My classes don't last their full two hours. I had not been too worried about this. They generally last more than one hour and the students are covering the material at a perfectly adequate pace. That they get to go early is an indication that I am not boring them at the start with too many examples, and I imagine they leave feeling good that they are able to leave early.
In Small Group Teaching a discussion was held on operating a variety of activities in order to maintain engagement and interest. It occurred to me that my last class, in which I broke up the "doing problems" period with some further explanation, was the longest yet. It is difficult to do many different activities : sitting and working through problems is very much the point. Wondering which mathematical models to use and how they relate to the real world are areas for the home course. I wonder if breaking the class up into lecturing, problems, lecturing, problems, is enough to maintain interest. Of course, it may seem more likely that as the material is getting more difficult and the assessment more imminent the enthusiasm to get the most of out classes is increasing.
