Daniel C. Elliott is a Professor of Education and Educational Administration at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles County. After twenty-five years in teaching and school administration, Dr. Elliott ministers at this Christian university, preparing teacher candidates to teach “Christianly” and administrator candidates to be “servant leaders” from a biblical perspective. His published books include “A Quiver Full of Teaching Models, Methods, and Strategies;” “Coaching Teachers for Education Reform;” “Nurturing Reflective Christians to Teach;” and “Nurturing Christians as Reflective Educators.” He has published many articles and speaks across the nation on educational leadership, character education, teaching, and school reform.
What is the best size for a class of learners? Educators have asked this question throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. In doing so, they have considered what outcomes they seek, for all effective teaching leads to observable learning outcomes. Teaching that cannot be measured in terms of outcomes is not teaching at all but mere pontification. To use an arithmetic metaphor (forgive this former math and English teacher, folks), learning outcomes result from teacher time invested carefully plus learner time focused on an understandable task, multiplied by the opportunities for learners to practice and rehearse the desired performance outcome. Teachers have always viewed learning as successful when the desired change has taken place in the learner’s behavior or planned behavior.
Teachers can invest great efforts with large groups of learners, but the impact of their work declines in inverse proportion to the size of the group (Smith and Glass, 1978). Even Jesus did not have much impact on His learners when He taught the 5,000 or the 4,000, or the multitudes. It was only when He took the twelve apostles aside to teach them that change began to happen, and then only after years of persistent and faithful repetition in the face of their dullness and obstinacy. “Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!’” (Luke 24:25). What teacher has not experienced that same frustration?—and yet Jesus persevered. Actually, one could say that it was not until His individual tutoring that His intended learning outcomes become a reality in their lives. Later, the Lord sent the Holy Spirit to tutor and guide each believer individually. Only then did the body of Christ begin to function as the Lord intended. And even then there were, and still are, struggles and pitfalls.
Why, then, do we as educators say something just once or twice to a group of thirty, forty, or a hundred students and expect them to “get it,” master it, and be ready for the next learning step? Nowhere is there research that tells us the best learning takes place in classes of thirty-five and above.
In 1978, Gene Glass and Mary Smith analyzed seventy-seven research studies spanning seventy years and more than a dozen countries. They discovered an understandably positive relationship between reduced class size (fewer than twenty students) and achievement. “The achievement of pupils in instructional groups of fifteen or fewer scored several percentile points above that of pupils in classes of twenty-five and thirty” (Connor and Day, 1988). Small classes, it appeared, made substantial gains on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and other basic skills tests in all four primary years of schooling in rural, suburban, urban, and inner-city locations. The researchers concluded that students in small classes have a distinct advantage over students in large classes.
It cannot be emphasized enough, however, that a reduction in class size alone will not bring powerful learning results. If teachers have been using instructional strategies designed for large-group management, their strategies have to change along with the size of the classes. They must use small-group strategies, taking advantage of the opportunities for individualized reinforcement and delivery afforded by a small class size (McRobbie, 1996). Small classes permit increased individualization in the learning experiences. Better monitored “cooperative inquiry” activities become possible, as do powerful “Socratic Seminars,” in which students process large amounts of information and then defend views in the face of intensive inquiry by the teacher or other mentoring expert. The specific purpose of these strategies varies with the ages of the students. More complex strategies—synectics, simulations, role plays (see Elliott, 1966)—are appropriate for older students, but in all cases smaller classes enhance the opportunities for creative teaching and learning.
Small classes were once the almost exclusive domain of private schools. But now, driven by financial pressures, Christian private education seems to have moved toward larger classes. How can private Christian schools afford to pay fair wages to highly qualified teachers and to keep class sizes small without placing an impossible financial burden on parents? For finances, of course, create the pressure that drives up the sizes of classes in Christian schools. Solutions lie in creative “possibility thinking.” Teams of teachers that include assistant teachers and parent volunteers, flexible scheduling, and greater use of nontraditional classroom structures and grouping strategies can provide exciting solutions for Christian school administrators and teachers willing to free themselves of the image of what schoolrooms looked like when they were children.
Christians responsible for school teaching or administration should examine the class organizational patterns and the teaching methods currently used in their schools. As a community of Christian disciples and scholars, do we merely want to warehouse our client students, or do we want to make the best possible difference in their lives? If the evidence of both Scripture and secular research confirms what we know in our hearts and observe in our classrooms—that the best learning takes place in small classes—why would we claim to be a Christian school and do what we know is not in our students’ best interest?
May I suggest that in Christian schools we should avoid presuming that we are teaching “Christianly” because of our name, dogma, mission statement, church affiliation, and so on. We need to be sure that our classrooms and schools are, in fact, places of discipleship, love, nurturing, and optimal learning. Class size makes a Christian difference! Jesus taught the multitudes, but He invested Himself in true teaching with just twelve. How many should YOU teach?
Selected References
Blatchford, Peter, and Peter Mortimore. “The Issue of Class Size for Young Children in Schools: What Can We Learn from Research?” Oxford Review of Education, vol.1, no. 4 (1994).
Connor, Tim and Rosemary Day. “Class Size: When Less Can Be More.” Sacramento, California: Senate Office of Research (1988).
Elliott, Daniel C. A Quiver Full of Teaching Models, Methods, and Strategies. Claremont, California: Learning Light Press (1996).
Glass, Gene. and Mary Smith. “Meta-Analysis of Research on the Relationship of Class Size and Achievement.” Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development (1978).
McRobbie, Joan. “Smaller Classes Aim to Launch Early Literacy.” Focus Magazine (Fall, 1996).
Youssouf, Sanogo, and David Gilman. “Class Size and Student Achievement: Tennessee’s STAR and Indiana’s Prime Time Projects.” Terre Haute: Indiana State University (1994).
Class Size and Teaching Christianly 1.5