Enhancing Learning in Large Lecture Classes

This project, completed in 2000, addressed strategies for enhancing the quality of learning in large lecture classes, focusing on the Human Biology Program at Stanford University. Large lecture classes exhibit a host of widely recognized drawbacks, ranging from their didactic quality to the lack of interaction among students. Yet they are an integral and important part of students’ educational experience, particularly at large public and private universities. The project took the form of a series of interventions in the core Human Biology classes, including on-line problem sets that provided quick performance feedback to students; weekly on-line policy challenges that encouraged debate among students about real-world issues relevant to the course; and group collaborative projects among small groups of students. The project resulted in a rich and often counter-intuitive set of guidelines about how to bring technology and social interaction to bear to improve the quality of learning in large lecture classes.

Project Staff
Evonne Schaeffer
John Nash
Reinhold Steinbeck

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