High enrollment courses can feel overwhelming for both instructors and students alike. Faculty may feel limited in what types of assignments to assign to students before and after lecture periods to make sure students are arriving informed and ready to dive deeper into course topics\u2014especially when considering how to grade and incentivize student work. Students may feel isolated within a large class, be unsure of how to prepare for class, and feel daunted by the prospect of higher stakes assignments without appropriate scaffolding for the learning process.<\/p>\n
Research suggests that integrating deliberately designed and highly structured learning cycles<\/strong> into course schedules benefit both instructors and students regardless of course size, but they are especially important in higher enrollment courses.<\/p>\n These approaches focus on not only teaching students the course content but purposefully training students in how to learn the content and to critically engage with the course\u2019s core learning objectives.<\/p>\n Highly structured learning pathways require pre-planning and developing new resources\/question banks for weekly knowledge checks and activities. This often requires a significant revamping of the course calendar to fit the desired learning cycles. It may also require creating in-class polling questions and small group activities to make sure students are applying pre-lecture and in-lecture content in meaningful ways.<\/p>\nEducational Benefits<\/h2>\n
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\nIn Practice<\/h2>\n