A growing number of STEM classrooms across the country are realizing a new “normal” shifted towards active engagement of students. Although we know that such practices significantly improve learning and retention of students, making substantial changes in a large lecture course can be a daunting task with respect to both time and physical constraints. At Stanford, we have recently cleared several major barriers that, combined with our past efforts, have resulted in a significant increase in the level of student engagement within the large lecture periods. We will discuss in detail the processes our teaching team uses to create an engaging environment that turned our 400-person general chemistry class into a boisterous place of learning and discovery for our students. These include the use of course learning objectives to direct lecture content, radically redesigning a tiered lecture room built for group work, well-choreographed classroom management, and ensuring student accountability through clickers, group quizzes, and online problems due before every lecture.  With the instituted changes, both instructors and students enjoy participating in a very dynamic and interactive learning environment that sparks great questions about the content and its applications beyond while getting critical practice with the material.  A win for all.

Large lecture? No problem! Overcoming barriers to active learning to build excitement in large general chemistry courses

255th National Meeting (2018)

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