**4. Conclusions**

work, and projects, among other initiatives. In the case of courses that have more than one teacher, they generate actions of reciprocal collaboration with students in smaller groups, especially in learning experiences where they demand the resolution of professional challenges. Outside the course, teachers commonly promote collaboration with former students of the course or simple contact with professionals of the same or other disciplines, with the purpose of broadening the look beyond the course and the generation of networks that facilitate the initial labor insertion. Some representative quotes were "*The work done by the students through collaboration, both inside and outside the classroom, has been vital … I notice it when interacting in the social media of the course and when jointly solving the work that I request. I usually organize groups randomly and reconfigure them two or three times during the course. This way I assure they generate networks, collaborate and are able to cope with the course…*"; "*My class is in a large auditorium…and although it seems difficult, what I do most is instruction between peers. Even on some occasions, I have placed themselves in different positions inside the auditorium so that they rotate the work-groups … I see how students' motivation, engagement and achievement increases…*"; "*…at the end of each topic, I ask students to interview professionals from their own discipline to compare the contents of the course and to generate professional links that promote understanding of how to insert themselves in the professional context…this helps the students to be responsible with their own learning and collect experiences or situations to be shared during the class*"; *and* "*When my students understand and realize that we are a learning community during the course, there are really significant changes in their performance…it is interesting to see how their behavior changes and how they take more responsibility for learning, especially in moments that I make them interact with key stakeholders* 

166 New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education

As part of any course, the interaction between students, through various methodologies or extracurricular activities, must be planned and strengthened, in order to positively impact

Beyond the course size, these teachers permanently ask their students' involvement and not just to attend as passive listeners. Usually, they ask students small but permanent actions that imply them to respond, think, propose, or elaborate, which is manifested in some type of evidence or learning product. These actions are permanently generated within the same class session and throughout the period in which the course is dictated. This is based on the perception of these teachers in maintaining students' attention as long as possible, which leads to better results. Some representative quotes were "*…or via clickers or One Minute Paper session-by-session, I have my students constantly mobilizing what we review in class, otherwise, what purpose has that they just sit and listen?…*"; "*In several sessions I use Flipped Classroom. Therefore, they already know that they must come to classes to apply or to solve exercises that will be part of their assessment. Many times I also do it to integrate several contents. The idea is that they are in constantly aware and attentive to learn…*"; *and* "*The traditional idea of going to class to sit and listen simply does not respond to the current needs in the development of skills. By having a large group of courses, I want to involve the vast majority of students, and not everyone can speak at the same time. That's why I* 

**3.5. Promotion of permanent cognitive participation of students during class** 

*integrate activities where they have to connect with what I expose in classes…*".

*outside the course…*".

**improves achievement in learning**

their learning.

All the criteria that have been identified in this chapter are possible to apply in small courses and are not exclusive to large group activities. So, what must be especially considered in classes where the size becomes more of a problem than a challenge to be faced?

It seems to us that the relevance lies in when, where, and how the teaching and learning process is implemented and managed. Consequently, the problem is not in size, but in the choice of strategies to use and how they are managed in the classroom to raise the quality of learning in the vast majority of students.

Another issue to be considered is related to the use of technologies and its usefulness to tackle large courses. Above all, the use of everyday applications or those easy to access—such as social media—can cause significant differences when developing environments that promote effective learning. It should be noted that technologies do not solve all the challenges that come with large courses, but they manage to solve a significant group of them, such as interaction, communication, and individual monitoring that can be developed with these tools.
