Reply to Does class size matter at the college level?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Does class size matter at the college level?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My freshman kid is at a SLAC and one reason they chose it is for the small class sizes. In my opinion (and personal experience), there is a significant difference between a 40-50 person class and a class of 100-300. My kid had one class with around 40 students this year - that was their largest class, but the professor still knew them all, called on them by name, had lots of class participation, and was able to give very detailed feedback to them. No TAs ran labs or study sessions or did any grading. When grades were posted, the prof wrote each of the students an email about their performance in the class and her thoughts about other courses they might like in the department, and for some of them, that she hoped they considering majoring in the department. She also suggested research and summer opportunities to some of them. As for other classes, my kid's smallest class was 12 students - next semester they will have an even smaller class. And it's not just the relationships with the professors, your interaction with peers is also very different when there are 12 of you, or even 40 of you, versus 300 of you. It's personal preference of course but obviously there is a big difference.[/quote]

Everything you just described has been my kid's experience at a large state school.  She's on a first-name basis with most of her professors, several of whom have written deeply personal recommendation letters for her.  She's also never had a TA in the classroom at all, and certainly no classes larger than an intro of about 150.  Since then, her classes average around 30 people, more or less.  [/quote]

+1. This is pretty standard.[/quote]

So you agree that class size matters.[/quote]

I never said it didn’t?

Feels like some weird people just descended on this thread to argue just to argue.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics