Cathryn Sprague

With a larger class (more than 25 students), do you find it's better to encourage free-flowing discussions or have students raise their hands to contribute individually? I don't want quieter students to be overrun by the more vocal ones, but sometimes smaller discussion groups are not always appropriate for the situation.

Recently I had a night class with just one student. It was much more difficult to keep him interested in the class because all the responses fell on him and there was no one else to bounce ideas off of. Towards the end of the term, I started having him browse through the chapter we were discussing first so he could be more engaged in the lesson as we talked about it. This helped, but it was definitely more difficult than a group atmosphere.

I teach an art history course and note taking is an important part of retention for names, dates, etc. I offer bonus points at the end of the course for a complete notebook. This provides students with extra motivation to keep notes and helps reinforce the material as they're writing.

I teach a 4 hour class block and have trouble with students coming significantly late or leaving significantly early. What is the best way to handle this, especially when giving tests & quizzes? I don't feel it's fair to those who show up on time to drag tests out over the entire 4 hours, but I don't want to give out a bunch of zeroes either.