Dealing with larger numbers of students in further and higher education brings its own challenges, particularly:

• teaching large groups
• managing diverse student cohorts
• scaling services
  

Technology can introduce efficiencies of various kinds into the teaching and assessment process, and can also help students to feel more personally involved in their learning experience.

The INTEGRATE, MAC and ESCAPE projects focused on approaches to assessment that offer formative learning benefits to students even in larger groups. The ESCAPE project provided clear evidence of larger numbers having a better experience of assessment through their approach.

COWL dealt with problems scaling student support by empowering academics to offer writing support through an online writing environment in Moodle, which expanded their original limited central service and helped many more
learners improve their academic writing.

Making the New Diploma a Success, ISCC and INTEGRATE adopted technology-based peer support mechanisms and community building to help students feel more personally engaged in situations where they may have less face to face contact with tutors or small groups.

The Business School Teaching Fellows (encouraged by a few extremely dedicated and committed individuals) now collectively have a range of strategies to help with teaching large cohorts of diverse students. (INTEGRATE)

Addressing digital literacy issues can help with the management of diverse cohorts.

Case studies

• Integrate Students as agents of change: Student engagement in lectures
• Integrate Students as agents of change: Photography competition
• Integrate Students as agents of change: Podcasting in Business Education
• Integrate Students as agents of change: sustainable practice

Quotes

'During a period of rapid increase in student numbers, and from a context in which technology was barely used, the INTEGRATE project team worked with academic and professional services staff in the University of Exeter Business School to trial a wide range of technologies to enhance teaching and to improve student engagement in learning. The project particularly addressed the challenges of large student numbers in the first year (over a thousand in the current first year)' (INTEGRATE)

'We reduced the amount of face‐to‐face teaching (which was previously poorly attended) and replaced it with  online content delivery in self‐access units to which students were directed on an individual basis' (KUBE)