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Well, it's hard to do. Most days, I had 400 students at least, in the lecture hall.
So, it was a challenge for sure.
A couple of things I did though, the online bulletin board, the discussion area,
was a place where I could post questions to the class and ask them all to submit written responses.
Now if I was getting 450 of those, I couldn't grade them all or respond to them all every day,
but it was an opportunity for them to think critically.
And with the teaching assistant and myself looking at those, we were able to cover most of those responses that were posted.
Another thing I did was inspired by one of my student focus groups that I held last year, in which,
one of the students told me that one of the things I needed to know about students today, freshmen and sophomores,
is that they watch a lot of television and talk shows in particular.
So a couple of times during the quarter, I would pose a problem or scenario or discussion question,
in a slide, in a PowerPoint slide,
ask people to write for a few minutes about that,
and then sent portable microphones around the lecture hall with some runners up and down the aisles.
And ask for students to stand up and address the question or dilemma.
And that stimulated some really interesting discussion.
And it didn't get out of hand, all quarter long, so it worked out well I think.