Leveraging the “Large” in Large Lecture Statistics Classes

Abstract

Being a teacher or a student in a class with a large enrollment can be intimidating. Often, teachers view comforts that are common to small classes as unattainable in a larger class, including knowing students’ names, using active learning, employing group work, and creating group discussion. Students in large classes may find that the class size leads to isolation. At Utah State University, we offer introductory statistics classes for various audiences using a large lecture format. The authors have collectively led these large lectures dozens of times and found that, despite its shortcomings, the large lecture format can be an asset when teaching statistics. With an active learning approach such as recommended by the revised GAISE College report, large class sizes permit realistic sampling, facilitate student-driven simulation, and provide bountiful opportunities for experimentation. In this article, we discuss the benefits of large classes for statistics teaching and present examples of using large class sizes to create an engaging environment that where students are involved in active learning and collecting real data to foster statistical thinking.