Engagement in Large Classes

Walking into a lecture theatre with over a hundred students can be daunting for educators and learners. Jenny Burke approached the challenge of bolstering engagement in her large classes through the lens of team-based learning and redesigned her teaching to provide creative opportunities for students to build connections, deepen their understanding of content, and engage in collaborative assessment.

What did you change?

When I first started teaching intro. Biology, I was only concerned with content. I lectured and was very inwardly focused on myself and whether I knew the content well enough to lecture on it. However, after a few iterations of the course, I raised my head from what I was doing and thought to myself—there must be a better way to do this. I felt that through lectures, I was not making as much of an impact as I wanted, the grades were lower than I wanted, and I did not know the students at all. In essence, it could have been anyone at the front delivering this lecture. When I looked at my exam statistics, I also realized that the lowest scores were (not surprisingly) on higher-level questions that required students to link ideas. And of course they were doing worse on these questions! I was just spewing facts at them with my PowerPoint, and I was not engaging them beyond that. I was not providing them with the opportunity to practice this type of thinking, so why would they be able to answer higher-order level questions? One of the sparks that led me to change my practice was going to the Doors Open program and seeing Jan Newberry use Team-Based Learning in her class. With her support and the support of the Teaching Centre, I decided to take my own slant on Team-Based Learning and pursue an overall more interactive approach to my teaching. This led me to develop a process-oriented approach for my biology classes.

What did the process look like?

The introductory Biology classes I teach can have upwards of 180 students. Many creative engagement strategies won't work in classes this large. I had to explore opportunities to cater to such a large group. The structures with Team-Based Learning and flipped content posed potential.

Bio Buddies and Bio Groups

The team-based approach involves putting students in partners and small groups to work in throughout the semester, and I will provide check-in assessments using specific Team-Based Learning tests. I pair students sitting closely together as Bio Buddies and then I take two pairs of Bio Buddies to create a Bio Group. I include Socrative, an interactive questioning platform, to encourage engagement in my lectures. This tool allows students to discuss and determine answers together. We then discuss the questions as a class, fostering a sense of community and shared learning. It is encouraging to see how quickly students develop relationships and adjust to the habits of moving into groups and out of groups.

Outside of Socrative, I also like using scratch cards as an analog, non-digital evaluative technique. First, the students complete a multiple-choice exam on their own based on the flipped content they learned. Then, the students go into their Bio Groups, where they are asked the same multiple-choice questions that they had on their individual test, and they choose the answers together. If there is no symbol under their scratched choice, they try again with diminishing rewards. They gain marks for this activity. I typically weigh the individual and group tests fifty-fifty, but the real benefit is the teamwork needed to reach a consensus. Students need to think deeply and defend why they think their answer to the multiple-choice question is the right answer. This process of talking the questions out allows students to process the class content in a different way and research tells us this is why Team-Based Learning works so well for concept retention.

The course content naturally divides itself into three parts: evolution, produce and plants, and fun giant animals. So, I designed three different activities based on difficult concepts throughout the course. I developed flipped content, as per the Team-Based Learning model, and I carefully designed my questions to have students connect course concepts by thinking about what comes before and what comes after. My hope is for students to create links between ideas rather than learn content in a siloed way. As a result of all these strategies, academic success has vastly improved in these introductory classes.

What was the impact?

Academic success has greatly improved, but the impact goes beyond that. Students talk to each other. They speak up in class. Often, a big lecture hall defaults to a sense of isolation. People sit down and scroll on their phones. As a result of forcing them to connect, the default has now become a more vibrant space where students are talking to each other. To bolster a sense of community, I come early to class and wander and visit with groups. This has had a huge impact on my relationship with my students and fulfills me as an educator.

What challenges exist? 

Trying something new can be intimidating. The first time I did the Team-Based Learning test, I relied on support from the Teaching Centre, but it was really more of a confidence thing. I am very comfortable lecturing, and I quite enjoy talking about the things that I think are so cool and interesting so, for me, lecturing was the easier route to take. This meant that moving away from lecture was terrifying. What if it didn’t work? What if I looked silly? But I think as an instructor, you just have to look comfortable, confident, and enthusiastic about the approach you are taking, and the students will go along for the ride with you.

What opportunities exist? 

The introductory biology course I teach is often students' initial experience in a large lecture hall. I firmly believe that making that personal connection with those first-year students is the most important thing. My class is intentionally designed to foster an atmosphere that is engaging and signals to students that they are part of a team. I am convinced that creating a supportive environment, showing that we prioritize their success, encouraging them to build connections with their peers, and creating personal connections allows them to embrace the joy of learning in an environment where they feel valued. This, I think, goes a long way with respect to retention.