Five hundred, 400, 200, 100, and one more 500 - these are the approximate class sizes of the five classes I'm taking this semester. For other second-years and most certainly the vast majority of first-years, this situation is shared. With 13,792 undergraduate students in total enrolled last year (and slightly higher this year), the University has no option but to meet the great demand for popular classes with coliseum-like auditoriums and eminent professors who bestow their knowledge to the masses and let their minion Teaching Assistants do the rest. Unfortunately some students take this as some sort of free period in which they can act how they please since the professors have no idea who they are or what they're doing, right? Wrong. When you sit down into a Chemistry 402 or Wilson 401 you are invisible to neither the professor nor the people sitting around you.
College - you're not in Kansas anymore. From high school to college, the differences are endless and often repetitive. A noticeable one is the familiarity between the students and professors. Whereas in earlier years they knew your mother, brother, and why you broke up with your girlfriend, now it's a shock and most times a privilege if they know your name (or can even come close). Although it may seem like a barrier to learning, it truly is only a necessary evil that occurs until higher-level classes - once you figure out what you're going to be when you grow up. Until then, shut down Facebook, TFLN, and cease the pestering chatter about that party last night.
"I sat in on a Psychology course for a semester and I was regularly forced to change seats to avoid the distraction of texting and instant messaging around me - I found it impossible to focus on the lecture," remarked Claire Cronmiller, a professor of biology at the University, on her experience with big lectures. She admits that big lectures can be a problem, although one without too easy a solution. The ultimate price these students are paying, she goes on to add, is "the lack of attention that results from these activities mainly hurts the students involved - it's their choice." It is your choice. Staying focused on lectures and the professor, with the teacher so far away and all the commotion going on around you, can sometimes be more challenging than understanding the material at hand. You have the freedom to attend or skip as you please, but if you're only in class to make you feel better about not skipping class, try not to impair those who are there to attempt to figure out what the repressor gene does in the lac operon or how the elasticity of a supply curve will change. Some professors have tried to cut off the wireless connection in class or, in Rosa Parks-esque fashion, move all the computer users to the back. The best solution lies in the correction of some simple behaviors. Maybe the professor is blind or you've aced every midterm without stepping foot in the classroom, but there are still those trying to listen in.
Prof. Kenneth Elzinga places the main responsibility on the teachers responding to this issue by stating that both large and small lectures can be detrimental. "It all depends on how the teacher conducts the class and how eager the students are to learn. An engaging professor and an engaged student yields an optimal classroom equilibrium." When students are in classroom sizes of 10 to 20 students, they are under pressure at all times to stay alert, focus and respond to questions posed with accuracy and sincerity. Professors should branch out and expand their teaching strategy to incorporate more interaction between themselves and the students. Clicker questions were one step in this direction but still act as just one more technological interface further isolating the teacher and those being taught. Moving along the rows of class, passing off the microphone to gain student feedback, and even skits performed in Price is Right fashion where we can "Come on Down!" will engage students at a much higher level and assuredly cut down on students cutting up. I've never seen so many Internet pages shut down and PowerPoint slides pop up on laptops when my professor decided to waltz up the rows of the auditorium.
Improved teaching methods and increased interaction among students are two small steps professors can take, but ultimately the responsibility rests in our laps to ensure that the technology is being used constructively in lectures rather than distracting your peers around you. Prof. Cronmiller added in the end of her response that she has even seen "two students making out in the last row of Gilmer 190." How about that for an engaging lecture?
Bobby Laverty is an Opinion Editor for The Cavalier Daily.
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