RE: Questions for the day

The issue of class size and student learning. After 35 years of teaching and research at grade levels 7 through university, in  my opinion, class size is NOT an issue IF the students are at  similar academic level, HELP is available for evaluation of student's work, and the teachers have the academic "tools" to resolve problems. The issue is both simple and complex and relates highly to proper placement, social promotion and student motivation. The simple is to define this problem and the complex is to "walk the talk". This instructor/reseacher has developed 16 innovations or "tools" to address these issues. Why is possible, for example, at the college, adult, or in other countries that the instructor can have 40 or more students and still teach effectively?   We must develop an academic program that places the student emperically into the corrct academic level and gives the student the incentive to want to learn. I think this is actually quite easy to to do at the class room level, as I have done it for the past 25 years teaching a student population that is approximately 90% ethnic minority, 75% women and 55% black.  The average learning rates was 7.1 times the traditional norm reference CTBS or Stanford  results. Some of the class sizes were over 40 students! However, in the public K-12 system, which I have taught in for over 7 years, the instructor can  NOT generally teach the textbook, because there is no academic program to control correct student placement and measure student acheivement and learning effectively. In this case, small classes are needed because of the large standard deviation in student background levels and the instructor can address ONLY 1/3 of the students in the class and the other 2/3 are bored. It is both interesting and significant that if such a program was developed and implemented, this program would cost LESS money with the larger class size and the student's higher attendance. The higher attendance would occur as the student is learning more and "success breads success" truism!