At the March 5 luncheon for teachers of large class sections, we asked participants to share their best ideas for encouraging people to do the assigned reading before coming to class. Many believe that instilling fear is the best way to get students to prepare for class, but for those of you who are not naturally scary, some motivational ideas that may work for your students are listed below. As more ideas come in, we will add them to our Large Class FAQ page. Schedule time early in the semester to talk about how you expect students to read assigned materials. Give them tips for making connections that will enhance understanding as well as memory recall.
Offer note taking suggestions.
Follow up on and reinforce these tips in your periodic checks of students' preparation and understanding of the material. Give quizzes on the assigned reading material, and count these for a stated percentage of the final grade. In-class quizzes are usually unannounced and given at irregular intervals. Small group quizzes can also be given. Ideally, the student would need to both visit the sites and draw from reading and lecture materials to successfully answer these questions.