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The way the OP was written made it clear he did not a lick of research on the topic. Googling is usually a good place to start when one knows nothing about a topic.
Lol, all I'm doing is responding to the blanket claims I had heard that smaller class sizes are a distinct linear relationship with a better education. As displayed in this thread, that's not the case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
1) The teacher is more likely to notice struggling learners who don't ask for help after class in a small class.
2) There are fewer classroom disruptions. The bigger a class is the harder the class is to manage from a student behavior point of view.
3) It is easier to conduct alternate learning activities in smaller classes
4) The teacher has more prep time because they have less grading to do so, theoretically, their lessons should be better. When I'm not overwhelmed with grading I do a lot of research into how other teachers teach the topics I do and work on improving my lesson plans.
If the class is full of students who are there to learn and want to learn, class size doesn't matter. It matters when it's full of students who are there because they have to be and they don't want to learn the content. I would gladly take classes of 30 with students who want to learn over classes of 20 where the students don't want to learn.
And don't underestimate sitting up front. In my larger classes I cannot accommodate all of the students who want to sit up front.
Good points.
It seems that with class size policy, it was kind of a hot button issue where everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Like Florida passed that high school classes could not have more than 25 students. It sounds good, but it's probably not the best allocation of funds. The 18 kid max for pre K to 3rd grade may be good, but the high school cap may not be. Also, people seem to make a big deal out of class sizes in university when it appears that that area is where class size is the least important.
Very few settings have actually jumped on the bandwagon of small class size. Twenty-five is not a particularly small class, nor does it sound especially great...within some contexts, it is indeed a very LARGE class.
Lol, all I'm doing is responding to the blanket claims I had heard that smaller class sizes are a distinct linear relationship with a better education. As displayed in this thread, that's not the case.
You other posters are showing so much patience with this young person. Hats off. I can't do it. (Former teacher).
We always had over 30 students in my elementary school classes (I've checked my class pictures recently and counted), and the kids in the classes when class sizes were made to be under 20 (when I was in 4th grade it was mandatory for K-3) didn't seem to learn any better than we did.
A smaller class would help if you have a particularly disruptive class, though.
OP, I think class size matters less when you have students on track and/or beyond. But that's not the reality for many teachers.
I also worked in a school where if you had ten students with IEPs, you were supposed to have a special education teacher alongside of you---so of course I had a class with nine students who had IEPs. That was 1/3rd of my class!
I also worked in a rough place. I had a lot of low level students and kids who never showed up. (And students in gangs so we had metal detectors.) I was pretty thankful when I had smaller classes (<30) because it just makes EVERYTHING easier. It, at the very least, allowed me to offer more help to the students who struggled but wanted to be there.
I went to school with big classes and I remember doing a lot of waitng. Waiting for all the tests to be passed out before being allowed to turn them over and taking a timed test. Waiting for my name to be called to go and get something. Waiting to be called to get on line. Wasted a lot of time.
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That was 1/3rd of my class!
