Suggesting to break the 300 plus or larger number of students into smaller teams e.g. 7-12 team members per team & consider the following factors during implementation.  Rationale for smaller team size is it improves interaction & minimizes potential team conflict.

I think that such a division can be made up within the laboratory or the number (or other) exercise. 300 plus students is very much for everyone.

Meticulous planning of the active learning has to be organised by the Teachers with built in curriculum Very difficult to make them work as team 

difficulties  yes, but possible and very effective. We found factor 2 of higher learning efficiency by applying a mix of methodologies.

Peter

Dear Sir 

Please let me study and follow send me the details 

Thanking you in advance 

Dr P P Raichurkar 

dear Pramod,

find enclosed some details as results

best regards Peter

Suggesting to break the 300 plus or larger number of students into smaller teams e.g. 7-12 team members per team & consider the following factors during implementation.  Rationale for smaller team size is it improves interaction & minimizes potential team conflict.

Dear Han,

thats a perfect answer. Thank you a lot.

We did it almost the same way. Depending on what we intend to reach we have three typs of projekt works. The normal large Projects for 3 to 9 month. Your description fits to them. Bur our experience was that we need something didactic in between frontal lecture and large projects. So we created the project orientated group exercises for a large number ob students. The group size we choose after exercising a lot by 3. (For larger projects 3-6). The time for one group exercise was between 90 Minutes (double hour) and 3 hours (in the afternoon). The group exercise began with a frontal introduction of about 15 min as an introductive knowlege transfer to an unknown subject. Then the students worked on a questionaire together in the groups. Every support was allowed but the students had to be active and had to ask  and to move! Mostly the teacher acted as a kind of knowledge storage especially if there was no  Internet forl the many tables. But the students had to leave their snail house and ask. After having worked out the questions (it also was allowed that students talk to the other tables which they seldom did!!) 3 tables introduced there results to public and a discussion took place.

After that the teacher gave a correct solution to the audience if necessary. Each table gave his written version with the 3 names of the students to the teacher.At the next group exercise each former group got back their evaluated writings with individual remarks on it. Usaully the 3 students in one group got the same remark. Individual remarks in Germany are mandatory otherwise the University administration want accept the remark.

We offered about 13 to 15 such exercises in one semester which was about one third of "lecture time". 10 of theses project orientated group exercises formed the 25 %  remark of the whole semester. 50 % of remark was formed out by written exame and 25 % came from a large project on Problems of companies in an offer-order-relationship. Half of the group exercises the students were allowed to sit in groups they could determin themselfs the other half we changed their routins siting allways in the same group.  :) The items we choose for questions were very close to application and changed each year!  With These group exercises with large numbers of students we filled the didactic gap between frontal lecture and real project work. The students were motivated and be trained to be more activ. This was necessary for good results in project work with the so called real life character TheoPrax project.

If you want to read this more extensivly find the enclosed file.

Best regards

Peter

D'accordo - there is one point though which I think is ..., interesting, an additional challenge ...? . not sure about the correct term: Give students plenty of space to go through a large part of the process of team-bulding itself. This surely distracts from the "goal achievement" in stricto sensu, is however a learning process of its own value.

There is another dimension that I find challenging: working in a "foreign language". Leaving aside that I do this most of the time, I am now speaking of the current situation (teaching in China) and also of the various experiences with erasmus-stundents - for many of them studying in another language than their native language is a real challenge, sometimes struggling with simple logistics of such teamwork (understanding submission dates ....)

Dear Peter,

thank you for your hint to the foreign language and Erasmus Programm. I agree totally and made the same experiencs with Erasmus Studentns the last 8 years

Best regards

Peter

Students' class of more than 300 is not a team and even we can't form it.

Only way is ... allotting a project to whole class and every one will contribute in the project.

Dear Subhash,

thank for answering. You describe one way. Above we already discussed the way to form groups of 3 students and work with them in a large room with many tables in it. Please see above. We experimented successfully this way.

Best regards

yours Peter

Dear @Peter, I do consider groups over 50 students as a group which will bring less learning outcomes. Of course, different approaches are applied to humanities and social sciences vs teaching STEM. It depends on many factors.

