Welcoming students: reflections on large group teaching

As an ‘newbie’ Emerita Professor this autumn is about opportunities and finding a

balance between ongoing projects at the University, being ‘in the department’ and at

the same time not picking up usual roles and responsibilities. I was delighted to be

invited back to contribute to one of the Adult Nursing student welcome sessions.

I did run this session with last year's group, and it was a pleasure to be back in the

classroom with colleagues and students. The location – one of the large lecture

theatres. Reflecting back on years in the classroom, this can be a very intimating

experience – for the students. As a PGCert programme leader in three institutions, I

have peer reviewed many teaching sessions, and chatted to students about their

experiences. Typical comments – ‘as I come in it feels like everyone is looking at me’

‘everyone else is so confident using their technology’ everyone else knows people

and I don’t’ - hardly conducive to learning. The other side – listening to new lecturers

talk about their first experiences of teaching in a large lecture theatre ‘it looks like

everyone is looking at me as I walk in’ ‘I don’t know anyone...’ ‘and what if the

technology fails...’

Of course, there are key messages that need to be communicated in these early

sessions, but when planning them, I always try to include some kind of interactive

exercise. These aim to get students talking to each other, encourage a sense of

curiosity and engage them is something unexpected, rather than sit in a didactic

session the whole time.

My first go-to is the AdvanceHE website – where there are amazing resources archived – one my favourites is ‘10 cards top tips’ created by Ian Turner. This is a series of 10 ideas for engaging students in large lecture settings, and particularly useful is the coding from ‘High Risk’ to ‘Low Risk’ in terms of how confident the lecturer is about the session, and its aims and outcomes.

For our adult nurses, I selected the high risk ‘paper aeroplanes’ task as I have tried this out successfully in smaller groups, and with large lecture groups several times. So – what you need:

·       Coloured paper

·       Pens

·       Allow 8-10 minutes

·       Confidence!

Instructions:

·       So we are going to make paper aeroplanes

·       Do chat to people sitting either side of you as you agree the best the design, feel free to google

·       Now decorate your plane and add your name

·       Check everyone ready

·       Then say – please stand up, and for one session only after three you are going to throw your planes at me....

·       They throw with tremendous glee....

Then ask which one they though was best....usual answers - ‘mine because it went furthest’ ‘mine because it hit you’ mine because if the best decorated’

Then say:

‘Well we don’t actually know..because we didn’t agree any assessment criteria before we started...’

At which point the students all realise what the point of the exercise has been, and I then hand over to one of my nursing colleagues to discuss discipline approaches to assessment – with full attention and focus on what is being covered.

Do try it, or one of the other ‘Teaching Top Tips’ and let me have any ideas or resources – can collate and share back...