The Florida Class Size Reduction Amendment limits the number of students in a high school class to 25. Many of these students go on to college and will be sitting with 129-399 others in a class that is limited in size only by the fire marshal. What can technology do to bridge the reasonable number of people who can interact and the reality of the mega-class?
Traditionally a Professor would stand up in front of a chalkboard, students scribe down his words and study either at home or in groups. Cognitive psychology tells us that this is not a great way of gaining in-depth knowledge.
Let’s break the process down and see a number of currently available technologies. Ideally, at the time when the student walks through the lecture hall’s doors, she is already aware of the basics that are going to be presented. In this regard there has not been a great leap forward with respect to technology. A pre-assigned chapter in a textbook does nearly as good of a job as modern tools do. Nearly, but not completely. A professor may post audio-visual links on Blackboard, which can get the point through better for some. The same can be achieved by accessing the website provided by the text book publisher.
Another beneficial aspect of the blackboard technology (1) holds over to the next step, the lecture. Traditionally the efficacy of information transmission was at the mercy of two factors: the professor’s ability to write legibly, speak clearly and audibly, as well as the student’s note-taking skills. Posting the lecture’s PowerPoint slides ahead allows the student to focus more on listening/thinking over the concepts and having only to add comments to the slides to clarify the concepts on them. Presenting slides mitigates the potentially poor handwriting skills of the professor and can add animated sequences, while an interactive board or screen allows the professor to make marks on the slides. Waving a pointer can be missed easily, but a red circle appearing around what illustrates the point presented is hard to miss. Studies show that an adult in a dark lecture room typically behaves as follows: after 3-4 minutes of settling in, 15-20 minutes of concentration on the talk follows, followed by a few minutes of losing concentration, followed by a cycle of that with progressively shorter productive time (2). Clicker technologies, such as the TurningPoint (http://www.turningtechnologies.com/) tries to address this with adding interactive activities (3, 4) to break the flow of the talk up. Multiple choice questions are answered by the students using either clickers or cell phones. The results are tabulated and can be presented immediately. These tasks can be done a number of ways, tabulating anonymously, identifying the students, or groups vs. groups. Questions can be asked before discussing the material to raise interest, then after the presentation to verify that the material was properly understood. The possibility to anonymously answer the question will engage many students who are not likely to volunteer for a loudly spoken answer.
After the lecture, discussing the presentation is an important tool for better understanding. Discussion boards, such as on Blackboard can do this well without having to find a place and time appropriate for everyone. Also, when questions are asked during office hours from the professor, only those present will benefit from the answer, while on the discussion board this information is available for all. The course director can grant access to the board to faculty who are not directly part of the course if their expertise is relevant to some aspect and they can post and answer posts to give a different perspective. Lectures are taped and posted both for those not present at the lecture and for later review – typically because of copyright issues until the end of the academic period.
These technologies are often double-edged swords. Slides, particularly in dimly lit lecture halls are a barrier between the speaker and the audience (5). Using TurningPoint slides more frequently than perhaps every 15 minutes will be disruptive and leaves little time to present the potentially large amount of material. A lecturer complained that since starting Blackboard discussions, he has to spend five times more on teaching the class than before. In a group discussion everyone present is likely to hear all that is said, but if just 15% of a 400 person class contributes to the discussion twice a week, it is likely to be too daunting for most to read all that is written.
The reality of the cost associated with teaching a large number of students in an interactive environment means that mega classes are probably here to stay. Emerging technology may, however, bring a financially efficient way of teaching closer to the psychologically efficient way of learning.
1. Coopman, A critical examination of Blackboard's e-learning environment First Monday (Online) v. 14 no. 6 June 1 2009
2. Johnstone and Percival in Middendorf and Kalish The "Change-Up" in Lectures Jan. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 1996 Vol.5 No.2
3. Caldwell: Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips CBE Life Sci Educ 6(1): 9-20 2007
4. In http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2009/02/11/classroom-clickers-and-the-cost-of -technology
5. Young, When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom: The Chronicle of Higher Education July 20 2009
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