Utilizing the World Wide Web and the Internet to facilitate learning in large classes

Abstract

Teaching large classes is often a dificult and unwelcome assignment. A majority of large universities offer a portion of their required freshman classes in lectures of hundred or more students. There are several problems that a professor must deal with in teaching a large class that are not commonly encountered in small classes. This paper addresses some of these issues, suggests improvements and solutions, and shows some of the results obtained at Purdue University.During their freshman yeal; engineering students at Purdue University were expected to successfully complete a three credit computer programming course. The author was involved with teaching the C Computer Programming class since the fall of 1991, when it was first offered in its full size. ENGR 195A, "Introduction to C Programming," is a class whose enrollment varies between 360 students (in spring semesters) and 940 students (in fall semesters). The class has a reputation as dificult and time consuming. This reputation is well-deserved from both the students' and the instructors' perspective.The Intemet and the World Wide Web have proven to be two tools available to instructors to improve communications, shorten response time to questions, and increase overall leaming. These tools can be utilized to facilitate communication between the instructional staff (Teaching Assistants, Undergraduate Assistants and Professors) and standardize grading and information sharing practices between the sta8 In particular; we have utilized network informution sharing capabilities to post lecture notes, programs, and old exams, as well as provide answers to submitted questions for student use. We have also used this medium to provide Teaching Assistants with answer keys for assignments and exams. These approaches, which have been tested (in diferent stages) on over 3000 students, have resulted in a greatly improved student pelformance on the exams and their perception of the course.