Re: large classes

[Beth Benoit]

Title: Re: large classes

Diana, One issue you mentioned is attendance... Unlike some of our colleagues, I feel that attendance is important, and taking attendance encourages the beginning of a good habit (remember that many/most intro. students are first year students) but how to do it in a huge class?   I pass around two "blue books" - starting one at each end of the auditorium.  I put a date at the top of the page, and remind students that they are responsible for signing in.  It only takes two sets of blue books for the whole semester.  An additional benefit is that it discourages students from signing in for others, because a quick glance would show if, for example, four names were probably signed by the same person.  When in question, I can even compare previous signatures.  (Only did that for one student whose attendance was spotty, though he protested he was "always" there.) I allow the equivalent of a week's worth of absences (i.e., if class met twice weekly, they could have two absences, etc.).  After that, I deduct one point for each class missed.  Students missing NO classes get three bonus points added to their final grade.  I include in my syllabus Woody Allen's quote (probably picked up on TIPS):  �80% of success is just showing up.� I have a computerized grade/attendance program (called "Grade Quick" - I recommend it highly...we discussed these computer programs on TIPS some time ago).  One nice feature is that I can set it to "select" a student's name as I began to type it in, which helped when I wanted to record absences for the huge class and don't want to have to hunt for each student's name to record attendance (or a grade). Handing back tests is difficult, and I set aside a whole class to hand them back and go over them.  I rejected the "posted grades" idea because of confidentiality issues we discussed on TIPS.  I didn't want to go looking for trouble there. Since I'm an adjunct, my TA assignments are a bit spotty, so I have found I am pretty much on my own.  Therefore, I decided to forego papers and assignments.  (Couldn't think of facing 160-175 papers to grade.) For teaching mode, I have a cordless microphone and do a sort of Oprah routine, wandering around and trying to encourage class participation.  I also am a fanatic about overhead transparencies (am just now converting to PowerPoint which will help so that I don't have to hover near the projector).  I always put important points on the transparencies, cartoons, my pathetic simplistic drawings (you should see my drawings for the "executive rat" experiment, as well as the Seligman "learned helplessness" experiment...always good for some laughs).  I found that having the important points listed helps these new-to-college students learn how to take notes. Test-taking is a challenge with a huge group.  If you have any help at all from TA's, this is a good time to use them.  I had them watch students like a hawk, and when I was suspicious of cheating, I called the students at home AFTER the test and said the TA's felt they had witnessed cheating.  I know, I know, it's the chicken way out.  But it helped me to confront them.  Every single student admitted it, BTW.  They were so grateful that I allowed them to retake the test (which almost every one failed, interestingly) and didn't have them expelled from school.  Another life lesson... Final suggestions:  have a sense of humor, try to learn as many students' names as you can (I take pictures of each and attach them to an index card, punch a hole in a corner of the card and put all the cards on a large key ring), and try to get a good night's sleep the night before (it's more exhausting teaching one of these huge classes). Much, much luck, Beth Benoit University of Massachusetts Lowell Middlesex Community College