Earlier this month, Forbes came out with an interesting article, stating that some universities reported the largest overall Fall enrollment in its history. The Faculty Success team also recognized the upward trend in student enrollment, so we've gathered some strategies on how to manage large online classes:
1. Set classroom expectations. Consider these factors when setting classroom expectations and introduce them to your class at the beginning and reinforce them throughout the semester. Use your syllabus as a roadmap, and include a record of student and teacher expectations as well as classroom policies, important dates and deadlines.
2. Conduct class introductions differently. Instead of spending the entire first session with introductions, try these alternative methods to save time:
- Collect personal information, bios, and needs assessment prior to class by surveying your students through Google Forms (or other surveying tools).
- Create a discussion topic in the learning platform for students to introduce themselves prior to class.
- For individual intros, provide specific questions and prompts for students to answer as part of their intro. Be sure to model this activity so that students understand what they’re supposed to do.
- Sort students into breakout rooms for 5-10 minutes (depending on group size) to introduce themselves in small groups. Then have one member recap what they’ve learned about their group mates to the whole class. This will likely cut introduction time in half.
3. Break up your lesson. Pedagogically, students best retain information through active learning. Increase engagement by chunking your lesson to incorporate a variety of instructional activities such as role-playing, problem-solving tasks, case studies, demonstrations, discussions, games, and more.
4. Utilize Zoom breakout rooms frequently. Provide smaller spaces for students to interact with each other and the learning content. Read more about breakout room benefits and strategies.
5. Create a space for students to ask questions before the live sessions. Set up a weekly Q&A collaborative document for students to ask questions on asynchronous learning materials. You can include your answers directly to the document prior to class, or use them as prompts to go over them at the start of class.
6. Use polls to check for understanding. Polling is a great way to quickly engage and assess your students’ knowledge of the course material. You can also download polling reports to keep track of their progress.
7. Consider using chat to manage your class. Check out this resource for various tips.
8. Set up dual monitors, if possible. Only 24 of your students will be visible in Zoom’s gallery view. By using dual monitors, you can set one monitor to view your students, and one monitor to manage your class materials. See resource on how to set up dual monitors and additional tips here.
9. Stop sharing your screen in Zoom periodically to re-engage with students. When engaging your students in a discussion, make sure to stop sharing your screen so that you can see all of your students. This will also allow your students to engage with each other. See resource for additional tips.
10. Set up office hours and remind students frequently that you are available to support their professional learning outside of class.
11. Technology is your friend. Integrate other edtech tools to increase engagement and collaboration. Check out some of our recommended tools here.
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