What it takes to teach a large class – and do it well

You don’t have to suffer from glossophobia to hyperventilate at the thought of standing up in front of a large hall full of people. Many university lecturers dread the thought of teaching a large class. That’s because teaching large classes is hard. It can be scary and stressful, and it takes a lot of time and preparation.

Adding to all of that stress, large classes also don’t have a good reputation when it comes to fostering student learning. We know that students struggle in these contexts to stay engaged, to perform well and to develop important skills like critical thinking.

But large classes are a reality in many developed and developing countries. They form part of the drive towards the massification of higher education.

So what is a “large class”? It can’t be defined by a numerical threshold: instead, it’s a context where student learning is negatively impacted by the number in a class. Large classes have different meanings in different disciplines. A biology class may have more than 800 students before it’s considered “large”, while a sculpture course may be classified as “large” with 20 students.

There are two dominant logics that drive the emergence of large classes in higher education. The first is about efficiency, and suggests that large classes will result in increased revenue and decreased costs to the “system”.

The second is a progressive logic which argues that higher education is key to resolving problems of poverty, inequality and economic development. To do this, access to higher education needs to be increased.

Neither of these logics places student learning front and centre. Nor do they consider how student learning might be negatively affected. How can we address this?

I don’t think we can solve the challenges of large classes outright – but we can attempt to mitigate their negative effects by adopting strategies that we know are good for student learning and generally good for speaking to large groups. Here are some things that may work, based on research I’ve conducted and recently published in book form.

1) Treat your large class like it is a small class. Small classes are great for learning because they allow interaction, discussion and debate. Yet many lecturers actively try to avoid this in large class scenarios. This avoidance is usually justified through concerns about “managing” and “controlling” students. Lecturers argue that a class may become unwieldy if students are allowed to speak. But unwieldiness can be avoided by properly structuring the interaction moment.

Why small is beautiful when it comes to class sizes

It has been suggested by think-tank Reform that there is no link between class sizes, or the use of teaching assistants and achievement in pupils. It’s a seductive argument for anyone looking to cut spending. The ring fence around education, says Reform’s report, is not justified by better outcomes.

Reform’s conclusions are similar to those in several high-profile and widely cited reports from OECD, McKinsey, Grattan Institute and Brookings.

But ask any teacher about whether class size matters and they will tell you that of course a smaller class allows for better teaching and learning. Ask them whether having a teaching assistant in the classroom is beneficial and it’s highly likely they will say they are a great help.

So who is right? How do we reconcile these two different perspectives – the practitioner and policy perspectives? Are teachers wrong, as some commentators imply?

Statisticians don’t teach in schools

To take class size first, it is striking how much recent reports base their conclusions on three sources of data: cross-country comparisons, meta analyses and econometric analysis. All of these, I believe, only offer a partial view and are therefore flawed as evidence of a causal role for class size.

Results from international assessments such as the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) show that students in the East Asia do very well and also have relatively large classes - and it is often therefore concluded that class size is not important to academic achievement. But the flaw in this argument is not considering why high performing education systems in places like Hong Kong do well, including high levels of parental support, cultural factors that favour education and the prevalence of private tutoring.

Greek austerity may be an economic tale but children are the human cost

Many perspectives have been shared about the social and economic repercussions that the current third EU and IMF bailout proposals for Greece may have. The impact of these tough austerity measures is yet to unfold for the country, for the other southern states, or indeed Europe as a whole.

But moving beyond a purely economic lens, there is already evidence about the extent of deprivation and youth unemployment of more than 50% during the past five years of the first and second bailout programmes, meaning that the likely effects of the third are easier to predict, at least for this generation.

The links between poverty and a range of risk factors for child mental health problems and related outcomes is well established. Nevertheless, the reality hit home a few weeks ago when I joined the Children’s SOS Villages in Greece in training their prospective new carers, or “mothers” and “aunts” as they are widely called. These carers work in a similar way to foster carers and residential care staff in other welfare systems. The villages were established in Austria after World War II to care for orphan children and since then their model has successfully spread across more than 120 countries.

Their model may slightly vary, but their target groups are typically children without parents, for a range of reasons, or those who have been abused and/or neglected. Consequently, it came as a surprise to realise the extent of child abandonment (neglect, an inability to care for them or even asking social services to look after them) for predominantly financial reasons since the beginning of the Greek crisis.

