Making Large Classes More Interactive

by John Brenner

from Inquiry, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 2000, 42-44

Abstract
A sociology instructor describes his method of using prompts to allow students to have more "voice" in a large class.

Large classes offer many challenges to a concerned instructor. Principles of Sociology classes at Southwest Virginia Community College (SWVCC) have traditionally been large. The classes usually have fifty or more students. I enjoy the large groups because they offer a diversity of students and opinions. However, the large class size intimidates some students. These students are likely to remain silent and not respond to questioning. Also, some students become familiar only with those who are seated next to them, or they become a “zone” in the class with one side of the room being very different from the other side of the room.

My goal has been to get the students and me to better understand each other. Some form of communication was necessary to accomplish this goal. Traditional means such as having the students introduce each other was not sufficient to create an atmosphere of understanding. My solution was the creation of a “prompt” assignment as a way for me to better understand the students in my class and for the students to get to know each other. I wanted the students relaxing and participating with each other in a large classroom setting.

The prompt assignment requires students to respond to a statement that concerns the chapter being discussed in the class. Students are asked on the first prompt to describe their likes and dislikes, interesting experiences, and their hopes for the future. Prompt number one may say: “Our class is very large and I want to use the prompts for me and the other students to better understand each other. So tell me about yourself (no names), comment on your likes, dislikes, interesting experiences, hopes for the future and your attitude about sociology.” Students describe their social interests, schools they are going to transfer to, their boy/girlfriends, music they like, and what they like/dislike about the region. This allows members of the class (and me) to get a feeling for the composition of the class.

During the semester, students are asked to describe how they were socialized by their families, what they would do differently (or the same) when they begin parenting, what aspects of their culture they enjoy, how AIDS and HIV have impacted their lives, and what they do to control others' impression of themselves. Questions of the week were written in the following manner: “Parenting is a process where people socialize children. What are some of the positive or negative things that you think your parents did in raising you? What do you plan to differently when you are a parent?” “Some people are shocked by Koreans eating dog and snake. What are some different things that you have eaten or you have observed others eating? What is the relationship of food to a nation’s culture?” “ How has AIDS impacted your life? Has it changed your interactions with others in society? What is your overall feeling about the disease?” The students write a minimum of three lines in response to the prompt. Each prompt runs one week, and ten are required for the semester.

I believe the students must remain anonymous. When I first began this assignment five years ago, the students were randomly put into groups of five or six. The students went to the Mac Lab weekly, got their disk, and made a response. The students would sign the response with the last four digits of their social security number. This technique worked fairly well except that sometimes students went to the lab and found their disk missing because someone from that group was at one of the terminals. Then the students discovered others in their group. There was also a problem with students getting access to the lab that was sporadically closed when a class was in session.

These problems were remedied when the prompt was put on the Internet. More than half of the students have computers at home and are familiar with the Internet. I have the lab technician come to my classroom during the first weeks of the semester to explain how the students access the site, which is linked to SWVCC’s home page. Students are required to enter their social security number and their birthdate as a password to the site (the password was needed to keep external people from making responses to the prompts). By allowing only enrolled students to respond to the prompt, the students and I are assured that it is only class members who are making the statements.

The Internet has allowed me to have more freedom with the prompts. The technicians at SWVCC constructed my site in such way that at the end of the term I receive a list of how many prompts were completed by each student. I assign the student a grade without knowing any information about the content of the responses. I stress to the students that I will not look up their numbers to find their names unless they are writing offensive statements or using inappropriate language. In over five years, I have never had to approach a student about inappropriate prompt responses.

Sometimes the comments that students make are very emotional, such as being a victim of abuse, being HIV positive, or having a tragedy in their lives. It is important to let the students respond truthfully (or lie consistently) and then observe how the students in the class respond to the comments. I usually spend a few minutes each week reading some of the comments from the previous week to the entire class. Of course, they can read the entire responses, but reading parts aloud helps to bond the class together. If I have two sections of Principles of Sociology, then each class has a different prompt. After the prompt has been completed, it is left as a “read only” prompt if students want to go back to read how the threads were written.

When I evaluate the students at the end of the semester, I have consistently received positive responses. For the last prompt, I ask the students to tell me what should be different and how effective the prompts were.

Here are some of the responses of students during 1996 when they were still going to the lab to write on diskettes. “Prompts made me open my mind to certain subjects...since the student was writing on the computer, it felt like there were no boundaries…the prompts were an easy grade…the prompts made you think about the subject…I enjoy the conflict and controversy that is discovered each time we answer a prompt…by doing the prompts it taught me responsibility and dedication…an avenue to express my opinions without any arguments from anyone…I like the way questions tie in with the chapter and make the reading more interesting and more personal…I enjoyed finding out what my peers felt about the subjects we had and what they felt about my opinions…it gives a shy person some ability to state their opinions when they would be embarrassed to do it out loud…good idea using numbers instead of names to identify each of us.”

I was very pleased with these responses, but evaluations became even more positive when the Internet was used to present the prompts. The students commented: “Great way to express your opinion on things we are studying in class…you have asked some debatable questions and I feel that it is really great that you can express your opinion in a confidential manner…I thank you for this “Internet Education”…I am glad I had a chance to get to know my classmates better even if I didn’t know who said what…this was a fun experience…the prompts made you think…it requires the student to think about sociology outside of the classroom…it affected the atmosphere of the class because people know how others feel when they are being honest…I am sorry this is our last prompt, I sort of saw it as a way of relieving stress…and they gave me the opportunity to dig deeper into myself to find out what some things really meant to me.”

After receiving comments like these from students, I understand that prompts are an essential socializing component of a large class. The prompts count as 10 percent of the student’s grade. As a total grade composition it seems very small, but the rewards to me and to the students far out-weigh 10 percent. As an instructor, I am better able to understand my students and discuss topics that they have described in the prompts. Students have the opportunity to tell their opinions on provocative topics without being singled out in a large classroom.

Prompts are an easy way to allow students to have a “voice” in a large class. They build classroom understanding while initiating bonds within the classroom and allow the instructor and students an opportunity to view students' opinions unobstructed. When I read selected responses to previous weeks' prompts to the class, the students are totally attentive and focused. Prompts have energized classroom discussions and encouraged students to understand the course material. Prompts have made large sociology classes more interactive.

John Brenner is in his seventh year of teaching at Southwest Virginia Community College. He teaches courses in sociology and human services. He was previously employed at Gaston College in Dallas, NC, where he taught history and sociology for seventeen years.

He graduated from East Tennessee State University in 1996 with an Ed. D. in Administration and Supervision. He completed the degree while being employed full-time at SWVCC. He has a MA in Asian Studies (Chinese) from the University of Illinois. He also has a BA in Secondary Education from the University of Illinois and an Associate’s degree from Parkland College in Illinois.