TY - JOUR AB - Purpose Several challenges of today’s higher education were motivations to reconsider the contents and formats of lectures and tutorials and to conceive the classroom communication system Backstage, a social media platform supporting a novel form of large-class teaching. The purpose of this paper is to report on the challenges met, on the novel teaching form and on an evaluation of this teaching form.Design/methodology/approach The use of Backstage in two courses is evaluated. One of the courses has been specially adapted to promote student participation, the other course has been held in a traditional way. To investigate the usefulness and acceptance of Backstage in the given settings the data collected on Backstage and student responses in surveys are analyzed.Findings The results indicate that Backstage can foster interactivity and awareness in large-class lectures when used in combination with a teaching format that provides opportunities for and encourges lecture-relevant communication. Furthermore, students appreciated the use of Backstage.Research limitations/implications This paper reports on a case study which lacks generalizability. Further studies under controlled conditions and of the learning effectiveness of the approach are still outstanding.Practical implications This paper describes an approach fostering a form of Active Learning in large classes. Since large classes are widespread in higher education, the approach has a considerable practical potential.Social implications The paper describes an approach to large class higher education teaching in using social media.Originality/value Similar results have not been published so far. VL - 9 IS - 1 SN - 2050-7003 DO - 10.1108/JARHE-06-2015-0042 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-06-2015-0042 AU - Bry François AU - Pohl Alexander Yong-Su PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/01/01 TI - Large class teaching with Backstage T2 - Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 105 EP - 128 Y2 - 2024/09/24 ER -