everyone loses in some way); (2) individual

accountability (each student is held personally accountable for his or

her part and for everyone else's part as well); (3) face-to-face

interaction, at least part of the time; (4) development and appropriate

use of teamwork skills (leadership, time management, effective

communication, and conflict resolution, to name a few), and (5)

periodic self-assessment of group functioning (What are we doing well

as a group? What do we need to do differently?)

Individual accountability is promoted by testing individuals on all

of the material covered in group assignments and by factoring

individual effort assessments into team project grading. Positive

interdependence is fostered by assigning rotating roles to team

members (coordinator, recorder, checker), and by offering small


bonuses on tests to all members of teams with average test grades

above (say) 80.

Using Multiple-Choice Assessment in Large Classes

Since multiple-choice questions are amenable to speedy marking or

grading, they are well-suited for use in large classes. Efforts should

however be made to minimise, indeed, eliminate cheating. After the

examination is taken, students can exchange their scripts in a random

manner and made to mark. This ensures early feedback to the

students on how well or how badly they have done. Also to the teacher

on the level of success or failure of the class on the topics covered by

the test.

Other Assessment Techniques

Suggestions include:

The use of Classroom Assessment Techniques to give both

students and you an idea of their achievements

Self-assessment, which is best done with reference to known

criteria and which leads to the student identifying areas for

attention.

Peer-assessment. As with self-assessment. This can be a very

good way of giving students feedback on drafts of essays,

reports, case-study responses, law case analyses etc.

The three suggestions above have faster (and probably better)

feedback built in to them. Other ways of giving rapid feedback include:

Student self-assessment sheets. These are returned with

comments written on them. That might amount to just one

phrase - ‘I agree’.

Work is returned accompanied by a standardised, tick-list


feedback sheet. Free form comments are kept to a minimum.

In student presentations, all other students comment, preferably

using a set of known criteria, and the comments are returned

immediately and directly to the students making the

presentation.

Unless it is vital to correct errors, concentrate on giving feedback

about points for improvement that can be applied to the next

piece of work. It may feel very noble to write comments all over

a piece of work, but it seems that students want perhaps two,

good pointers towards getting a better grade next time, not lots

of detailed comment.

Summary and Conclusion

We began a study of this module by arriving at an operational

definition of a large class. We stated that for the purpose of study of

this module, we suggest that a large class is one that feels large. Signs

that the class is ‘large’ can be:

The class is significantly larger than you are used to.

The resources can no longer cope with the number of students if

you desire individual attention for the students.

We identified some of the problems of large classes as:

Students become faces instead of people

It is harder to give individual advice and guidance to students

Organisational problems are compounded, making it difficult to

schedule tutorials, laboratory sessions, and fieldwork

There can be technical problems working with large classes e.g.

difficulties in projecting slides that are clearly visible to all

students.

Monitoring of attendance can be difficult, thus encouraging

students to cut classes


Coping with large numbers of assignments and examination

scripts is a source of difficulty

The quality of feedback to students can be much reduced in

large classes.

In spite of these difficulties, we found practices that are disposing to

meaningful learning in large classes. For practical work, these

practices include:

Cooperative Group Work

Use of the stations approach

The Rotary Approach

Use of Projects

Sharing Resources with Nearby Institutions

Demonstration

We also described how the large class can be organised for greater

student-material-teacher interaction and the issue of assessment in

large classes.

Teaching a large class effectively is hard work, but it is possible to do it

even if you are not a big-league entertainer. If you make the necessary

logistical arrangements far enough in advance, provide plenty of active

learning experiences in the classroom instead of relying on straight

lecturing, and take full advantage of the power of teams in both in-

class and out-of-class work, large classes can come close to being as

educationally rewarding as small classes.

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