Running Sessions

Learning results from the interaction between students and the material to be learned. Unfortunately, you cannot force it: You have no direct control on the learning itself. You can, however, manage the two components of the learning interaction: students and material. Supposedly, you already have expertise in the material to be taught — you can explain it if you must. More difficult and more important is managing your students by facilitating the learning activities you will have them do. Having students be active is even more difficult when the group is large.

An active learning approach requires an appropriate atmosphere. Students must feel that their participation is encouraged. They must believe that they can try things and fail without losing face, that is, without being judged by either their instructor or their classmates. They must be convinced that achieving the learning outcomes is both possible and desirable for them. Such an atmosphere is built and reinforced throughout the course. Still, whatever you can do to "break the ice" early will make everything easier going forward.

To feel he or she is part of a group, an individual must share the nonverbal and verbal space of this group. You can facilitate this process in two ways. First, set up your classroom in such a way that no student is physically isolated, as by sitting far away from everyone else: To encourage interaction, shorten the physical distance between students. Second, make each student speak as early as possible: For example, ask students to introduce themselves at the beginning of the first session. Such a round of introductions is also useful because it enables you to collect relevant information and helps both you and the students learn who is who.

For the round of introductions, you might ask students to say the following:

1. their (first) name, as a simple way to assert themselves;
2. their situation or previous experience with the content, such as through related courses they have already taken;
3. their expectations or motivation for taking the course (if the course is elective);
4. something more personal (yet not likely to elicit judgment), such as their favorite food or favorite color.

By having the students introduce themselves as early as possible during the first session, by listening actively to what they say, and by introducing yourself last, you send a strong nonverbal message — namely that the session will focus on students rather than you. Students will then more easily feel like participating.

After clarifying who is who, eliminate the other unknowns about the course. Specify the overall learning outcomes and all the practical details: when the class meets, what is expected of the students during the course (in the classroom and outside of it) and at the end of it, when you are available outside of class, etc. You can usefully put this practical information in writing, typically online.

To learn, students must be active. In the classroom, focus on catalyzing their activity by asking questions, making the students say and do, and running activities in subgroups.

Stimulate thinking by asking questions. Instead of (or in addition to) letting students ask you questions, be the one asking them. Find the right question to guide their thought processes or check their understanding. Do not hesitate to redirect one student's question to the rest of the group ("Anyone have an answer to this question?") or to answer a question with a question. For example, if someone asks you "How do you solve the second case?", you might guide him or her by answering "Well, which physical phenomenon is involved here?", or "Does this not remind you of something we did last week?", or perhaps simply "What have you already tried?"

Make the students say and do as much as possible themselves. Every time you can have them say or do something you would otherwise say or do yourself, go for it. Make them explain to one another. Send them to the backboard. If appropriate, ask them to prepare a mini lecture on a specific course topic. Reward participation by indicating verbally and nonverbally that you value it. Not only will the students learn better by saying and doing as much as possible themselves, you will be in a better position to help them: By listening and observing, you can gauge their understanding, identify and build on their logic rather than yours, and provide the feedback they need.

Consider running activities in subgroups. Students will likely be less intimidated by a few classmates in a private discussion than by the whole group. They will also have more opportunities to exchange with others, and thus crystallize their thoughts into language. Two and four are nice numbers for subgroups of students: With three, two typically dominate the discussion and one feels left out; with five or more, there are several discussions going on at the same time.

Activities in subgroups are a very effective way to tackle an inhomogeneous group comprised of faster and slower learners. As long as the learning outcomes are achieved, it is OK if some subgroups finish earlier than others. You can foresee additional activities for these faster learners or even ask them to help those who are having difficulty. In fact, once they have achieved the outcome, you can even dismiss them early if you prefer.

No matter which method you use to render students active, show that you mean it, especially if your students have long been used to being passive. If you ask a question and do not get an answer right away, resist the temptation to provide the answer yourself. Give students time. If necessary, lower the barrier by giving them a hint or by decomposing your question into a sequence of simpler subquestions. If you have students work in subgroups, pass through the subgroups to make sure they are working, help them through any barriers, and provide feedback. In contrast, beware of merely telling them they will be graded on participation: Such extrinsic motivation may well encourage students to focus on being noticed by you more than on making thoughtful contributions.

