Classes of 30 people

[kratsayra]

For those of you who have taught, or for those students who have recently been in a class of 30-40 people, how was it taught? Was it more lecture, or more discussion, which would you prefer?

I'll be teaching an intro-level college lit course of about 30 people. It has been ages since I've been in a class of that size - I am used to being in classes of 10 people or so, which is all discussion. If it was like 100 people, it would clearly be a lecture-style class. But 30 is so in between. I suppose I will have to do a little bit of both - lecture and discussion. What do you think?

Prior to this, I've been teaching language classes (20 students or less) which is just a whole different can of worms.

[jon1jt]

For those of you who have taught, or for those students who have recently been in a class of 30-40 people, how was it taught? Was it more lecture, or more discussion, which would you prefer?

I'll be teaching an intro-level college lit course of about 30 people. It has been ages since I've been in a class of that size - I am used to being in classes of 10 people or so, which is all discussion. If it was like 100 people, it would clearly be a lecture-style class. But 30 is so in between. I suppose I will have to do a little bit of both - lecture and discussion. What do you think?

Prior to this, I've been teaching language classes (20 students or less) which is just a whole different can of worms.

i have taught college courses with 30 students and up. you may find that you will like having more students in your class since it increases the chance for participation and lively discussion. there will be at least some in the group that will take the discussion to the next level of intrigue. this will put the rest on notice to come prepared, and normally they do. i'm guessing that you will be teaching twice a week, hour-twenty minute sessions, yes? splitting it up is best, but not necessarily down the middle. play close attention to the class dynamic early on. sometimes discussion just doesn't work. i like to write a discussion question or two into the syllabus for each class anchored to the readings for that week and the discussion segment developed around a theme. sometimes short presentations can be supplemented for discussion, having 1-2 per class instead, perhaps as a segue to the lecture or discussion, depending.

good luck to you. just keep it fun!

[kratsayra]

Thanks a lot for that advice jon, it's very helpful. Yes, the class is twice a week and something like an hour and 15 minutes a session.

Oh gosh, I should try to come up with discussion questions. But I think I'm going to be reading along/learning with my students as I go. So I don't think I'll be able to put them directly on the syllabus, but maybe I could tell them in class or hand them out or something as we go along.

Have you ever assigned your students short, response-type papers, thereby "forcing" them to come prepared with some ideas and actually do the reading? Do you think that is a good strategy? It seems that a lot of instructors assign students lots of short papers, with maybe one longer paper.

[Virgil]

Kratsy, I don't know if this helps but a class I had that kept us on our toes was where the teacher would have a fifteen minute quiz (I don't recall if it was announced or not) where he would give us one question to answer in about a paragragh or so.

[jon1jt]

excellent point, virge. i used to require a short quiz consisting of an open-ended question for the readings for that class. 3-4 sentences max, which students had a problem with because of their seeming difficulty of pinning down main ideas. i administered the quiz "before" we went over the material as a class and would not give the question to them in advance, which would have defeated the objective of the assignment. this made some students nervous the first day while going over the syllabus. but as the weeks progressed, students enjoyed getting the weekly quiz grade and feedback from me. i also linked the quiz questions to major essays for the mid-term and final exams, which gave them further incentive to do the readings.

the obvious disadvantage is having to read and grade them week to week, which can become time consuming and downright exhausting, especially when, as krats pointed out, you're learning with students while devising lecture notes. just be honest with what you can handle, krats, and you'll be fine. :)

[kratsayra]

Thanks you guys. I do like the idea of mini-essay pop quizzes. At least occasionally. It sounds like a great way to make the students feel like they should do the reading and come to class prepared.

[jon1jt]

Thanks you guys. I do like the idea of mini-essay pop quizzes. At least occasionally. It sounds like a great way to make the students feel like they should do the reading and come to class prepared.


kratsayra, i don't suggest giving them "pop quizzes." they can potentially turn off the students to the class. there's an uncertainty variable with the pop quiz that tends to frustrate students when they've prepared only to find out on a given day that there isn't one. a quiz once a week on a set day or each class allows them to prepare, mentally as well.
food for thought. :)

[Virgil]

kratsayra, i don't suggest giving them "pop quizzes." they can potentially turn off the students to the class. there's an uncertainty variable with the pop quiz that tends to frustrate students when they've prepared only to find out on a given day that there isn't one. a quiz once a week on a set day or each class allows them to prepare, mentally as well.
food for thought. :)

Well, if they turn off, the get an "F," no? At least that's how it worked when I went to school. :D Students in college aren't there to be mollycoddled. ;)

[Petrarch's Love]

I recently led a college level lit. class of a little over 30, and I agree that having them bring something into class or having little quizes to motivate them to have the reading done and something to say about it is a good idea. In smaller classes people prepare because they know they'll stick out like a sore thumb if they have nothing to say, but 30 seems just large enough that they feel they can be a bit lazy and safely blend into the crowd.

