Prof SY Cheng
Keeping track with students' learning progress on an individual basis and motivating them to study regularly are challenges in a large lecture. Providing weekly quizzes throughout the semester appears to help both students and lecturer to overcome these challenges."
Suggestions for Your First Large Class
The first thing is to prepare yourself well. Thorough preparation helps reduce problems in most large class situations. For example, rehearsing delivery can enhance the delivery pace and clarity. He also suggests one could videotape his./her own lecture presentation and review the tape after class to identify areas of improvement, if necessary. In this experience, this has worked for many colleagues.Department of Mathematics
Course:
MATH111 Linear Algebra (over 100 students)
Format of Weekly Meetings:
- Four 50-minute lectures
- One 1-hour tutorial session
Preparing Materials
Students' levels vary, so he always aims for the majority's level when preparing materials.The contents for this course are mostly conceptual. To help students learn the concepts better, he tries to avoid MC type of questions and prepares Mathematical tasks for them to practice during tutorial sessions.
Arranging TAs' Work
He coordinates with his TAs mainly on the materials to deliver in the tutorials. He thinks it is important to make an effort to guarantee the quality of tutorials. He would request his TAs to help students prepare for the weekly quiz, manage the administrative procedures of delivering the quiz, explain to the students the answers and mark the quiz with model answers provided by him in advance.
Managing Class (Lecture)
In large classes, the biggest problems are students coming in late and they keep chatting during the lecture. Good technical facilities in a lecture hall can help ease these problems, for instance, improved quality of wireless microphones, visual aids, better lighting etc. can help keep the attention of students. However, he admits that discipline is becoming a serious problem. It is even affecting the teaching quality. In fact, it might take longer time for faculty members coming from other teaching environments, like the US, to get used to the situation.
Managing Class (Tutorial)
He prepares quiz for the students to do during tutorial sessions. By doing so, he helps the students revise regularly and can prevent them from leaving everything to the final examinations.
Teaching Strategies
He believes Hong Kong students are good at basic skills in Mathematics compared to US students in general. So he goes beyond basic skills in his materials and with some efforts, students should be able to handle.
Communication
A lot of his students like to talk to him. He believes personal contact with students is necessary. He thinks it is worth the time to establish good teacher-learner relationship so he does not mind meeting students outside of office hours. He believes it is important that students know he demonstrates an interest in teaching.
Assessment
He does not give students any after-lecture assignments since this would only invite plagiarism. For this reason, he has only mid-term exam and weekly quizzes as assessment.
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