The organisation has responded by diversifying its remit in Greece. In the absence of an increasingly stretched health and social care sector, they have now extended their services beyond the traditional villages to support, relieve and prevent abuse and neglect, running eight social centres in Greece’s major cities to help keep families together.

6 Ways to Combine Summer Fun and Learning

Learn 6 ways to combine summer fun and learning.

1. The lemonade stand

On a hot day, everybody loves lemonade — and lemonade stands! That old-time activity is actually a terrific opportunity for children to learn math and science skills (by measuring and mixing the lemonade) as well as social skills (when they interact with customers). Start by talking with your child about what she'll need: lemonade, a table and chairs, paper cups, decorations for the stand, a sign announcing the price, and a box to keep the money in. Where would be a good place to set up the stand? How much will she charge for each cup of lemonade? When it's time to make the lemonade, help her measure 4 tablespoons of lemon juice, 8 tablespoons of white grape juice, and 6 cups of water into a large plastic pitcher. Stir and chill. Outdoors, help her set up the stand and hang the sign. Demonstrate how to greet customers, pour, and serve the lemonade (if necessary, pour the lemonade into smaller pitchers to make it easier for your child to handle), and make change. When the big event is over, talk with her about what she'd like to do with the money she earned!

2. The alphabet garden

Any kind of gardening is a great way for kids to learn the science of how things grow. Planting a theme garden can make the learning experience even more fun. One favorite is an ABC garden. Together with your child, look through seed catalogs or garden centers to choose what you'll plant — one variety for each letter of the alphabet. When you create your garden, have your child make a tag for each plant or paint the plant name on a rock with enamel paint. To make the project as rewarding as possible for your child, you'll want to steer him toward plants that are hardy and grow quickly in your area. Some of the most reliable vegetables and flowers are bush beans, cherry tomatoes, herbs, marigolds, radishes, zinnias, and zucchini. If you live in an urban area and don't have room for a full garden, try doing an abbreviated version of this activity. Choose vegetables or flowers that start with letters that spell out your child's name or initials, and plant them in a window box.

3. Local tours

How do doughnuts get their holes? Where does the mail in the mailbox go? How do farmers milk so many cows? You and your child can discover the answers by going behind the scenes at a doughnut shop, post office, or dairy. Just ask your local proprietors. They may be willing to allow chaperoned children to pay a visit and see all that goes on in their busy workplace. You may think of other great places to see as well! Before the trip, talk with your child about where you're going and what questions he'd like to ask when you get there. Write them down and bring them with you for reference. Take lots of photos of your trip, and help him put them in his summer scrapbook.

Collecting trash in space

A satellite that gets rid of space junk could help prevent devastating collisions in Earth orbit.

Satellites play big roles in modern life. Some look downward to monitor environmental conditions on Earth. Others look outward in search of major solar flares that can disrupt the transmission of electrical power to homes and businesses. Some spy on our enemies. Others relay communications around the globe. But all of these million-dollar marvels of technology can be knocked out by a collision with space junk — debris from satellites and other Earthly technology orbiting high above the planet. Now, a teen from Jordan has designed a satellite to chase down space junk, collect it and then dispose of it.

NASA is the U.S. space agency. It and other organizations are tracking about 500,000 pieces of space junk that are currently orbiting Earth. Many come from satellites or rockets that have blown up and shattered. The objects being tracked are the size of a marble or larger. About 20,000 are at least the size of a softball (some are as large as a refrigerator). Most are too small to detect from Earth’s surface. In all, some 100 million pieces of debris likely orbit Earth today, says 15-year-old Dana Arabiyat. She attends Alridwan Schools in Amman, Jordan.

Even bits of space junk as small as flecks of paint pose a threat, says Dana. That’s because this debris orbits our planet at speeds up to some 28,200 kilometers per hour (17,500 miles per hour). That’s about 7.8 kilometers per second! Such blistering speed explains why tiny paint flecks have chipped the windshields of space shuttles so badly that they needed to be replaced.

Researchers have come up with many ideas for getting rid of space junk. Some have suggested vaporizing small bits with lasers. Others have proposed launching satellites to collect the debris. Dana’s design falls into this category.