With classroom meetings occurring over several weeks, students easily lose track of the big picture. At some point, they may feel disorientated, not because the material has become too difficult for them but because they have lost track of the overall objectives and structure of the course. You can help them recognize this structure in much the same way you do for an oral presentation (see Revealing Your Presentation's Structure), that is, by providing the students with a map and regularly letting them know where they are on the map.

At the beginning of the first session, and in addition to the overall learning outcomes, provide a plan for your sessions, with dates, times, places, and, ideally, themes or session-specific learning outcomes. Do so in writing, whether as a hardcopy or as a Web page. Through this plan, strive to reveal the overarching logic of the course: Do not merely provide what looks like a list of disconnected themes.

At the beginning of each session, situate the session briefly within the overall structure. Relate it to previous sessions, linking in particular to what students did in the last session. Motivate students for the session by showing what it will help accomplish. Specify the session's learning outcomes and, if useful, the method that will be used to achieve them.

At the end of each session, briefly situate the session again within the overall structure. Summarize the main learning points — or, better, have students do so. Relate the session to the following sessions, announcing in particular the next session and motivating students for it, not unlike a teaser for a television show. Specify what, if anything, the students should prepare for the next session.

The recommendations so far apply perfectly to small groups (up to 50 students) and to the more hands-on parts of a course, such as practice sessions devoted to in-class exercises or laboratory experiments. Their application is less straightforward for more theoretical classes with large groups (potentially hundreds of students). In such cases, you might be tempted to revert to traditional lecturing in which you speak and students listen and take notes. While such an approach is, of course, not excluded, you should be aware of its limitations and take steps to maximize its effectiveness — or look for creative alternatives, including having students read or watch the material at home, or having selected students prepare and give lectures in your place for extra credit.

A lecture is a constraining situation: It brings together one lecturer and many students at the same time in the same place for a given duration. To determine whether these constraints are worthwhile, ask yourself what you can do in the classroom that a good book or video sequence could not do in your place. If the communication is strictly one way, from you to your students, you could record your lectures one year and make these video recordings available to students the following years. One thing a video cannot do, however, is answer student questions. Accordingly, if you do lecture in person, encourage students to ask questions and reserve enough time for such questions and answers. Do not waste classroom time on things students can learn in other ways.

Beyond answering questions from the students, you can ask questions yourself. You can probably not do so as intensively as with a small group doing practical exercises, and you can probably not ensure that everyone participates, but even a low level of student involvement is better than no involvement at all in terms of learning dynamics. You might consider multiple-choice questions, too, and have all students answer by raising their hands after a moment of reflection ("Those who think that the answer is A, raise your hand. Now those who think the answer is B . . ." etc.). Encourage thinking more than guessing, though: Ask some students to justify their choices. In an extreme but not unrealistic case, you can ask students to read the textbook ahead of time and replace the lecture with an interactive session in which you pose questions to and take questions from students.

Similarly, you can include in your lecture small exercises for students to do, possibly in pairs or in subgroups. You cannot easily check that everyone did them or got the right answer, but you can still ask a sample of students or subgroups for their answers and build your further discussion upon them. You might even consider assigning such short exercises in advance, collecting a sample of answers at the start of your lecture, and taking it from there. You can confront answers, too: After collecting one answer from a particular student or subgroup, you might ask "Did you all find the same answer?" and give the word to those who did not.

A tempo appropriate for a 15-minute conference presentation is seldom appropriate for a two-hour lecture. Perhaps the best way to slow down and, more importantly, provide rhythm (variations of tempo) for a classroom of students is to abandon slides and to write on the board instead. Lecturers who create slides that they use year after year tend to prepare a little less well and cover the material a little faster each year. If you write on the board, you are more likely to think about what you write and provide better explanations.

In all classroom situations, but in particular for more theoretical topics with a large group, encouraging interaction requires freeing students' minds from note taking by providing appropriate written support. Students preoccupied with capturing everything they see or hear in writing have no mental energy left for thinking about what they write down. In such cases, the auditorium becomes no more than a giant photocopy machine — the least efficient photocopy machine in the history of mankind.