Hmmm. I see teaching as something different from you. I think the
first thing done in any teaching is the presenting, that you don't
consider teaching. The second thing is determining if the student
understands what is presented. This is followed by more presenting
focused on whatever aspect the student did not understand. So to me
presenting is the first thing and if done well the requirement to
access what the student learned is not as important because the
student got it the first time.

And you say that you can get away with bigger classes when you don't
expect much of the students. My experience was that the largest
classes I ever had were in college where much more was expected of me.
I think the real determination of how large a class you can have and
expect reasonable results from the students is mostly dependent on
age. What you are saying makes sense for first grade students. I do
not think it is true for most high school students.

And what I am trying to say is that there are ways to increase the
amount of feedback and individual tailoring, without reducing class
size. I think that presenting material in lectures to larger groups
followed by having students essentially take a quiz using a computer
would provide better feedback. And the individual tailoring should
probably be done both by hyperlinks to additional material during the
computer quiz and by the teacher. The teacher would have more time
for individual and small groups if he/she did not have to present the
material four times a day to four " small " classes.

Dan

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message news:i741c.32323


I hope without making a bigger deal of this, my experience is that lectures
are nothing but books-on-tape. If it can be delivered in a big lecture,
there is no excuse for delivering it in a classroom at all. If it requires
some visual aids, it could be done better on videotape. That isn't teaching.
That's presenting.

Which relates to the issue that we haven't discussed here, that a teacher
can get a student to perform closer to his or her ability by closer contact.
Any student will benefit from a teacher who can assess what a student is
learning as he goes, and by adjusting the teaching to suit the student's
learning. You can get away with larger classes when you don't expect much of
students, which, of course, is a big part of our problem.

Finally, I don't think you're making a fair evaluation of the data on
teaching and class size. Among people who are involved with the subject and
who have taken the time to really study the studies, there is no visible
disagreement. If you hold everything constant -- including low expectations
and a uniform method of presentation regardless of the class size --
probably you can show (probably someone *has* shown) that there is no
difference in student performance. But every good teacher knows he or she is
limited in how much they can teach by the amount of feedback, and the amount
of individual tailoring, they can do with each student. In fact, the issue
is a no-brainer to educators. The studies are things they regard as
political window-dressing for a fact that's established deeply in the
history of education, as well as by current events.

Ed Huntress