Here’s how hers would work: A radar system aboard the satellite would scan for and find a piece of space junk. Then, thrusters would change the satellite’s orbit so that it could chase down the errant object. As the satellite closed in on its prey, cameras would keep it on target.

To really learn, fail — then fail again!

That ‘error’ in trial-and-error learning can be the ticket to learning well —and having more fun.

Thomas Edison just couldn’t get it right.

After more than five months and 9,000 experiments, the famous inventor couldn’t get a new type of battery to work. Too bad, a co-worker said. What a shame that effort had produced no results.

But Edison saw it differently. “Results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work!”

Edison eventually did get his new kind of battery to work. In the end, it took even more time — and thousands more experiments.

Today, more than a century later, a bit of that same spirit of curiosity and determination lives on in Emily Hogan’s classroom. She teaches eighth-grade physical science at Westlake Middle School in Broomfield, Colo.

On a spring morning, Hogan had given each of her students a tool kit containing a plastic foam dinner plate, a balloon, a small plastic stirrer straw, a sharp pencil and masking tape.

She instructed her young inventors to use the parts in any way they wanted to make racing cars from the foam plates. They also were charged with figuring out how to propel those cars great distances across the floor. The kit’s balloon would be a key component of these “rocket” racers.

Kids in many classrooms across the United States are learning science in much the same way. Instead of explaining things to kids from the front of a classroom, teachers are beginning to instead “guide from the side.” They are nudging kids to become Edisons — tinkerers who learn by doing.

A big take-home lesson from such projects is that there may be no one single right answer to a problem. There may instead be many. Along the path to discovering this, kids were being encouraged to propose theories — and then test them.

Along the way, many students will fail. Often, they’ll fail many times. Perhaps not several thousand times (like Edison). But along the way they may just find out that by analyzing why something went horribly wrong, they’ve learned a lot. And they can take ownership of that learning, knowing that they earned it from hard-won experience.

What’s more, the lessons we learn this way are those we are most likely to remember.

Just how effective are language learning apps?

Around 70 million people – including Bill Gates – have signed up for the language learning app Duolingo. The app has received plenty of media attention, and its creators claim that it can help anyone with a smart phone learn a new language.

The app is free, and promises all kinds of cutting edge features, such as adaptive algorithms to suit users’ learning speed, as well as gamification to boost motivation. They also claim that this app can provide members of poorer communities with access to language learning that would otherwise be denied them; a worthy aim indeed.

For those who haven’t tried it, Duolingo works as follows. The user is introduced to some vocabulary, and then every day they spend a few minutes doing language exercises, such as translating sentences.

There is a level of adaptivity: words that you get wrong come up again and again, while words that you get right come up less often – although they do still appear. This recycling and repetition is a core element of the app – it is what the creators hope will eventually lead to acquisition of new vocabulary. As users complete the exercises successfully, they can move up through the “levels”, and unlock bonus lessons on “flirting” and “idioms”.

Language learning in theory

As experienced language teachers, we wanted to think about whether or not this technology is really cutting edge. Clearly the delivery mechanism is new, and textbook writers would be amazed at selling 70 million copies. But in a field filled with spirited – and sometimes acrimonious – academic theorising about language learning, it’s worth investigating where Duolingo fits in.

The earliest modern language instruction was called “grammar translation”. It focused on translating sentences and learning the rules of the grammar as the primary goal. This type of rote learning is how many people learned Latin – including Monty Python’s Brian. It is also the method used by the teachers of generations of happy English tourists to France, who ended up knowing how to conjugate a verb, but utterly unable to make themselves understood without shouting in a strange type of pidgin English with a French accent.

California Thursdays Success Story

Gary Petill is convinced that if you’re trying to get kids to eat healthy food, the secret is in the presentation. Petill would know. He’s responsible for serving over 26 million meals a year through the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), and has an impressive track record when it comes to pushing produce.

That’s why Petill and his staff serve fruit cups chock-full of bright slices of mango, watermelon, cucumber, and jicama in see-through containers. School salad bars brim with locally sourced lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, kiwis, and citrus, and sport signs encouraging students to “Try Something New.”

