Class Discussions
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.
I have broken large groups of students, up to 25 into manageable discussion groups. This allowed me to flow through the classroom and monitor the group’s progress. I could focus my efforts and encouragement on those groups that were having difficulty while maintaining the lesson objectives.
With a large class, i do not encourage free-flowing discussions because it may be a bit of a challenge to maintain order in the classroom.I will prefer to have students raise their hands to contribute individually, as this will foster a conducive environment for learning.In a large class, breaking the class into smaller discussion group can be very helpful, especially for students that are not audio-visual learners.