As an alternative to having them write short response papers or take quizes for each class, I started having them simply select a favorite quote from our reading for that day. They didn't have to write anything formal about it, but they were expected to be ready to say a little something about why they chose that quote. Then each day I'd call on a few different people to talk about their quotes and get the discussion rolling. This worked pretty well for giving us something in the text to focus on and my sense was the the students also felt more relaxed (and thus were easier to draw out) about framing the discussion around their favorite passages than feeling pressured to write something the professor would consider "smart." Of course, it would depend upon what type of class you're teaching. I was doing Shakespeare, so selecting quotes was a perfect way into discussing the poetry. Almost any quote they came up with I could then build into a discussion by asking if there was something that stood out about the way Shakespeare was using language in that passage, what this quote told us about a certain character, why the quote might be significant in the context of the rest of the scene and/ or in the context of the play as a whole, or how they would have an actor deliver that line if they were directing the play (sometimes this led to a little impromptu in class acting). This way I had generalized discussion questions to keep the conversation going and, when necessary, guide it in more productive directions, but the students felt they had chosen what we were talking about. I also found it interesting as a teacher who's just starting out, because I got a sense of what types of lines, scenes and characters my students were most drawn too by getting a quick survey of their selected quotes.

Incidently in a class of 30, I also found it helpful to be prepared to launch into little "mini-lectures." I was always prepared with a few five minute chunks of some literary or historical information that I could open up the session with or interject into awkward silences. If you wander on too long they'll settle into sit back and listen to lecture mode, but if you do little bursts of helpful information, sometimes it can give them some food for thought to carry on discussion with and make discoveries on their own.

[kratsayra]

wow, great suggestions. I'll have to start writing them down so I don't forget. :)

I think you could do quotes with almost anything, but I suppose Shakespeare works particularly well. Although, I had a prof do that in a graduate seminar, and it just ended up being sort-of a messy disaster. It was definitely the way they organized it, though, that was bad. I'm pretty sure they made everyone say a quote (class was like 20 people probably) or something. But you don't always have something intelligent to say - even in grad school! And sometimes we had to write our quotes on the blackboards that were around the room, which just took up time and looks like a bunch of junk. Things not to do . . .

[jon1jt]

Well, if they turn off, the get an "F," no? At least that's how it worked when I went to school. :D Students in college aren't there to be mollycoddled. ;)

the system is a big racket, virge. most colleges rely on big cash cow programs and tacitly encourage grade inflation, perpetrated by those big-bow-tie-wearing college presidents pioneering the construction of another stadium, science building, computer lab, parking deck, big theatre that serves ice cream at intermission! :p students run the show nowadays.

larry summers was the exception a few years ago when, as president of Harvard, he reprimanded faculty members for grade inflation, reporting that superstar Dr. Cornel West was an example of a growing problem there, giving A-grades to most of his students. presumably the couple of "B's" he delved out must have been to the real slackers in the class, since that was the lowest grade from him. :lol: Cornel West didn't mind--he quit in protest and headed to Princeton with a fat raise! lol!

that's capitalism at work, virge. so long as the students turn up and pay their exorbitant tuition bills on time with those bank loans and go into debt for years and years, the system flourishes. "F"?? F for "farce" is more like it. :)

[Virgil]

the system is a big racket, virge. most colleges rely on big cash cow programs and tacitly encourage grade inflation, perpetrated by those big-bow-tie-wearing college presidents pioneering the construction of another stadium, science building, computer lab, parking deck, big theatre that serves ice cream at intermission! :p students run the show nowadays.

larry summers was the exception a few years ago when, as president of Harvard, he reprimanded faculty members for grade inflation, reporting that superstar Dr. Cornel West was an example of a growing problem there, giving A-grades to most of his students. presumably the couple of "B's" he delved out must have been to the real slackers in the class, since that was the lowest grade from him. :lol: Cornel West didn't mind--he quit in protest and headed to Princeton with a fat raise! lol!

that's capitalism at work, virge. so long as the students turn up and pay their exorbitant tuition bills on time with those bank loans and go into debt for years and years, the system flourishes. "F"?? F for "farce" is more like it. :)

Hey I agree with most of what you say here Jon. As to the grades, I will say my liberal arts classes had average grades of B and higher and a large portion of the classes got A's. But not in engineering. Average grade was a C and it was unusual for a class to have more than a couple of A's. F's were not uncommon. So I definetely bristle when I hear liberal arts students say they they had to work as hard. Having majored in both areas, I know there is a difference.

