There is no one right way to be an outstanding teacher, but learning from each other is a great place to start.
On February 3, a small group of Notre Dame faculty gathered on the second floor of the Hesburgh Library to explore “Personalization at Scale: Teaching Strategies for Large Class Sections” in a seminar-style environment. The workshop was offered by Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, which is well-known around campus for the variety of sessions it hosts for instructors each semester.
Two current Kaneb Center faculty fellows led the workshop:
- David Campbell, Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy, Director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative
- Mitch Olsen, Richard J. Huether Associate Teaching Professor of Marketing in the Mendoza College of Business, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Assistant Chair of the Department of Marketing
Acknowledging large class sections do present certain logistical challenges, Campbell and Olsen highlighted strategies and approaches to this kind of teaching that they have found particularly helpful.
Here are a few of the takeaways.
Look for the distinct advantages that teaching a large class provides.
A packed house, so to speak, can help both students and instructors feel like they’re part of something big, raising the energy in the room. As Campbell put it, you can make your class “feel like this is a show worth coming to.” Olsen has similarly observed that large sections are conducive to driving students’ enthusiasm and that more people also means more students will benefit from the novel insights of their classmates.
Find ways to keep things interactive.
Campbell noted that one of the aspects of his large courses most often mentioned on his teaching evaluations is that he takes time at the start of the semester to walk around the entire class and introduce himself to each student individually. He also encourages students to take advantage of his office hours—but first explains what office hours are, as he’s found many undergraduates don’t realize that this is an opportunity for one-on-one conversation that is available to them.
Olsen, who uses name cards to help with learning and remembering student names, invites students to email him ideas related to the class in case they have a hard time speaking in front of a large group. In addition, he turns his end-of-semester review session into a “Brand Crisis Day” in which small groups of students are thrust into scenarios that require them to draw on the marketing principles they have been learning throughout the class.
Use (but don’t overuse) technology to your advantage.
This can range from recording and posting a short introductory video message on your Canvas course website, taking away some of the uncertainty before the first day, to using a tool like Poll Everywhere to survey students during class via their smartphones.
Campbell finds the latter especially fitting in his courses on democracy as well as helpful for making students feel like they’re part of that “big” experience, but he cautions against overdoing it with the technology tools to the point that they become a distraction.
With both this kind of technology use and more analog active learning strategies—Olsen mentioned the Think-Pair-Share concept, where students are asked to independently consider a question, then discuss it with a partner or small group, and then groups are asked to share with the rest of the class—the key is to keep activities specific, focused, and on task.
For more workshop opportunities from the Kaneb Center and Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning, we invite you to:
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Originally published by at learning.nd.edu on February 04, 2025.