Andrew Steinman A34091396 Policy Brief Class Sizes There has been an ongoing debate about class sizes.

. Many feel that decreasing class sizes will improve student performance. There has been much research to support this claim. Benjamin Bloom performed research to show that classes with a smaller student/teacher ratio (1/1) had higher summative assessment scores than classes with a higher student/teacher ratio(30/1). Project STAR also indicated that elementary students in smaller classes (13-17/1) perform better on standardized tests compared to students in larger classes (22-25/1). In both of these research studies, the authors indicate that with smaller class sizes teachers are able to provide more individual instruction and feedback to students. They also accept that decreasing class sizes will require increased funding to hire more, highly trained teachers. On the other side of the argument Carolina Milesi and Adam Gamoran show that class size does not affect student achievement and that teacher styles between larger and smaller classes showed no variation. Eric Hanushek also researched the connection between school costs per student and student achievement. His research shows that between 1950 and 1994 class sizes decreased and that spending per pupil increased, but that student achievement scores have shown very little change. With contradicting research, what should be done about class sizes? In my opinion, class sizes should be reduced. Despite Milesi and Gamorans research, teachers do teach smaller classes differently. In my own experience, where I have had smaller classes, I have been able to provide more individual instruction and feedback. Research by Peter Blatchford, Paul Bassett and Penelope Brown[1] support my experience and show that lower achieving students benefit from smaller classes. The Lasting Benefits Study completed during project STAR showed that students initially in smaller classes continued to perform better than students that were initially in larger classes. This could be due to higher student performance in previous, smaller classes, which better prepared them from future classes. While decreasing class sizes could help improve student achievement in school, it is not a realistic approach with ongoing budget reductions in education. So then the question is, how can we obtain the benefits of a small class in larger classes. This is exactly question Bloom attempted to answer in his research. One method Bloom suggests is having students master prerequisites to each new learning task. To do this, students can take pretests, which would indicate to the teacher what prerequisites are not fully understood. The teacher can then reteach those prerequisites before moving on to the next learning task. Along with this, Bloom discusses is mastery learning. With mastery learning, if students are unsuccessful with learning the content, they make corrections of their mistakes and relearn the content. Students do not move on to new content until they are proficient with the current content. Bloom also suggests setting up a student support system, where students can communicate and help one another. With limited time and money, how can this be achieved? The answer is with technology. Simply by using a free online course management system (CMS), like Moodle, teachers can

implement Blooms ideas to help improve student achievement in larger classes. Using a CMS, a teacher can set up a pretest for each unit (or even lesson) to test students on their current skills. At the end of the test, students can be provided with individual feedback that will help them master the prerequisites of the unit (or lesson). Following the same idea, a CMS can help students can master the current content. Teachers can also use it to provide additional resources to support the learning objectives. Teachers can also use a CMS to set up online student support groups, allowing students to have their own personal group to work with in and out of class. By simply just using this one type of free technology, teachers can provide students with many of the resources needed to improve student performance.

[1] http://www.classsizematters.org/Blatchford_2008.pdf