As to the cost issue, colleges have been increasing their costs at way above national inflation for decades. But does someone actually make a profit? I've never heard that. You mean all these Liberal college deans and Presidents all are secretly capitalist business sharks? :p Honestly, I've never heard of shareholders or an owner of a college, even private colleges. I could be wrong there. Do colleges sell and trade bonds and stocks? But most of the the money I think gets put back into the school in the form of pet projects, either sports or research grants for their Professors. What's criminal is that I still hear of college professors that don't make enough and frankly how they treat grad students is close to slavery. My impression on college cost increases over the years seems to be that it's linked to government willingness to give student aid. If colleges know that students will always be able to get grants and loans from the government, then they have a guilt free incentive to keep raising the price and sinking that money back into the school. And then it's a viscious cycle: cost of colleges go up and government has to give out more. And then they raise it more.

[Virgil]

wow, great suggestions. I'll have to start writing them down so I don't forget. :)



Kratsy, I always get the impression that Petrarch is a great teacher.

[SleepyWitch]

Well, if they turn off, the get an "F," no?
i like your method and will adopt it once I'm a univ teacher :D

about marks, over here studying arts doesn't mean you get better marks than engineering students.
my boss failed 60% of the students in her Introduction to Linguistics course this term and there were only one or two As (out of around 80 people).. it's the same in Literature courses.
later on, when the sheep have been seperated from the goats marks get better in that there are less fails, but still there are shockling few A-students

[jon1jt]

i like your method and will adopt it once I'm a univ teacher :D

about marks, over here studying arts doesn't mean you get better marks than engineering students.
my boss failed 60% of the students in her Introduction to Linguistics course this term and there were only one or two As (out of around 80 people).. it's the same in Literature courses.
later on, when the sheep have been seperated from the goats marks get better in that there are less fails, but still there are shockling few A-students


great point sleepywitch! i heard that Asian schools weed students out the same. in America, they'd have to close 70% of its colleges if the same applied.

and that's why it is no surprise to me that Germany produced the greatest philosophers in the world. they make damn good cars too. :thumbs_up

[Virgil]

great point sleepywitch! i heard that Asian schools weed students out the same. in America, they'd have to close 70% of its colleges if the same applied.

and that's why it is no surprise to me that Germany produced the greatest philosophers in the world. they make damn good cars too. :thumbs_up

I had a German car (an Audi) when I first got out of college and it was the pits. :lol: I'm afraid that German autos are overrated, when it comes to quality. Perhaps their performance may be good, but I'm not out to race cars. I just don't want to spend money repairing them. I will take a Japanese car any day now.

[SleepyWitch]

great point sleepywitch! i heard that Asian schools weed students out the same. in America, they'd have to close 70% of its colleges if the same applied.

and that's why it is no surprise to me that Germany produced the greatest philosophers in the world. they make damn good cars too. :thumbs_up

well, I wouldn't actually call it weeding out... it just kinda happens because students aren't good enough. actually, lots of those who just about scrape a D (=pass) in all/most of their courses stick around till the end and somehow manage to graduate

[jon1jt]

I had a German car (an Audi) when I first got out of college and it was the pits. :lol: I'm afraid that German autos are overrated, when it comes to quality. Perhaps their performance may be good, but I'm not out to race cars. I just don't want to spend money repairing them. I will take a Japanese car any day now.

virgil take a ride in the new Audi, it'll change your mind. ;) japanese car are top notch too.. but let's face it, American cars suck. :p


Sleepy, that's a good point, but at least Germans have a "standard." i love the United States and all, it's a great place, but i have to say that going to college here has become a sense of entitlement for students, and graduating, regardless of effort.

[SleepyWitch]

virgil take a ride in the new Audi, it'll change your mind. ;) japanese car are top notch too.. but let's face it, American cars suck. :p


Sleepy, that's a good point, but at least Germans have a "standard." i love the United States and all, it's a great place, but i have to say that going to college here has become a sense of entitlement for students, and graduating, regardless of effort.