My engineering classes engage mostly 30 students, while I have only 3 per group in lab.

Dear all

If I have to get 300 plus students to work in teams successfully, I will use web-based instruction. I will divide the students into several groups. I will give my lecture in PPT. every group can choose its studying time.

Dear Peter,...

I started in SS 2014 organizing a project practicum for lightweight constructions,... first with 2 teams and 4-5 members. The following year (SS 2015) we had 6 teams with 5 members each..

The teams got a technical task to solve. They had to organize their group self-dependent,.... learning that nothing works without activities coming out of the team itself. One focus was the team building activities .... learning group dynamics live..

The other focus was.... that the teams got the chance to discuss details of their project work or potential solutions with mentors whenever they want and at regular speaking hours....not to navigate in a dead end street.

The outcome for me was:

• Teams should be
  4 votes 2 thanks

Dear colleagues

Your educational achievements are enormous.

I wonder how many people have such a group of 300+ handles.

Fortunately, I have more than 24 students - and it's easy.

I wish you much success to "the field of public education."

Dear Peter,

I concur with Han that there needs to be clear group goals/objectives, optimal group size for the tasks that the groups are assigned to accomplish, etc.

If possible, good group members selection and appropriate role assignments would help the learning outcomes.

Social scientists, educators, and business professionals have studied group dynamics and optimal group sizes for years. Here are two short articles and an additional resource:

"Much of work today is done in teams. Even in MBA programs, the team is the structure used to meet class goals. So what is the optimal size for effective decision-making? It appears that a recent Harvard Business Review stat published that research by Marcia W. Blenko, Michael C. Mankins, and Paul Rogers indicates that seven (7) is the optimal size. Yet much of the research I’ve found says that number is a bit too high. 

First, many studies target an “odd” number as the first criteria for group size..."

http://sheilamargolis.com/2011/01/24/what-is-the-optimal-group-size-for-decision-making/

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-your-team-too-big-too-small-whats-the-right-number-2/

https://books.google.com/books?id=Xve0lbImCbUC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=What+is+the+optimal+size+of+a+task+group&source=bl&ots=DRJzgST6Tp&sig=iTRkBPRqFOEfvPXsPkbWjxI25NI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL4_z-4cfJAhVj5YMKHao_ASgQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=What%20is%20the%20optimal%20size%20of%20a%20task%20group&f=false

Your content and fast response with a camera on back can help you concentrate 300 students.

Dear Peter, i remember my medical students time in similar numbers. We got put in Teams according to the room size or table in the room (5-15) and each Group had to work out one subject. Then a representative of each Group was invited to participate at the big table to discuss together the outcomes.

Dear Peter, here a large lecture class is about 220 - 250 students, although a lecture hall can seat 300.  Form that we have split up the large group into 10 smaller tutorial groups about 22 - 25 students.  And the tutorial teacher will normally split up the tutorial group into small groups of 4 -5 students.  I always make the students practice collaborative group discussion, in line with the work of renowned scientists on collaborative learning (like Johnson & Johnson).  This is a paper where I documented a research.

Article Facilitating Cooperative Learning Among Matriculation Biology Students

Dear Colleagues,

I am very happy about your answers. Thank you a lot. I suggest to wait still a few days. Then I will summerise your answers in a kind of table. Probabely we will find that some datas for comparison are missing. You will be asked to add them if available. Then we get a nice survey and can think to about futher ideas to go on. Do you agree?

Thanks again

Peter

dear Miranda,

thank you for giving us your literature concerning Cooperative Learning.

Looks very promissing. I like to read it asap.

Best regards

Peter

Yes, that collect this many will be tired, but the lecturer can use the tools as caption display and speaker as well as a copy of the lecture, the student used for the purpose of follow-up.

Dear Peter,

In Aligarh Muslim University, there is a common course of Computer lab for first yr engineering students. Students from different branches join the program. We tackle near about 500 students in this lab. We divide the students into 12 groups. 40 students in each group. Each group attends the lab once in a week for three hours. 4 teachers along with 4 PG students manage the group of 40 students. This is our strategy and we are comfortable with it.

