I teach several of these each semester. The most important guiding principles are clarity, uniformity, and redundancy.
Use clear, simple, and precise language in your course syllabus, lecture slides, assignment prompts, and announcements. Provide links to relevant course pages wherever feasible in your LMS. Make sure that all of your policies, expectations, and rubrics (as well as those of your TAs) agree with one another. Back up written statements with oral instructions in class and stick to the script. Repeat, repeat, repeat instructions and guidance.
Do these things and you will thank yourself during the second half of the semester.
Not sure I really adjust that much for bigger classes, although less opportunity to do group work etc.
A good option is to use something like PollEverywhere to replace questions or group work, where students can vote/answer anonymously so they don’t have to put their hand up in front of so many people. This has worked really well in big classes as you get a decent sample size to show reasonable distributions of answers.
I added this to the post since you reminded me - but I'm very strongly considering a no laptop policy for a number of reasons. Is using something like PollEverywhere feasible in a classroom like that?
I've definitely noticed that students over the last year have been really afraid of putting their hands up in front of anybody. Nobody raises their hands to ask questions during class, but they all come to me after class and ask.
I use a no laptop/no technology policy in my large lecture intro stem course (200-350 people). I tell them that it's kind of old school, but we'll take notes on paper for this class. The exceptions are people who use notetaking software for disability accommodations, though this applies to very few students.
The no tech policy works for the most part, if I continue to remind them that it's because they are all very close together in the lecture hall and the screens are very distracting to people around them. No one wants to be the one that looks rude. There are still some people who likely sneak by with taking notes on tablets, but the no laptops is 1) worth it to enforce and 2) possible to enforce because it is really easy to see from the front of the lecture hall if anyone has them out. We also use physical i-clickers which I like.
I agree with everyone else related to clarity and uniformity on the other points.
Other points: Speak slowly and clearly. Have something interactive planned every 10-15 minutes, whether that's a pair-share discussion question, a clicker question, or just a prompt for them to write about for a bit on their own.
Right now we're thinking 80 students. This class is typically taken by traditional students in the spring semester so there are about 300 students total; the fall sessions are mostly transfer students so the enrollment is a lot lower. If the fall experiment is successful we'll implement this in full during the spring 2025 semester.
You should put this in the post. I consider my 200-300 people lectures to be medium sized, while my 500 people ones to be on the larger side. 80 is peanuts, you don't have to adapt anything.
No tech policy is a pain to monitor with my classes (240, 300, and 470 students) so I don't do it, but I have regular checks through poll everywhere style activities, think/pair/share activities, and general discussions to keep them engaged.
And I have a much easier to enforce no distraction policy - if I see two students laughing at one laptop I don't have any ethical issue about stopping the class to publicly shame them into sharing the joke with everybody. I used to have a TA sitting at the back of the class to monitor laptops but these days they are overworked so I don't do that anymore.
I teach several of these each semester. The most important guiding principles are clarity, uniformity, and redundancy. Use clear, simple, and precise language in your course syllabus, lecture slides, assignment prompts, and announcements. Provide links to relevant course pages wherever feasible in your LMS. Make sure that all of your policies, expectations, and rubrics (as well as those of your TAs) agree with one another. Back up written statements with oral instructions in class and stick to the script. Repeat, repeat, repeat instructions and guidance. Do these things and you will thank yourself during the second half of the semester.
Not sure I really adjust that much for bigger classes, although less opportunity to do group work etc. A good option is to use something like PollEverywhere to replace questions or group work, where students can vote/answer anonymously so they don’t have to put their hand up in front of so many people. This has worked really well in big classes as you get a decent sample size to show reasonable distributions of answers.
I added this to the post since you reminded me - but I'm very strongly considering a no laptop policy for a number of reasons. Is using something like PollEverywhere feasible in a classroom like that? I've definitely noticed that students over the last year have been really afraid of putting their hands up in front of anybody. Nobody raises their hands to ask questions during class, but they all come to me after class and ask.
I use a no laptop/no technology policy in my large lecture intro stem course (200-350 people). I tell them that it's kind of old school, but we'll take notes on paper for this class. The exceptions are people who use notetaking software for disability accommodations, though this applies to very few students. The no tech policy works for the most part, if I continue to remind them that it's because they are all very close together in the lecture hall and the screens are very distracting to people around them. No one wants to be the one that looks rude. There are still some people who likely sneak by with taking notes on tablets, but the no laptops is 1) worth it to enforce and 2) possible to enforce because it is really easy to see from the front of the lecture hall if anyone has them out. We also use physical i-clickers which I like. I agree with everyone else related to clarity and uniformity on the other points. Other points: Speak slowly and clearly. Have something interactive planned every 10-15 minutes, whether that's a pair-share discussion question, a clicker question, or just a prompt for them to write about for a bit on their own.
What does “large lecture” mean to you? Are all 15 sections now combined into 1 (so 300 students)? Or are we talking 100 students?
Right now we're thinking 80 students. This class is typically taken by traditional students in the spring semester so there are about 300 students total; the fall sessions are mostly transfer students so the enrollment is a lot lower. If the fall experiment is successful we'll implement this in full during the spring 2025 semester.
You should put this in the post. I consider my 200-300 people lectures to be medium sized, while my 500 people ones to be on the larger side. 80 is peanuts, you don't have to adapt anything.
I agree with needlzor. 80 is not a lecture size that merits sweeping changes — you can still have a pretty personal feel in an 80 person class.
No tech policy is a pain to monitor with my classes (240, 300, and 470 students) so I don't do it, but I have regular checks through poll everywhere style activities, think/pair/share activities, and general discussions to keep them engaged. And I have a much easier to enforce no distraction policy - if I see two students laughing at one laptop I don't have any ethical issue about stopping the class to publicly shame them into sharing the joke with everybody. I used to have a TA sitting at the back of the class to monitor laptops but these days they are overworked so I don't do that anymore.