1. The problem
The problem of class size is a global issue. It has no cultural or social restrictions. Sadly, as the USA Today news report mentioned, in all countries it is the children that need most attention and have the fewest resources who are mainly affected by this. Bloom’s research tells us that the most effective way of learning is by individual tutoring. However, it is economically impossible to sustain this method. Even if the money was available, the number of qualified teachers or tutors per child would be extremely difficult to find. Just like it happened in California, one of the main side effects of class size reduction (CSR) was a drop in teacher qualifications that disproportionately affected disadvantaged schools. Having this in mind, many educational researchers have been trying to find group methods of instruction that might be as effective as one-to-one tutoring. But how large could a class size be? It is common to find teachers who went from a large to a small class and are more likely to like the current small class, because they report a higher level of personal energy, and believe their students contributed more, paid more attention, and were more satisfied than students in larger classes. Also as the “The wisdom of class-size reduction” article says: CSR allows teachers the space to create meaningful learning opportunities for students. Giving teachers support to develop new strategies for teaching, smaller groups makes it more likely. Still, does this justify across-the-board class size reduction policies? Or should we agree with Hanushek who states that there are likely to be situations where small classes would be very beneficial for student achievement but there are many other situations where reduced class size has no important effect on achievement, even if it always has a very significant impact on school costs.
2. The way I see it
I’ve worked in two private K-12 all-girls schools. The first school served middle class families and the number of students per classroom was between 30 to 37. Now I work at an upper class school where we have between 15 to 25 students per classroom. As one of the assigned resources mentioned: “There’s the expectation that teachers in smaller classes alter their instructional strategies in a way that benefits student learning, therefore raising achievement. However, evidence from survey analyses reveals weak associations between class size and instructional practices.” I totally agree. From what I’ve seen instruction is not different because of the size of the classroom. There were teachers in my former school that were more capable of engaging students and were more open to innovate in their teaching with fewer resources and more students per classroom, than in my current school were there are less students per classroom and more resources but teachers don’t want to leave their comfort zone and you have to deal with their “egos”. I do think that some instructional practices may be more effective than others in small classes. Just like the same document mentions: “When the teacher carries out small-group or individual instruction, the time he or she spends with each student is no longer a constant but a function of class size: as the number of students in the class decreases, the teacher devotes more time to each student.” CSR by itself will not raise student achievement. It is the combination of several factors.
3. How can technology help?
If the purpose of CSR is to achieve the same results as one-to-one tutoring, then we must pay attention to the characteristics that make this method of instruction more effective and think of ways where technology can help simulate the same situation within a group. Bloom mentions that constant feedback and corrective process between the tutor and the tutee were important factors. Plus there is much reinforcement and encouragement in the tutoring situation. Securing instant feedback from a group of students isn’t that difficult if we use different tech tools like clickers, online surveys or quizzes and twitter discussions. Teachers no longer have to wait, they can get instant feedback and results from a large number of students. These tools can be used to facilitate corrective processes and reinforce topics that students don’t understand. Having this information will allow them to personalize student learning. Another thing that Bloom mentions is finding ways of involving more of the students in active engagement in the learning process. In smaller classes it’s easier to do this because you can get to know your students interests better. However, you can combine technology with effective instruction methods to engage students by connecting learning with real life. With technology you can also find ways of supplying additional clarification and illustrations as needed. We all know that we learn in different ways. Technology can help differentiate instruction within a group just like a tutor would do by providing the type of materials that his particular student needs. At the end of Bloom’s report he mentions the improvement of teaching with higher mental processes. These include critical thinking for analyzing and skills for evaluating and creating new knowledge based on what they’ve learned. If we look at Bloom’s new Digital Taxonomy, there are some great tech tools that have opened many ways for acquiring these higher order thinking skills.
Finally, if somebody asked me as a Computer Science teacher if I would prefer a small or large group. I would say a small one. But not because it improves teaching and learning, because it’s nice to get to know your students better. You can have more time to learn about their academic and personal interests, future goals and life problems and help them become better not only in your subject as students but as persons in their life. In a large group it is difficult to achieve this, but is that enough to mandate small classrooms everywhere? As I learned in a previous course, teaching is hard, and educational research is very difficult because you can’t generalize things like in other sciences. We have to be realistic and make the best decisions taking into account the specific circumstances or situations that each community faces.