The teacher-taught connect through "eye-contact" would be lost, in such big groups. I would suggest that there can be video session, where students watch it first and then the teacher clarifies on doubts after the session, which is a better enabler to learning.

Dear Peter,

what about these ideas: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/large-lecture-classes and

others from here: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tsllc ?

I can add that some details depend on certain national specifics (are students able for a good collective discipline or all of them are great individuals ? :-)).

thank you Abdul and all others, for your contrbution. I will soon summerise them. I think over Christmas :)

Best regards Peter

To me 300 students to work in a team at the outset remain at the task call for scientific ,systematic under the planned process to achieve the desire result.

1  For achieving successful result i wish to prefer to bifurcate & to divide the student in batch of 25 students 

2 We have to prepare a prescribe form narrating the requirement by including the specific notes so that one can analyse the level of students for the interest ,intelligence,& the specific knowledge .

3  All such forms should be evaluated under the scrutinize of the level of students in the team of 25 students i.e 12 teams which may help the selective team to take a decision which has certainly scientific base for 300 students to work in teams.

This is my personal opinion 

For me, it is difficult. If you try, then I am afraid it will be mixed up.

Divide them into smaller teams with a capable student as leader, and give the leaders more responsibility

Narayanan

It is always good to work in a team of small personals (10-15 persons). In my institute in each course of an undergraduate level there are 150 students. Here, a teacher is assigned to deliver lecture in a big classroom. However, for tutorial (problem solving session), these 150 student are divided into 8 groups. For tutorial research scholars (PhD) are assigned to take the tutorials. I am having 4 tutorial classes of one course (Networks Theorems) in which there are around 18-19 students in each tutorial class. Since there are only 18-19 students I used to discuss the problems individually. Also, the students get benefited in much better way than that of lecture classes of the course.

dear Mahamad,

thank you. In my University we have the same situation as you discribes it. But I changed this tradition and reduced my frontal lecture by 50 % . The "free" time I invested in Group Work with the 100 or 150 students. I used a large "Classroom" with about 40 littel tables. 3-4 students at one table and then let them work on a given problem by themselves. The intensity of learning increased by fator two.

Regards

Peter

Dear Peter, In Georgia we have the same situation, especially at the beginning of the university. There are 200-300 students during a lecture. It is very difficult, as teacher cannot concentrate to involve all of them in the study process. seminars in Georgia are held with 25-30 students. It is very good as there is time for all students to take part in the discussions. i mostly use to give questions and discuss issues in small groups and only one student can introduce the opinion of the group. This is very helpful, as students actively discuss the topic is small groups and give their ideas and we only get the most important idea from each team.

Large Group Teaching!

"The large group, lecture format is often synonymous with what most people think of university studies. Faced with a room of more than one hundred students, promoting active learning in large lecture theatres is a challenge most academics are likely to face. It is no surprise that this poses particular concern with research showing that student attention span can decline after 10 to 15 minutes.

Large group classes can include active learning. Find creative ways to allow students to apply what they are learning in the lecture. Build an environment in which students feel confident to engage....

Building an effective lecture as a means of motivating and inspiring interest in your students, while transmitting key concepts and ideas, is one that requires planning and creativity.

In large groups, the size of class means that some students feel far away, less involved, less known by the lecturer and less engaged in the process. So how do you overcome these barriers to engagement to build confidence, attachment, and connections between students and staff?

When delivering in a large group, lecture format, some good practices include:

• deliberately plan for the social function of groups from the outset by including tasks that encourage students to work together either in pairs or small groups
• overcome difficulties of large group dialogue by summarising yourself, using non-verbal responses, prompting responses, and creating a positive environment
• consider students’ attention span and find ways to engage them immediately, e.g.use visual material, tell an interesting story or quote, pose a question/problem
• ask questions to assess knowledge, e.g. ‘show of hands’ response
• do something different to keep students’ attention, e.g. move into the body of the lecture theatre or change the pace of your lecture
• design your lecture from your audience’s perspective – not yours
• use accessible language to create an inclusive learning environment..."

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/lets/toolkit/teaching/largegroup