Large+Classes

HOW GOOD ARE YOUR POWERPOINT SKILLS?
Feminist Geek has a wonderful post on powerpoints. Lots of resources, free templates, advice. []

Entrepreneur Seth Godin tells us a powerpoint slide should have no more than six words. Six! This post shows us how to "sell" a point. Emotion is key. Is this approach appropriate for the classroom? []

In this post, Guy Kawasaki gives some good tips on using pictures in a powerpoint. His opinion? Simple but not simplistic. []



Have you got some tips of your own?

CLICKERS
Some institutions are trying clickers, which allow students to give instant feedback during a class. Instructors can give instant tests, ask for feedback, take polls, allow private voting. These tools are not cheap, although some systems allow mobile phones to be used instead of actual clickers.

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Are you using clickers? Use the discussion page (above).

GROUP MANAGEMENT
Here's a great video from the University of Texas, Austin on using groups in large classes (12 minutes): []

The UT video emphasizes the importance of establishing permanent groups for ongoing work. There's a useful tool created by Malcolm T. Sparrrow at Harvard, which can help you make up groups with more than one variable (gender, age, cultural background, area of concentration, profession, etc). The tool is based on Excel, and it's called the Group Rumbler ("GRumbler"). It's free on his page:

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What was your best experience teaching a large class?