Tailoring teaching to hundreds of students’ needs - can it be done?
Pedagogy
Ashleigh Steele
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August 15, 2022
Every year, universities welcome students with an increasingly wide range of qualifications, experiences, and levels of preparedness. Supporting knowledge and skills gaps, and building the confidence to overcome learning challenges, has never been more important.
Effective teaching means recognising and responding to these differences. By tailoring delivery, educators can maximise the potential of every student, making learning outcomes accessible and attainable for all, including those with defined disabilities.
Of course, no two cohorts are the same. Levels of confidence, prior understanding and attitudes to learning vary widely, and differentiation is no simple task, especially in large classes. So, how can educators in science deliver differentiated instruction that meets the needs of hundreds of students?
Here, we explore four practical strategies for teaching large cohorts and differentiating as effectively as possible.
1. Make the most of effective feedback methods that save you time
A regular one-to-one dialogue between educator and student focused on feedback is ideal for progression. However, having those conversations during lecture and lab classes when you have a large number of students at any one time can be impossible. Technologies that give personalised, immediate feedback mean the time you save through not needing to mark assessments can be spent instead on providing more dedicated support to each student where they most need it. Not only does this redefine your workload model, but students benefit from instant learning gain and an equitable assessment experience, in turn leading to increased learner satisfaction. Smart Worksheets are just one solution that can provide such feedback that supports progression and mastery of scientific content and skills.
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"The payback in terms of revenue time year-on-year was very significant. In the long run it has saved me a lot of time, a lot of energy, and students get better feedback. It’s a win win situation!"
Dr. Roy Lowry, Associate Professor, University of Plymouth
2. Support students to be accountable for their learning
Being able to practise, repeat and review tasks at their own pace is invaluable to students. Well-planned asynchronous tasks can offer this flexibility, whilst challenging each student at the appropriate level. The repetition leads to continual progression and self-satisfaction, while allowing students to have autonomy over their learning and self-regulate their own workload. Monitoring completion of these tasks helps educators identify those students who need their support the most. Our LabSims can be used time and again as pre-lab activities to build students' confidence and familiarity with equipment and scientific techniques. They then enter the lab feeling more empowered to continue their learning, and the time that educators would originally have spent introducing the labs to students can now be used to provide more focused one-to-one or small group support.
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3. Give students choice
Learning activities must challenge each student, but not be so difficult that it results in perceived failure. The student must be challenged just the right amount to be in their “struggle zone” where effective learning can take place. This is the same for effective questioning.
Giving students choice in their learning activities, be that the task, application scenario, or assessment type, helps to support the diversity of challenge required whilst supporting students in being accountable for their learning. For example, application scenarios with varying levels of difficulty are a great way for students to demonstrate their understanding of a subject. Students pick the application-style question or scenario that puts them in their struggle zone. These learning activities can include scenarios that are completely new and never discussed in class before, extensions of class discussions, or reviews of original taught content.
Choice in assessment type is another hugely beneficial way to differentiate. By allowing students to pick from demonstrating their understanding via oral presentation, essay, creative video, answering exam-style questions and other assessment methods, you are giving them the best opportunity to succeed, whatever success may look like for them.
The 'comfort zone' include limited thinking and learning, low challenge and stress. The 'panic zone' involves cognitive overload, very high challenge and stress, and limited learning. Ideally students would be in the 'struggle zone' where thinking is required, challenge is high but stress is low, and therefore learning is effective.
4. Use asynchronous tasks
Students need to be accountable for their own learning. Being able to identify what they need to do to be successful and address areas where they struggle, whether that be through seeking support or knuckling down in independent study, is a lifelong skill. With large classes, educators rely on students' ability to do this even more.
A screenshot of a student attempt of a Smart Worksheet via the Timeline Mode.
The Timeline Mode within Smart Worksheets enables students to playback their attempt and identify their own areas for improvement and their achievement metrics. It helps them gain deeper insights into their understanding of concepts and skills so they can address any problems. Through using Smart Worksheets, educators are showing their commitment to individualised support, and they themselves can also access the same insights; a fantastic tool to inform their teaching content in one-to-one support sessions.
So is differentiation possible with hundreds ofstudents?
Yes. There are a variety of strategies for teaching large classes, a handful explored here, that support students’ learning in a way that is suitable to them.