The effort doesn’t end at the salad bar.

Mondays are meatless. School gardens are thriving. A vibrant farm-to-school program taps into San Diego County’s 350+ organic farms (the most in the nation). Those farms also support the popular “Harvest of the Month” program, through which a locally grown item such as creamy avocados or juicy plums is introduced to students and offered repeatedly throughout each month. An innovative "Breakfast in the Classroom" program reaches 90 percent of eligible children, up from only 25 percent when it began. And the "Prime Time Kids" dinner program currently serves a nutritious evening meal to students at more than 120 sites.

Knowing how to launch and maintain a successful nutrition program may help San Diego succeed with its next one.

Starting in late October, two dozen San Diego schools are rolling out California Thursdays™, a collaboration with the nonprofit Center for Ecoliteracy. This new program taps into San Diego’s existing commitment to source local produce, but takes it further by offering students a complete meal featuring ingredients from the Golden State.

The California Thursdays program is designed to connect the food on the plate to nearby farms and local communities that students know first-hand. Tender local asparagus and just-picked strawberries already come with great flavor; layering in the California Thursdays message teaches students to consider the source of their food and helps emerging healthy habits take root.

Fun and Free Summer Learning Resources

Summer learning loss is a real problem. Alarmingly, research suggests students lose more than two months of math knowledge during the summer, and the losses in reading are similar.

Here we’ve compiled a few resources to keep students learning through the dog days of summer, with a particular focus on math and reading. For starters, the Edutopia blog How to Beat Summer Learning Loss from Anne O’Brien is chock full of useful information and strategies for parents and students.

Fun! Fun! Fun! Summer Learning Sites

Summer Learning Resources for Parents From Colorín Colorado: This reading resource roundup for parents is awesome! The page features guides, tips, and reading lesson ideas in Spanish and English. Another great resource from sister site Reading Rockets is Get Ready for Summer! Ideas for Teachers to Share With Families.

Cool Summer Reading and Learning for Middle School Kids: Author Susan Curtis highlights some of the most useful websites, ideas, and strategies for helping middle school students stay active readers during the summer. Included are links to reading lists, online reading contests, and ideas for practicing reading with tech tools. Also check out Awesome Apps for the Six Traits of Writing, from WeAreTeachers, for improving writing skills with apps during the summer.

Calculation Nation From the NCTM: If you're looking for a fun, web-based game for students, Calculation Nation from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a wonderful resource. This is just one example; there are tons of awesome games. Also check out Funbrain Math Arcade from Pearson, 10 Best Math Apps for Kids from Parents.com, and Cool Math.

Summer Learning Resources for Parents From ReadWriteThink: This after-school and parent collection from ReadWriteThink offers something for everything. There are links to summer activities and projects, games and tech tools, printouts, and how-to articles. Plus, there's a link to a useful podcast series about out-of-school learning.

Pediatrics Group to Recommend Reading Aloud to Children From Birth

In between dispensing advice on breast-feeding and immunizations, doctors will tell parents to read aloud to their infants from birth, under a new policy that the American Academy of Pediatrics will announce on Tuesday.

With the increased recognition that an important part of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child’s life, and that reading to children enhances vocabulary and other important communication skills, the group, which represents 62,000 pediatricians across the country, is asking its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud, every time a baby visits the doctor.

“It should be there each time we touch bases with children,” said Dr. Pamela High, who wrote the new policy. It recommends that doctors tell parents they should be “reading together as a daily fun family activity” from infancy.

This is the first time the academy — which has issued recommendations on how long mothers should nurse their babies and advises parents to keep children away from screens until they are at least 2 — has officially weighed in on early literacy education.

While highly educated, ambitious parents who are already reading poetry and playing Mozart to their children in utero may not need this advice, research shows that many parents do not read to their children as often as researchers and educators think is crucial to the development of pre-literacy skills that help children succeed once they get to school.

Reading, as well as talking and singing, is viewed as important in increasing the number of words that children hear in the earliest years of their lives. Nearly two decades ago, an oft-cited study found that by age 3, the children of wealthier professionals have heard words millions more times than have those of less educated, low-income parents, giving the children who have heard more words a distinct advantage in school. New research shows that these gaps emerge as early as 18 months.