Connecting with students was something all of the lecturers interviewed strived for but found more difficult as the size of the group grew. Almost all of the lecturers found that teaching in large groups (300 plus) was very difficult since it was not really teaching as they understood it. The major problem was the relational aspects which were extremely challenging to achieve in large groups. Many felt that when the numbers exceeded about 40, engagement became problematic. As Margaret puts it (a nurse teacher with over 25 years’ experience in teaching) there is:
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An element of crowd control because there are groups, small groups within those large groups who are not going to engage. And so my role with them is to make sure that they know that I am aware of them, because they often sit at the back, but to make sure that they know I am aware of them, by trying to do some group work within a large group, but it’s incredibly difficult.
Colin is experimenting by trying to put the elements that work in small groups into large groups which he argues is ‘difficult but not impossible.’ According to him, an adult nurse teacher with approximately 12 years’ experience of teaching:
Something that I do which I used to always do as a lecturer because anatomy and physiology appears to be a lecture but now for pain, anatomy and physiology, which is my speciality, I do it as a workshop irrespective of the size of the group and within that what I ask the students to do is think back to times at which they’ve last hurt themselves and then we explore that, so within the large group I get them thinking individually and then I get them talking about it in groups of probably in twos and then we build up to larger and larger groups that we then sort of, they all have the capability or the chance to bring their ideas to the main group. I’m very conscious of the fact that a lot of them don’t.
Here he is sabotaging the traditional structure of the lecture to make it more interactive. Yet, although he accepts that many will not be able to or do not wish to participate he seems determined to continue with this experiment. What Colin is doing here is trying to engage with students, a fundamental principle of teaching using the SPACE approach. He
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acknowledges that small groups are much easier to engage and proceeds to split the large group into smaller factions. His interaction enables him to give something of himself (a feature of SPACE) yet at the same time he accepts that many students will not wish to participate (being non- judgmental, a part of acceptance, the third element in SPACE).
Stephanie, a mental health nurse lecturer is relatively inexperienced (and is quick to point it out), felt that teaching in large groups was ‘pretty pointless’ other than when you wanted to specifically deliver information such as the anatomy of the heart or the Mental Health Act. She felt strongly that in lectures where the numbers were large (300 plus) she was: ‘….singing and dancing there and I don’t know if any of its going in.’
She also adds that in lecture theatres with large numbers of students: It’s more difficult to get them to speak up, apart from the keen-ies (enthusiastic students) at the front that dominate everything. Again, what she is alluding to is a common complaint; if teaching is establishing relationships with students then doing ‘it’ in large lecture theatres is not teaching. Most of the teachers interviewed said that this lecturing has some uses but many were sceptical that it achieved very much. Stephanie points to the fact that many of the students would not be able to say anything anyway because of the large numbers:
So the one at the back you can’t engage with because it’s too humiliating for them to have to speak in front of the whole group. Some of the teachers had come up with ways of overcoming the problems they encountered with these large numbers that managed to embrace some aspects of person-centred engagement philosophy that was much easier to establish in small groups. These range from creating
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minigroups (buzz groups) within the large group, introducing activities such as quizzes that got the students involved to an acceptance of the fact that some of the students were not going to engage. All of the teachers interviewed emphasised the relational aspects of teaching in which establishing some kind of connection with students was essential if learning was to take place. Getting in touch with their ‘human-ness’ was how Margaret described it, another way of stating the self-awareness acceptance elements of SPACE.
Lana was also eager to point out that learning does not have to be done in an atmosphere of total seriousness- she will often say ‘let’s have some fun.’ An adult nursing teacher with over 30 years’ experience she felt there were similarities between parenting and teaching. Yet she was at pains to say teaching was not about being parental in the sense of controlling but parental in the sense of enabling. It was:
Nurturing I mean as a parent your role is to nurture, support, encourage, develop, educate, enable, that person to go out and be a competent, responsible grown-up.
The students’ reactions to this relationship building are interesting, since according to Lana they can look at you and think you are a ‘bit barmy’.