Week 6: Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Week 6 has been found practically relevant and helpful in our teaching context. I have learned here how to ensure interactive and collaborative teaching in large class. Ours is a developing country and owing to financial and resource constraints, the classes are unusually large. It often poses different challenges on the teachers to establish interaction with the class and collaboration in student learning. From assigned articles for week 6, I have got some pragmatic suggestions on how to teach a large class successfully in collaborative approach. There are many ways to make our lecture interactive in the large class. It does not consume much time to make students perform the collaborative work and inclusively solve the problem assigned by the teacher. Once the teacher and the students get accustomed to working collaboratively in groups/pairs, it takes short time to complete. Richard Felder in his article ‘Beating the Numbers Game: Effective Teaching in Large Classes’ rightly said,  “You don't have to spend a great deal of time on active learning exercises in class: one or two lasting no more than five minutes in a 50-minute session can provide enough stimulation to keep the class with you for the entire period. The syllabus is safe!”

I have come to know that there are some ways to enhance student learning in large class such as variation in activities, pacing in dictation, rapport-building, setting up routines, speaking tone and intonation, collaboration, think-pair-share, think-pair-square, teaching in small group. In large class, a teacher usually delivers his/her lecture in traditional approach which has less positive impact in active learning process in a class having more than 50 students. We must introduce and apply in the class such activities which make them actively involved in learning process and keep their interest up. Richard Felder’s saying is worth remembering in this regard, “Lectures as a rule have little educational value. People learn by doing, not by watching and listening.” From the discussion board, I come to know that technology can actively engage the students of large class in learning activities and make a bridge between their in-class activities and out-of-class activities. I have also learned class blog can promote interaction between teacher and students outside the class. Shy students in a large class may have a vague idea about the topic they have been taught in the class. In this situation, class blog can be very useful for the teacher to make them clear about the taught topic and develop a close bond among them. I have also learned how to make an interactive powerpoint presentation which is practically useful in a large class.