Teaching one section of MA 2051 Differential Equations in each of terms A96 and B96 demanded in total about six working weeks (241 hours) of faculty time or about 40% of the nominal time available in two seven-week terms. Roughly, this time was distributed as follows:
Evidently, teaching these large lecture sections is a demanding activity.
Enrollments were 180 and 101 students in terms A and B, respectively. The class was supported by nine PLAs, who met twice weekly with groups of 15 students or less or who ran supplementary homework study hours. The weekly PLA sessions were the focus of the two open-ended team projects assigned during the term. I lectured to the entire class three times a week.
The two one-hour examinations offered in the course were supplemented by two make-up opportunities for each exam. Students were required to earn 70% or better on both examinations in order to pass the course, and many of them took advantage of the extra chances to pass the exams. (This policy of demonstrating minimal mastery on each of the two one-hour exams was meant to balance individual performance with group project performance; a passing average alone was not sufficient to pass the course.)
Lecture preparation and delivery occupied 25% of my time (about 29 hours) each term. Would replacing lectures with technology reduce the burden of teaching this course, neglecting the work of developing the technology? Probably not. Even without the overhead of managing such technology, maintaining student accountability requires considerable staff effort. For example, in the present format the effort of balancing individual accountability with group work accounts for much of the 32% of my time (about 39 hours) devoted to test preparation and administration.
Would replacing lectures with technology allow me to use that 25% of my time in some other, more effective way? That's the $64 question!
Detailed data is attached. It was accumulated by coupling careful record keeping in term B with retrospective estimates of time required for various tasks in term A. For comparison, teaching a fourteen-week graduate course (one three-hour meeting per week) involving a mixture of familiar and new material requires about 100-110 hours in total.
The effort of managing the PLAs accounts for a relatively small fraction of the time demanded by this course. I believe that using PLAs and co-operative learning techniques ultimately takes no more faculty time than meeting students for lectures five times per week without PLAs. Data collected by Dalin Tang shows that student satisfaction is generally higher with PLAs than with large lectures alone.
I would never go back to teaching large lectures without PLAs.
I conclude that teaching such large classes continues to demand substantial faculty effort, although using co-operative learning facilitated by Peer Learning Assistants leads to greater student satisfaction and the opportunity to teach higher level skills like solving open-ended problems.
A96 B96 Notes
Course statistics
Enrollment 180 101
Number of PLAs 9 9
Number of PLA sections 12 7
Percent A's 14% 29%
Percent B's 27% 27%
Percent C's 35% 33%
Percent NR's 23% 12%
Course organization
Number of lectures 18 18 at 50 minutes per lecture
Number of PLA sessions 14 14 at 50 minutes per session
Number of hour exams 6 7
Hour exams scheduled during 3 3
lecture
Number of staff meetings 7 7
Hours of PLA training 6 0
Average time spent per task
Preparing hints for PLA 1 0.5 hours
session
Preparing lecture 0.75 0.5
Hour exam preparation 3 3
Exam administration & 3.5 2.5
grading
Help session for hour exams 1 1
Staff meeting 0.5 0.5
Total faculty time per task
Staff meetings 3.5 3.5
Hints for PLA sessions 14 7 recycled previous material
PLA training 6 0
Lecture preparation 13.5 9 recycled previous material
Lecture delivery 18 18
Exam preparation 18 21
Exam grading & 21 17.5 better use of PLAs as
administration graders
Final course grades 3 3
PLA evaluation data, etc. 2 4 overview of both terms
Hour exam help sessions 4 5
Office hours 30.25 19.75 reduced enrollment
Total faculty hours per term 133.25 107.75
Differences from term A to
term B
Decrease due to smaller 10.5
enrollment
Decrease due to experience 15
Decrease due to no PLA 6
training
Increase due to more hour 4
exams
Increase due to PLA 2
evaluation
Net decrease from A96 to B96 25.50
Distribution of time - hours
PLA contact 9.5 3.5 training and staff
meetings
Student contact 52.25 42.75 lecture, office hours,
help sessions
PLA administration 14 7
Lecture preparation 13.5 9
Exam preparation and grading 39 38.5
Other administrative tasks 5 7
Total 133.25 107.75
Lecture delivery and 31.5 27
presentation
Distribution of time - Average over two terms
percent
PLA contact 7% 3% 5%
Student contact 39% 40% 39%
PLA administration 11% 6% 9%
Lecture preparation 10% 8% 9%
Exam preparation and grading 29% 36% 32%
Other administrative tasks 4% 6% 5%
Total 100% 100% 100%
Lecture delivery and 24% 25%
presentation