I think it'll be the same over here in a couple of years, because the gov have just introduced studyfees. they are negligible as compared to those in the U.S. (500 Euros a semester), but nevertheless students are already developing that sense of entitlement. :(

[Virgil]

virgil take a ride in the new Audi, it'll change your mind. ;) japanese car are top notch too.. but let's face it, American cars suck. :p


Oh I have taken a ride in the new audi. Someone at work has one. It's really nice. But look at the price. Yeah American cars aren't the best, but the price makes up for it. I've had a Saturn now for eleven years and while it has not been perfect has not given me much trouble either.

[Petrarch's Love]

Kratsy, I always get the impression that Petrarch is a great teacher.

Thanks for the compliment Virg...of course now you guys have me feeing guilty for not flunking more of my students so that the U.S. can produce philosophers and car makers to rival Germany. :p I do sometimes see what you and Jon are saying about a sense of entitlement though. Just last quarter I had a student come in to my office hours angry because I'd given him a C- on his composition paper (which was already being fairly generous). When I said that I sensed he wasn't putting much effort into the class, he told me flat out that he wasn't putting any effort in and didn't plan to, but he expected a top grade anyway because he knew he was a great writer (having spent the night before deciphering his cryptic prose, I was skeptical about this statement). He ended up dropping the class in a huff when it was clear that the grade certainly wasn't going up, and might have gone down, but I thought it was a shame that he was so caught up in getting an easy A instead of actually using the opportunity to make some much needed improvements to his writing skills. Ah well, his loss.

[kratsayra]

Thanks for the compliment Virg...of course now you guys have me feeing guilty for not flunking more of my students so that the U.S. can produce philosophers and car makers to rival Germany. :p I do sometimes see what you and Jon are saying about a sense of entitlement though.

Haha. Yes, I'll have to keep it in mind too. Since I've only been teaching language classes, it's a lot easier to give bad grades. If they don't do well on the tests, they don't get a good grade - not much subjectivity there. But every semester I inevitably get the emails that are like "why did you give me a ______" ?! and I have to explain to them why they don't deserve an A, or whatever. They all seem to think they deserve an A. Students at my university can be lucky, too because there are no A-'s. That means if they have a 92 average, they get an A still (but on the flipside, if they have a 90 average, they get a B+ instead of an A-). No clue what's up with that.

[jon1jt]

Haha. Yes, I'll have to keep it in mind too. Since I've only been teaching language classes, it's a lot easier to give bad grades. If they don't do well on the tests, they don't get a good grade - not much subjectivity there. But every semester I inevitably get the emails that are like "why did you give me a ______" ?! and I have to explain to them why they don't deserve an A, or whatever. They all seem to think they deserve an A. Students at my university can be lucky, too because there are no A-'s. That means if they have a 92 average, they get an A still (but on the flipside, if they have a 90 average, they get a B+ instead of an A-). No clue what's up with that.


you must be teaching in the Mecca of entitlement schools, Rutgers University. the other one is Caldwell College. ugh. :D

petrarch---i had many of those students, who can't accept that just maybe they're suffering from delusions of grandeur. one of my colleagues gave some students a "B" on a mid-term and wound up having to attend a couple hearings with the chair over students who signed a petition that she had graded them unfairly. she told me that those students actually deserved an F.

[Petrarch's Love]

Haha. Yes, I'll have to keep it in mind too. Since I've only been teaching language classes, it's a lot easier to give bad grades. If they don't do well on the tests, they don't get a good grade - not much subjectivity there. But every semester I inevitably get the emails that are like "why did you give me a ______" ?! and I have to explain to them why they don't deserve an A, or whatever.

Yes, I can see how language classes would have more cut and dry grading. It is sometimes very hard to explain to an outraged student why their paper really does deserve the grade it was given, and there isn't some nice clear percentage of mistakes you can present them with and tell them to go fix. If students are actually interested in learning from their mistakes as well as raising their grade, it's usually easier to get the reasons for the grade across to them, but it's really impossible--not to mention a waste of time--to explain your grading reasoning to the ones who only want you to justify the grade because they're sure you're wrong.


petrarch---i had many of those students, who can't accept that just maybe they're suffering from delusions of grandeur. one of my colleagues gave some students a "B" on a mid-term and wound up having to attend a couple hearings with the chair over students who signed a petition that she had graded them unfairly. she told me that those students actually deserved an F.

