Pedagogy for Higher Education Large Classes (PHELC)

Welcome to the PHELC website. PHELC aims to support higher education professors who teach large classes

Twitter: @PHELCprofessors #PHELCprofessors

Pedagogy for Higher Education Large Classes

(PHELC)

PHELC 2025

Update: Review of PHELC

As we flagged last year, the PHELC Symposium is taking a break in 2025. We are currently reviewing our work so far and scoping where we might go from here. We have held six symposia to date, most of which were held online to maximise access for as many people as possible. We also sought modest amounts of funding to ensure we could cover basic costs and therefore avoid charging for registration to further maximise access. All papers and most presentations are available in the proceedings section of this website so even if you were not able to be with us in person for any of our events, you can still benefit from the insights of our presenters.

The proliferation of large classes in higher education is not going to go away; indeed, as more and more people access higher education, massification of classes and programmes will likely increase. This has implications for the quality of the pedagogical experience of learners and teachers. It is the mission of PHELC to enable, enhance and support higher education colleagues to maximise the quality of their pedagogical practice.

We will be back soon with news of our plans going forward.

Twitter - #PHELC24 @PHELCprofessors

Keynote Speaker PHELC 2024

Dr Jaclyn Broadbent, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

Title: Aligning the summative and formative purposes of assessment: assignment design, feedback and moderation at scale.

Dr. Jaclyn Broadbent, an Associate Professor at Deakin University, is the Pro Vice-Chancellor of Sessional Academic Experience and the Deputy Head of the School of Psychology. Moreover, as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), she plays a part in advancing educational research. Holding dual PhDs in Psychology and Education, Dr. Broadbent's research expertise lies at the intersection of online self-regulated learning and the practical application of teaching strategies to enhance student success. Jaclyn is passionate about delivering high-quality, challenging and supportive learning experiences for students and has implemented a range of innovative, engaging and student-oriented teaching practices. Her teaching excellence has garnered recognition, notably with the Australian Award and Citation for University Teaching and as Deakin's Teacher of the Year. To learn more about her journey and work, visit www.jaclynbroadbent.com

Rationale for PHELC

The trend towards massification in higher education has resulted inter alia in the proliferation of large classes. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes ‘large’ (Kerr, 2011). The purpose of this symposium is to move the emphasis away from the contested term ‘large’ class to focus instead on the nature of teaching, learning and assessment in this context regardless of what is perceived as ‘large’. The aim of the symposium is to identify pedagogical and assessment possibilities which are appropriate for large classes and which maximise student learning, engagement and participation in that context. As such this symposium responds to recent calls for a pedagogical rather than a numerical focus to the debate (Prosser & Trigwell, 2014).

History of PHELC Symposium

The impetus for developing the symposium had its genesis in the experience of the two convenors who have taught large university classes for many years (see below for our details). The first two PHELC symposia were held in conjunction with the Higher Education Advances (HEAd) Conference, València in 2019 and again, virtually in 2020. The support and encouragement of the HEAd Conference committee was instrumental in enabling us to develop PHELC as an event in its own right and the third PHELC symposium was held independently, online in June 2021. We remain indebted to our Spanish friends for their guidance and expertise.

HEAd24 is a hybrid event this year, based again in UPV, Valencia, 18-21 June. We strongly recommend attendance at this conference - a vibrant, energising event attracting academics from all over the world. Registration information may be found HERE.

Other PHELC events

The annual symposium is the main event on the PHELC calendar. However, in 2021, we branched out to develop other events. Our first seminar was held in December 2021 which allowed large class teachers from two universities to share experience and expertise in teaching large classes, We hope to develop this aspect of our work in the future. Details of the seminar may be found on the 'Other Events' page of this website.

Ann Marie Farrell

Ann Marie Farrell is Assistant Professor in the School of Inclusive and Special Education, Institute of Education, Dublin City University. She works on a range of under- and post-graduate teacher education programmes. Classes on some of these programmes are considered 'large' i.e. 100 up to 430 students. Click here for full profile.

Dr. Anna Logan

Dr. Anna Logan is Associate Professor in the School of Inclusive and Special Education and the Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University where she teaches across seven undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes up to and including doctoral programmes. Anna has conducted, published and presented research relating to many aspects of higher education. Click here for full profile.

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