Teaching Large Lecture Classes
using Student Self-Designed Summary
Ms Sally Oi Sze Tsang, Department of Management Sciences
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
H
ow do we keep students engaged and motivated inside a 200‐size lecture theatre, especially when the topics are not easy to grasp from the students’ perspective? Four steps can be employed: 1. Introduce topics covered using terminologies; 2. Describe the solving procedures and areas in which the theory applies; 3. Illustrate the applications; 4. Organize the materials at Student Self-Designed Summary and explore beyond the theory. F
C
or each step, hand‐drawn pictures are used to facilitate learning and to arouse students’ interest and imagination. Students can feel free to draw a similar pictures and key points at their Student Self-Designed Summary. omparison in statistical results of overall course mark for students enrolled in classes with and without Student Self-Designed Summary: Statistics
With Self-Designed Summary
Without Self-Designed Summary
No. of Students
280
555
Mean
66.56
63.51
Standard Deviation
16.89
18.02
In comparing whether the overall average course mark is better with Student SelfDesigned Summary using hypothesis testing , p‐value is 0.007967 and thus there is suffi‐
cient evidence that the overall average course mark with Student Self-Designed Summary
is greater than that without Student Self-Designed Summary at 0.01 significance level.
K
eeping students motivated and actively engaged in their classes can be a challenging task. However, there are some simple strategies we can use to help enhance the studentsʹ interest and keep them involved. By using visual aids, we are more likely to main‐
tain student attention and encourage active participation. S
tudent Self-Designed Summary is one of the visual aids that we can employ for teaching large lecture classes, especially for first‐year students, for improving the student learning experience, developing their own visual and synthesizing skills. "A picture is worth a thousand words”
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 852-3442-8583; fax: + 852-3442-0189
E-mail address: [email protected]
Samples of Student Self-Designed Summary