Selective Class Size.

It did not take me long to learn how to loathe large classes in my first year as a GTA. "The more the merrier" naivette regarding letting students into a discussion group would lead to 32 or 34 students per class. Doesn't sound like much until you have three of them (that makes for at least 96 students o grade for). "The more the merrier" gave way to "the less the better."

When I got my own class, "the more the merrier" returned, with a whopping 40 students in my Latin American Development class. Big mistake. The 17 student intro to econ course the previous summer was such a dream, followed by a nightmare of poorly written exams, and essay assignments that made me want to melt my own eyes with my soldering iron.

I quickly began to look into ways to "select out" the problem students through a fun little signaling game I call "Scaring the Snot Out of Them on the First Day."

Students with low attendance scores have lower exam scores and tend to be pains in my rear-end around the end of the semester when they finally do start showing up? Well hello draconian Attendance policy. The two minutes it takes to run through a list of names is well worth the two or three students that immediately dropped the first semester I implemented this. From 30 to 28 in just one move... game on.

Student papers are riddled with poor citation and downright plagiarism? Announce to them my refusal to believe in "the myth of unintentional plagiarism" and promise that I will spend my free time trying to get them kicked out of school if they so much as paraphrase without proper citation. More drops. Why? Don't believe the lie; students know when and how they plagiarize. The two or three per class who will actually try might think twice about even sitting-in.

Group presentations is another good way to push a few out, but make it even better by allowing for "peer evaluation" to determine individual grades. Then show an example of how a group of students screwed over one of the slackers (justice is never pretty). The new thing is a portfolio that they have to work on all semester with chapter summaries and data projects.

The total number of drops for first two days: 9. Three added but have not shown up yet. Count is steady at 24 students. A good round number.

I might change strategy at a small school, but for right now, in a big public university I'm going to keep with my size strategies.

UPDATE 2/6/2011: As of today, my class size has gone down to 22 from 30. Some of these 22 are adds, but the total drop number is a record for me: 15 drops in the first two weeks.