Micro-Classes

Abstract

As class-sizes grow in computer science, the personal attention received by students tends to diminish. This work aims to replicate small-class community effects within a large class by creating "micro-classes"-small groups within the large class. These micro-classes consist of 20-30 students led by graduate teaching assistants and undergraduate tutors who are specifically trained in small-classroom instructional techniques. This paper studies the outcomes of the micro-classes framework in an upper-division data structures course and compares them to outcomes from the same class taught in a large lecture, active-learning format. Students report increased satisfaction and a higher perception of community in the micro-classes section, though there was no discernible difference in student academic performance.

A Constructivist Redesign of a Graduate-level CS Course to Address Content Obsolescence and Student Motivation

“…Surely, our approach can not scale indefinitely, since adding extra lab sessions also implies extra work from the teachers. A possible solution could be to split the class in two, so that labs are done in parallel by two teams to two subsets of the class, or to adopt a framework similar to micro-classes [3].…”

How We Manage an Army of Teaching Assistants: Experience Report on Scaling a CS1 Course

“…Most of the existing research on handling large CS classes targets the issues presented by growing class sizes, favoring pedagogical rather than managerial perspectives. The methods that researchers have looked at include peer learning [31], creative seating plans in classrooms [25], smaller learning units called "micro-classes" [4]. Other successful strategies include using personal tutors or mentors and different ways to organize group work [25,30].…”

A Systematic Review of Social Constructivist Pedagogies in Computing and their Effects on Broadening Participation for Women in Undergraduate Computing (Research)

“…One article was focused on the idea of a "micro-class" as applied to the trio of best practices, meaning larger 200+ size courses were transitioned into smaller 25-30 person classes [50]. The micro-class structure was not smaller individual classes, but smaller parallel sections inside of the larger course wherein students would be assigned so that they could chat and interact with their "micro-class" peers during class.…”

“…Additionally, institutions should consider implementing no-experience CS1 courses to broaden participation for students that did not take AP computer science in high school. Employing the notion of "micro-classes" within large classroom or lecture setups may also help to improve a sense of belonging for females in CS1 [50]. Finally, for programming lectures with a lab component, improving the collaborative nature of the lab, meaning that making assignments team-based or pair programming-based, may help to lower the attrition rate of females in computing.…”