1. Making Lemonade: Exploring the Bright Side of Large Classes Steve Wolfman UW CS&E Educational Technology Group

2.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E2 Course Description CSE142: Intro to Programming I –400 students total (final) –two parallel sections –service + feeder course Spring ’01 reviews top 10% in eng (including small/advanced classes)

3. Making Lemonade: Exploring the Bright Side of Large Classes Steve Wolfman UW CS&E Educational Technology Group Men… go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one. – Charles McKay Anything you can do in a large class you can do better in a small one. – Phil Wankat (attributed by Richard Felder)

4.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E4 Key Points: What you will walk away believing Large classes have valuable properties. Instructors and students can turn these properties to pedagogical advantage. Corollary: SIGCSE should explore ways to exploit these properties.

5.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E5 Raw material Large classes are big, and so… they are diverse. –wide range of ideas and backgroundswide range of ideas and backgrounds –upper tails they have substantial staff resources. –amortized effort –staff diversity they engender a crowd atmosphere. –the “madness of the crowds”

6.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E6 “Large classes are big” can be an advantage Human algorithms: binary tree simulation –scale of the class is intuitively “big” to students –result shows a property of binary trees –active, sensing, inductive (Felder) –sensio-motor learning experience (Piaget)

7.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E7 Diversity can be an advantage Class discussions: “Let’s Make a Deal” –diversity of …opinion  (positive) conflict …background  different reasoning strategies –result: meta-cognition (on reasoning process) reflection on what makes a “faithful” simulation

8.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E8 The “Upper Tails” can be an advantage The “upper tails” are the set of students that greatly exceed the mean for some measure… These students can improve the whole class –“early adopters”: refine assignments –vocal students: spark discussion –top students: inspire others

9.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E9 Homework infrastructure Shared section materials Open labs The “CSE142 Library” Study sessions Debugger tutorial Amortized staff resources can be an advantage

10.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E10 The “madness of the crowds” can be an advantage The first day hand-raising [Klionsky] (or song or shout…) Game shows –Let’s make a deal problem –Towers of Hanoi –Money in envelopes

11.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E11 Methods to use these advantages Perspective Awareness Informing students Individualized work (or extra credit [Roberts]) Public opportunities to share work [Roberts] Group action to overcome habits [Klionsky]

12.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E12 We have a responsibility to explore the bright side of large classes Large class sizes are a fact for at least the near future in introductory CS courses. “Lemonade” techniques have potential to enhance learning in large classes. , the CS education community has a responsibility to explore these techniques.

13.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E13 Key points not in this talk Individual innovative techniques Many techniques in this talk are not innovative. Statistically significant measures Mea culpa: let’s test them now! How much better are small classes? Not relevant once you’re already slated to teach a large class.

14.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E14 Challenge Codify and evaluate a positive pedagogy of large courses — through design of classroom techniques — that will complement the existing pedagogy and enhance student learning.

15.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E15 Acknowledgments Martin Dickey, CSE142 staff and students, CSE326 staff and students, Richard Anderson, Mike Ernst, Andy Garland, David Kay, Rachel Pottinger, Jacob and Shelley Wolfman, and CSE590ET. This work was supported in part by an Intel Foundation Graduate Fellowship.

16. HERE FOLLOWS THE RANDOM THOUGHTS SLIDES

17.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E17 Raw material… used for evil Large classes are big, and so… they are diverse. –they are incoherent?? they have substantial staff resources. –they are impersonal?? they engender a crowd atmosphere. –they are anonymous??

18.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E18 We have so far failed in this mission. Little emphasis in SIGCSE and related conferences on positive side of large classes. Little emphasis in (web-)published materials of univ. teaching and learning institutes on positives.

19.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E19 We can take advantage of these properties Setting the tone (big and atmosphere) Public forums (big and atmosphere) “Game shows” (atmosphere) “Out of band” resources (staff resources and diversity) Class discussions (diversity) Human algorithms (big)

20.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E20 We can take advantage of these properties (1 of 6) Setting the tone [Klionsky]: use a whole- group exercise on the first day to set expectations –everyone participates once… priming them to participate again –shy students can raise join in without feeling on the spot

21.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E21 Public forums for student effort [Roberts]: provide public opportunities for students to share unique or exceptional work –allow students with the inclination, skill, and time to excel –motivate other students with excellent, student-created examples –expose students to the diversity of their peers’ ideas We can take advantage of these properties (2 of 6)

22.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E22 “Game shows”: allow students to become engaged spectators (voyeurs?) –vicarious challenge draws the class into the contestant’s activity –capitalize on a current, peculiar madness of the crowds (reality shows!) We can take advantage of these properties (3 of 6)

23.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E23 Non-compulsory learning activities: use staff resources to create broadly useful tools –worksheets –labs –code examples –optional classes –tutorials We can take advantage of these properties (4 of 6)

24.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E24 Class discussions: students sharing their contributions with others –give opportunities in class or on homework for students to personalize their efforts –encourage students to share different approaches We can take advantage of these properties (5 of 6)

25.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E25 Human algorithms: scale of the class can emphasize algorithmic properties –use participation in a larger activity to help students understand it –emphasize scaling properties (good or ill) through the intuitive scale of the class We can take advantage of these properties (6 of 6)

26.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E26 What I can suggest for you to do Read the paper! Try this in your classes Evaluate this conjecture/these techniques Expand the list of valuable properties Expand the list of techniques

27.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E27 Exercise thought: defend me/demolish me –Place paper w/one aspect/directive under each seat around room. Have group in any given area get together to discuss this. –Point: bring audience into discussion, rapidly bring up points of interest, make them remember my presentation and at least one point from my talk/paper –Disadvantage: not specifically a “large class” instrument. Take some kind of poll –Point out the statistical advantage of a large class for a poll?? Have everyone guess a (some) numbers. Show characteristics of the distribution. Compare against the same exercise in a 200 person classroom. (Martin, help?)

28.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E28 This is my class Show graphs of my class’s population across various dimensions? Point out the diversity of the class across all of these dimensions.

29.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E29 Literature Views Fortunately, there are ways to make large classes almost as effective as their smaller counterparts. (Felder: Beating the Numbers Game) If you find yourself teaching a larger section than you are used to, do not despair. Large classes are not necessarily less effective than smaller ones… (Penn State CELT) These more rigorous studies have also brought into clearer focus the reasons why smaller classes lead to improved student outcomes. (Penn State CELT) We often think that learning occurs in proportion to class size: The smaller the class, the more students learn… [However, w]hat counts is not the size of the class, but the quality of the teaching. The research suggests that the key… regardless of class size, is engaging students in active learning. (U Maryland CTE)

30.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E30 Majors in CSE142 01SP

31.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E31 Year in College, CSE142 01SP

32.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E32 Gender, CSE142 01SP 141 female, 333 male 30% female

33.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E33 Diversity can be an advantage

34.  t Steve Wolfman UW CS&E34 Amortized staff resources can be an advantage