SURVIVING SUPERSIZING

Ideas, good and bad, emerge faster during duress. A decade ago, my annual student count suddenly jumped from less than 400 to roughly 1100. Given neither teaching assistants nor a reliable projection system, I became a high-octane story-teller. However, the installation of a state-of-the-art computer projector in 1996 allowed me to initiate better-structured Web-based teaching. I now post lecture notes, lengthy previews of upcoming tests, interactive copies of all past tests and exams, guides for local field trips, and mirrors of USGS-NASA sites (www2.ncsu.edu/ eos/ info/ mea/ mea101_info). All students who grant permission (99%) have their scores published immediately on the Web, according to their University ID number. Attendance is worth a letter grade, to remind students that classroom participation continues to be an important aspect of geologic education.

My 5,000 student evaluations since 1996 have helped refine a teaching system that can scale up or down to match enrollments. Students choose from among a variety of learning methods, including direct communication with the instructor by email (averaging 25 per day). Development of this Web-based system would not have been worthwhile for any individual instructor under our pre-1990 system of rotating several faculty in and out of introductory teaching. Supersizing without the Web was bad for students but supersizing with it generally has been beneficial. When facing 1100 students per year, one is spurred to maximize Internet interaction and write a textbook. Students love taking a course from "the guy who wrote the book".