That is absolutely ridiculous and, unfortunately, all too believable. There just shouldn't be such a thing as hearings because of "B" grades. Even if the grading is a little unfair in some cases (and in almost all cases I doubt it is) I still don't understand paying all that attention to complaints about perfectly good passing grades.

[Virgil]

Haha. Yes, I'll have to keep it in mind too. Since I've only been teaching language classes, it's a lot easier to give bad grades. If they don't do well on the tests, they don't get a good grade - not much subjectivity there. But every semester I inevitably get the emails that are like "why did you give me a ______" ?! and I have to explain to them why they don't deserve an A, or whatever. They all seem to think they deserve an A. Students at my university can be lucky, too because there are no A-'s. That means if they have a 92 average, they get an A still (but on the flipside, if they have a 90 average, they get a B+ instead of an A-). No clue what's up with that.

You know, I don't recall ever complaining to a teacher about a grade. I might have asked for an explanation, but I can't ever recall arguing or even debating it with him/her. And certainly there were times I disagreed. Do students actually do that? But I must say there were times I thought the teacher was generous and received a better than expected grade, offseting a lower than expected grade. On balance I think it all averaged out to my deserved grade point average. I wonder if I was more respectful of teachers than some.

[jon1jt]

You know, I don't recall ever complaining to a teacher about a grade. I might have asked for an explanation, but I can't ever recall arguing or even debating it with him/her. And certainly there were times I disagreed. Do students actually do that? But I must say there were times I thought the teacher was generous and received a better than expected grade, offseting a lower than expected grade. On balance I think it all averaged out to my deserved grade point average. I wonder if I was more respectful of teachers than some.


arguing for an increased grade is a way of life in state colleges, but not limited to state colleges-- an old college friend who is today a professor at Seton Hall University with the department of English told me once that she'd forgo one year of salary just to work at Princeton U for the sheer joy of working with students who routinely show up to class prepared to work. surely this is the case because Princeton attracts the fiercely competitive. those days of respecting your professor's final grading decision are long over.

[Virgil]

Hmmm. I went to New York city colleges, CCNY and Brooklyn College.

[jon1jt]

Hmmm. I went to New York city colleges, CCNY and Brooklyn College.
virge, those colleges are just as wonderful as the rest of the state colleges out there, provided that the student attending them is self-motivated. CCNY and Brooklyn College has that same problem with sense of entitlement students. and what about CUNY some years back was planning to do away with its non-credit remedial program for incoming freshman in an effort to raise the standard. what happened? students and civic organizations protested vehemently. i heard some of that on NPR, but dont recall the outcome. can you imagine that colleges have entire departments set up for remedial classes to provide students with..."basic skills" that they should have had in their thirteen years of basic education? the thinking for remedial programs is that if a student takes a couple basic writing/reading classes they'll somehow be in a better position to consider the readings of Shakespeare, Joyce, etc. laughable. again, all in the name of increasing enrollment. students at one community college i worked in nearby as an adjunct told me that they were required to take Algebra to graduate but the way the point system is set up for all such classes so long as you do all the work -- even if you fail all the quizzes and tests -- you walk away with a C/passing grade. only in america.

[Virgil]

virge, those colleges are just as wonderful as the rest of the state colleges out there, provided that the student attending them is self-motivated. CCNY and Brooklyn College has that same problem with sense of entitlement students. and what about CUNY some years back was planning to do away with its non-credit remedial program for incoming freshman in an effort to raise the standard. what happened?

Didn't they implement that? I thought they had. I never heard the outcome. Oh well. I understand where you're coming from. But I think it's up to the teacher to start flunking out unmotivated students. I believe in giving everyone a chance, but they have to do something with that chance.

[Bitterfly]

can you imagine that colleges have entire departments set up for remedial classes to provide students with..."basic skills" that they should have had in their thirteen years of basic education?

That's starting over here too, because there's a real need for it... I don't like saying that the level of students seems to have dropped, because apparently teachers have been saying that since Ancient Greece, but still... There's obviously a problem. When you see the spelling and grammar of some students... :(

[byquist]

Check out this good book: Team-Based Learning -- A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching, by Larry K. Michaelsen, Knight, and Fink.

[Ella_Sabiers]

Hi,
I'm used to teaching classes of about 30 people and I must admit that discussion is often slow-moving. It surely depends on the motivation and commitment of your students but I've never had more than three committed students in class who "saved" the discussion. Of course, discussion must be included but to make sure everyone gets something out of the lessons and the total course, lecture is inevitable.
Mind-maps on central characters and presentations of students can be a welcome change to lecture.
Ella