User:Po00206/Increasing College Classroom Sizes

Introduction to Problems Associated With Increasing Classroom Sizes
Many colleges and universities in the United States have had to cut budgets in one way or another. One of the easiest ways to do this is by either laying off teachers or introducing more furlough days in which teachers still have to do work, they just do not get payed for it. Many problems have arisen due to this, but a major one is increasing classroom sizes. As more and more students are wanting to attain a degree more and more teachers are being laid off creating a declination in the learning process for many students

Teacher Evaluations

 * Every student knows that colleges like to evaluate their teachers to see how successful they are. This is done by giving students evaluation forms which they complete based on a multitude of subjects that the students can rank based on how much they feel they learned or should have learned from the subject, or how much time they had to put into the class in comparison to other classes, and how much they generally liked the teacher.  Increases in classroom sizes have resulted in lower evaluation results.  This makes a teacher look bad to the university creating a downward spiral of causing good teachers to have a lower chance of keeping their job and also making students want to attend these classes less.


 * "For every student added to a class there is a one-point decreases in the percent of students who report that they "strongly agree" that they attained skills associated with learning in that class" (Chapman, and Ludlow 105-123)

Classroom Attendance

 * When students rate their teachers low on evaluations it has proven to reduce the chance of that student to attend class as much. This is very troublesome for teachers who would like to educate people but can't because who wants to attend a class where you are merely a seat that requires more grading and papers to hand out.  It's very hard for a student to learn material when he/she isn't there to receive it.  Many teachers have had to install mandatory attendance policies in order to keep students coming to class.  As an easy way to do this when a teacher has over a sundered students they will often pass around a sheet that students sign off on.  This can lead to many issues including the ability for students to falsify information due to lack of personal connection with a teacher.  For a complete guidance to effects on classroom attendance please read https://docs.google.com/a/georgiasouthern.edu/document/d/1j5kr2udcKrFA9R4-aCVgo4emSruFXIRD6NDC87U71EU/edit?hl=en#

Academic Effects

 * Many students will tell you from personal experience that being in a large lecture hall doesn't have a positive effect on a student's grade. The effects are not exactly direct however, they rely on many variables provided that are unique to each classroom, like a teachers ability to speak to over a hundred people at once.  Many things such as small group work have been proven to increase academic performance; this is virtually impossible to do with a large classroom.  It is also proven that students will be more likely to skip class if their fellow peers decide to not attend, and with teachers ratings be affected by these large classroom sizes students are more likely to skip, since more students are likely to skip in more than one way, it can be shown that large classrooms do have an effect on students grades.

Source Use
Chapman, Lauren, and Larry Ludlow. "Can Downsizing College Class Sizes Augment Student 		Outcomes? An Investigation of the Effects of Class Size on Student Learning." Journal of 		General Education59.2 (2010): 105-123. Project Muse. Web. 14 Apr 2011.

--Po00206 (talk) 20:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)