This blog is intended for use only for those students in EDM 510.
Hello all! I hope that you aren't so sick of seeing this picture yet! I want to discuss the issue of large class sizes in the public schools. I am an 8th grade physical science teacher with an average class size of 39 students. There is barely any room for me to walk in a clear path throughout my classroom without toppling over book bags, feet, chairs, and students! The school district lost teaching units this year, thus losing a science teacher. That left us with larger classes and not enough resources. We have the district coming down hard on us, insisting that we have groups and stations within our everyday instruction. For those who are not familiar with stations, it causes for lots of movement in the classroom among the students. My issue is not with the groups and stations themselves! I love the ideas and reinforcements of the activities, however, my class sizes are too large to allow for these activities. I find myself struggling to give the students the individual attention that each student deserves because of too large classes. What are your thoughts and ideas? I have gone to the principal and voiced my concern, but she insists that there is nothing that can be done to reduce class size. I feel that it is not fair to the students or the teachers to work under said conditions.
I don't have any formal classroom experience, so I definitely don't have any experience with such large classrooms, but maybe one thing you could do would be to have students do some teaching. For example, have certain groups work on certain principles/problems/etc. then have students who have mastered them help teach them to the other groups. Each group could then have one student who masters their subject and helps the other groups with it. This way you are more free to move around and help those students who need it - and you probably could help more students this way. That doesn't really help with the space problem, though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with M. Lowell. Allowing the students to do a little teaching not only would make things easier on you with such large class sizes, but it would also help the students become more familiar with information. Another benefit: students would be interested in the material simply because the information is coming from a student instead of a teacher (simply said, it's a NEW and DIFFERENT method).
ReplyDeleteIt can be frustrating trying to do your job not been able to. I do not have experience in a classroom yet, but i think the idea of having the students work in groups can be helpful. You can team up the stronger students with the ones with some difficulty and have them help each other. In my school in Brazil we had 50 students per class and often our teachers separated us into groups.
ReplyDeleteThirty-nine kids in one classroom setting is a disaster. How in the world can your teaching be effective and reach all of the students if there is over crowding. The said part about it is, the school system will not do anything about it. If it means not putting out money to pay an additional teacher, the school system will let it be. I think parents should speak up and speak out about these types of issues. I would defintely be concerned as a parent about whether my child is getting what he or she needs in that classroom.
ReplyDeleteI know teaching thirty-nine students per class period pretty much seems like crowd control each day. On good days group work can be done, but it takes a lot of planning and students following the procedures for group work. When I had a forty-two I had the desks organized into rows and each four desks in two rows were labeled A,B,C,D. When it was time to go to groups I would count backwards from ten and ask them to move their desks to groups. This created semi organized groupings within the room that I could manipulate from the seating chart to ensure that I liked the groups being created. Once group time was over I would simply count backwards from ten again and ask them to move back to rows. This way I never had to physically move the desks and took some of that stress off of me. My advice to you is do what keeps you sane because you are the one running the classroom!
ReplyDeleteI agree with M. Lowell that breaking the students into groups and letting them teach some to the class would be a great idea. Students like to help and feel responsible even though they might act like they do not want to do the teaching. I have learned that students like to do things and I have not had classroom experience besides student teaching; but I do work at a daycare with elementary kids and teach the boys. They love to do stuff to help out. So, I agree with everyone else on this giving students some responsibility to help.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys for the input, I love breaking the students up but then I seem to be running into the problem of not everyone staying on task. It seems as if students are held accountable for some piece of the project that they would stay on task but it is not always the case. Maybe, some the of motivate is needed. Any suggestions?
ReplyDelete39 middle school students! WOW!!! That is all about crowd control and at an age when a lot of them have lost their minds. The over crowding is also a safety problem, tripping over book bags, students arguing and starting fights. I know this all boils down to money problems and there is not much that can be done about that. Maybe something can be done with the book bags to keep them all in one place, but then they need to be able to get to them. I wish we lived in a perfect world where we could help students learn to the best of their ability.
ReplyDeleteFrom teaching sometimes in big classrooms the basic thing is make sure everyone understands the instructions and get it done. Best thing I do whenever I have a big class like the is make sure everyone has a group. For a science class there is always for me a groups of five or less and in that group there is a group president, materials manager cleaners and supervisor. the president gets to make the final call of the group, materials manager makes sure everyone has what they need that day, supervisor asks the questions if there is an issue and cleaners make sure their station is clean at the end of the day. I know it sounds cheesy and stupid but for the most part the students will decide for themselves who they want in their group.For the most part the students will follow this setup and it will keep you from having to answer a hundred of the same questions. Just have the supervisor of each group ask the questions. This way they get the individualized attention of you they all feel they have a part and the room is clean and ready to go to start and at the end.
ReplyDeleteCparis, thank you for your suggestion! I love the idea of having group president, materials manager, cleaners, and a supervisor! I am going to incorporate this ASAP! They already sit in groups but no one is assigned any particular task. I do think that this will make my life a bit easier. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the issues of the class sizes. It is very difficult to meet the needs of all students when there is one teacher assigned to thirty nine students. I feel that your only opition would be to assign group leaders, a responsible student, who oversees the group and then he/she reports back to you.
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