Publication: How to deal with large student groups?
In recent years, there has been an increasing trend in the number of students entering Dutch Universities. The Dean of Education at WUR requested the local 4TU.CEE staff to look into what is currently known about teaching and assessing large groups of students. The findings are bundled in a publication which provides helpful strategies and resources for lecturers.
Growing student numbers
While this increase in student numbers brings some benefits with it (i.e. more funds, more recognition etc), maintaining the high quality of education with growing student numbers is fast becoming a concern. This is so as the number of teaching staff is not increasing fast enough to deal with the growing numbers, and existing facilities might not be able to handle the growing student numbers. The Board of Education of WUR acknowledges this growing concern and has indicated in the Strategic Plan 2019-2022 that they will look into recruiting more staff, investing in facilities such as buildings, classrooms and digital tools, deploying WR staff in education as well as providing educational support to tackle this problem and maintain the education standards WU promises. However, all these measures will take time to be implemented. Thus there is a need for a solution for the current situation – which is to look for way to handle large groups of students without compromising on the quality of education that is promised. This publication aims to help teachers and management to deal with this challenge.