"Dan Caster" wrote in message
m...
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.

Firstly, teachers don't get fewer classes to teach just because their class
sizes are smaller. That's part of the problem. In the system in my town, the
smaller classes tend to be the AP and Honors classes (the very smallest are
the pre-school handicapped classes, which my wife teaches), and the teachers
have just as many of them as other teachers have of larger, standard
classes.

Secondly, I think your experience with larger classes, in which they were
the faster-moving ones, is very unusual, although you're talking about
college and we're talking about public primary and secondary schools here.
In fact, the evidence is very strong that smaller classes produce better
results in public schools. The students advance faster and learn better --
if the teachers exploit the smaller classes to tailor the presentation more
closely to the needs of the students.

That's not to say there aren't many other ways to improve teaching. The
point is simply that smaller classes tend to produce better results.

Ed Huntress