The Three “–tions” of Large Enrollment Classes: Organization | Communication | Participation
As professors, we are each a little like the circus ringmaster — harried from trying to tame the lions and keep the elephants in check. Large enrollment classes are particularly challenging because the larger the circus, the more acts we have to manage.
As a somewhat newish professor/ringmaster, I have been focused on how to make my circus go a little more smoothly. I have been especially focused on my large enrollment class: Sales Communication, Marketing 257, which is an Ace II credit. It’s a class of 135 students — so somewhat big, but not unmanageable.
I really enjoy teaching this course because I have students from all over campus and they range from sophomores to seniors. They come in with very low expectations (no offense taken) and I like dismantling their pre-conceived notions about sales and salespeople over the course of our semester together.
Along the way, I have learned a few things that I think have made this course better — for me and for the students.
Organization | Canvas Hygiene: This is an absolute truth about large classes: disorganization is magnified by a thousand suns. Or in other words: you have to be exceedingly buttoned-up to teach a large enrollment class well.
Fortunately, once you have set up a good system — you can re-use it every semester. Canvas is the best place to bring clarity to your course and it has many tools to create an organized experience for your students.
Simple things like clearly naming your Modules makes a difference and helps your students understand how the course is organized overall.
I have also learned to be thoughtful about titling my documents with class number, title, and date — it makes it easier for students to find what they need (especially because they are taking many courses at once and each of their Canvas courses is organized differently).
Lastly, I try to make sure the only content I have in Canvas is the relevant content the students will need and use that semester. Students seem to struggle to see what is important if there are extraneous files floating around the Canvas site. To that end, I have found it better not to copy over full courses from semester to semester but carefully select (and date) the files that belong as we go. As a result, the material builds over time — and students can better understand our progression.
Communication | The Weekly Wrap-Up: Ask any professor who teaches a large class what is hard about it and “student email” almost always tops the list. Of course, we want to encourage communication with students — but often the questions contained in the (many!) emails are ones we have already addressed in the syllabus.
It can be tedious to respond to dozens of syllabus and assignment questions, but more importantly: if we are overwhelmed with less important student emails then we can inadvertently miss the important ones. For me, that is the real issue.
A few semesters back, I decided to start weekly wrap-up announcements. Every week, I send a Canvas announcement to the class that includes what we have covered and what is coming up. It is the one-stop shop for what’s happening in the course.
In each announcement, I link to documents and assignments that are current and relevant so everything is in one place (and there’s always a meme from The Office). I encourage students to read the latest announcement if they miss class or if they’ve lost focus and need to get organized. Not only does it help students know where we are headed, but also it has been a valuable planning tool for me as well.
Now, my students’ emails from this class are greatly reduced (3–4 emails per month) and when I do receive one it is usually about something important, and I am able to respond promptly and thoughtfully as a result.
Participation | Get Them Talking: Lastly, one struggle I have with large enrollment classes (especially ACE courses) is that it can be hard to get the students talking and participating. In my experience, they tend to be shy about sharing in a large class, especially with people they don’t know from their major or even their college. I have tried different approaches over the last several semesters (including different technologies) and it either costs the students money or didn’t work very well or was hard to manage because of student numbers.
Call Dunder-Mifflin because I have found success with paper: I now hand out physical “participation points” slips in my class. When someone joins in the class conversation, answers a question, volunteers an idea, etc. I walk over and hand the paper slip to them as we are talking. Not only is this a very visual and tangible way to reward participation, but it also encourages me to walk around the entire classroom as we have our discussion.
Students sign their name and date their Participation Points slip, then just turn them in at the end of class. I bundle the slips by date and compile the points at the end of the semester, so it is a very simple way to track participation.
It is also very effective: I went from where I had virtually no participation in class to where I now have between 12–20 students talk in every class. The environment is livelier as the students are sharing their thoughts, questions, and ideas. Because the engagement is volunteered and rewarded, the classroom energy is better than when I tried to facilitate participation through cold-calling. I heartily recommend this old-school approach for getting students talking.
As just another harried professor/ringmaster, my hope is that these “Three — tions of Large Enrollment Classes” are helpful to you — and perhaps enable you to juggle your course demands a little more easily (at least until the proverbial clown car arrives).
