Lessons learned after 15 years: use of information technologies to support face-to-face teaching to small, medium, and too big classes at University of Ottawa.

A. Morin. Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5

Most courses in universities are taught to classes of increasing sizes by content experts with little pedagogical training. Adding computers to the mix can possibly make things better for both profs and students, but not necessarily. This case study will describe successes and failures in using computers in the classroom and web sites outside the classroom for various undergraduate biology courses with enrollments varying between 6 and 1150. Surfing behaviour of students visiting web sites that support face-to face courses has been monitored and validates personal impressions that such web sites can resolve a number of logistical issues (organization, distribution of printable material, evaluation) for large classes (>50) but that their cost:benefits ratio is less favourable for smaller classes. E-mail management can quickly become a nightmare when teaching large classes but an online discussion forum, possibly moderated by teaching assistants (if you can get the right ones), can improve significantly the learning experience of students registered in large classes. Creating the contents of web sites supporting courses can be a major undertaking that is best spread over several years, but can possibly be streamlined by focussing on aspects most used by students.