....at least not when it comes to classes.
Last December, the Bureau of Economic Research published “Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City.” This report, written by two Harvard professors, analyzes the effectiveness of 35 charter schools across the New York metropolitan area in an attempt to discover what makes them great.
For years, experts have believed that the smaller the class size, the higher chance a student had at succeeding. Contrary to popular belief, however, the researchers found that class size made little difference in comparison to some other factors.
40 years of qualitative studies have shown that there are five critical factors—frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instruction time and high expectations.
What does this mean for colleges across the country that advertise small teacher to student ratios? In fall 2010, Duke reported an 8:1 student to teacher ratio—smaller than our Writing20 classes—and that 71 percent of the classes enroll fewer than 20 students. ECON51, EGR53, PSY11 and CHEM31 are just a few of the 6 percent of our classes that have more than 50 students. Although it is almost impossible to fail Writing20, large lecture classes are generally associated with failed tests and poorer grades. But according to the recently published article, not knowing covalent bonds, MATLAB or supply and demand curves has nothing to do with the class size.
Does this mean that our freshman writing courses are just easy?
Not necessarily, said Cathy Davidson, a professor of English as well as Interdisciplinary Studies in the Franklin Humanities Center.
“I actually do not understand [the] conclusion, and I've read the report a number of times," she said. "Small class size, of course, wouldn't be the only factor [for success]. Rather, small class size allows the best teachers the flexibility to accomplish what the report itself says are the most "effective" policies. These goals simply cannot be achieved by one teacher with too many students and basic issues such as behavior management added into the teaching mix.”
Professor Davidson’s conclusion seems natural and there appears to be a strong connection between small class size and the five critical factors that the report detailed. With hundreds of students, it is just not feasible for a teacher to provide frequent feedback or to increase the instruction time. However, with a class of only a dozen, the professor can personalize expectations and truly get to know the students.
This does not mean that the large lecture classes are doomed for failure. To combat the number of students, the majority of these classes provide recitation sections to answer student questions. Therefore, no one has any excuse to not score that A.
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