91福利

From 65 to 500: Teaching innovation in a very large classroom (PS)

CMN100 Professional Health Communication is a foundational course taken by students across 91福利. In Winter 2026, it expanded from a 65-student asynchronous online course to a hybrid model serving ~500 students across seven in-person and one online tutorial sections. The redesigned structure included a one-hour weekly lecture and a two-hour tutorial, taught by one course instructor, three tutorial instructors, and supported by five Academic Assistants. This Project Spotlight highlights strategies used to foster engagement and accessibility while addressing challenges of scale, structure, and limited resources.

The expansion introduced common large-class challenges: inconsistency across sections, difficulty sustaining engagement, and supporting many students with accommodations. Large classes can create anonymity and weaken connections, undermining learning. At the same time, as digital media replaces traditional lectures, student expectations for personalized, relational learning have increased.

To address this, the course adopted a flipped classroom model grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Weekly asynchronous videos delivered core content while building a parasocial relationship with the course instructor and reducing inaccessibility pertinent to live lectures. Students controlled their learning pace and completed low-stakes weekly quizzes with flexible timing. A virtual token system allowed assignment extensions without documentation, supporting equity and self-regulation.

Consistency across tutorials was maintained through a 鈥渇ractal鈥� structure: all tutorials shared common learning goals, activities, and assessments, while allowing instructor flexibility in delivery. A single D2L shell streamlined navigation. The course instructor centralized assignment support through FAQs, templates, and short videos, while tutorial instructors focused on personalized discussions and accommodations. Shared grading rubrics enabled real-time calibration and transparency across sections.

Formal student feedback is forthcoming, with a planned survey on student satisfaction with the flipped classroom model and their engagement with tutorial activities. 

Session Learning Outcomes:

• Identify challenges of scaling courses and strategies to address them
• Design structures balancing consistency and instructional autonomy
• Describe collaborative course design practices that leverage graduate students, tutorial instructors, and graders as pedagogical partners.

Presenters

Better Learning Spaces (P)

What kind of classroom environment inspires students to really engage and collaborate? Many universities have experimented with designing Active Learning Classrooms (Brooks 2019) as student-centred environments that encourage learning and engagement beyond traditional lectures. These typically incorporate movable seating, enhanced technology, and breakout spaces. However, there remains a need for more research into how the classroom spaces can be restorative and positively contribute to student wellbeing as well as learning (Peters and D鈥橮enna 2020). This presentation will link theories and findings in pedagogy, such as the 鈥渢hird teacher鈥� concept (Zeichner 2010) adapted for higher education, that argues the environment is also an integral part of the learning. The presentation will analyze exemplary case studies of Canadian university classrooms. The study engages with Radcliffe鈥檚 pedagogy-space-technology (PST) framework which considers the development, implementation, and evaluation of learning spaces design (Radcliffe 2009). A selection of exemplary learning spaces will be examined in the context of PST in large 400+ person classrooms at UBC Okanagan and University of Toronto, and two smaller seminar style 50+ person classrooms at 91福利 and George Brown College. The analysis extends existing ALC research by focusing not only on the interior of classrooms and their furnishings within a PST framework and also considering broader aspects of classroom design, including size and shape of the room, the placement and operability of windows, opportunities for natural ventilation, and  the selection of furniture, and colours.

Presenter