TOPICAL ARTICLES Personalization and Active Learning in the Large Introductory Psychology Class

Addressing selected issues and strateees in teaching the large introductory psychology class, this article focuses on personalizing the large class, making large classes into small classes to facili~tr uctive learning, and incorporating active learning into the large class This article discusses issues inherent in teaching large sections of introductory psychology and strategies for dealing with them. Specifically, I (a) discuss the importance of per-sonalizing the large class, (b) describe ways to make large classes into small classes to facilitate active learning, and (c) describe strategies to promote active learning in the large class. A few observations about class size set the stage. First, the average undergraduate class size has increased steadily in this century, especially during the last several decades (Carnegi