Do teachers change their instructional practices when their classrooms have fewer students? Do we know which teaching practices make a difference in smaller classrooms? What issues should professional development address?
It could be assumed that effective teachers would be successful in any classroom, whether large or small. Research during the past couple of decades has brought a consensus on a handful of traits that characterize effective teaching:
• Gifted teachers hold high expectations for their students.
• They give clear and focused instruction in a highly efficient classroom setting.
• Good teachers monitor their students’ learning and reteach students when necessary.
• They set high behavioral standards and also maintain personal interactions with their students.
• They are characterized as motivated and enthusiastic.
These characteristics are necessary in any classroom setting. To get the most out of smaller classes, however, policymakers must ensure that these practices actually occur in small-class settings.
Teachers in a variety of studies have identified the following advantages of small class size:
• More time for teaching and learning, and more space in which to do so.
• A greater ability to monitor and evaluate their students.
• An enhanced atmosphere that leads to tailored instruction at each student’s ability level.
• Better classroom management with fewer students (Pate-Bain, Achilles and others).
• More time to assist individual students in a relaxed, interactive environment.
• Better use of teaching methods and materials through increased small-group work and more varied, imaginative, and organized activities (Perez 1998).
A reduction in class size doesn’t automatically ensure that classrooms will be characterized by these elements. Research in fact has shown that most teachers do not change their teaching practices when they move to smaller classes (Ziegler 1997). Evaluation findings from the California CSR initiative’s first three years found only slight differences in the ways teachers covered curriculum and the types of activities they employed (Bohrnstedt and Stecher).
Wisconsin’s SAGE program found that although teachers assigned to smaller classes thought they were teaching differently, observers saw few discernible differences between large-class and small-class instruction.
Must teachers change their teaching practices for a reduction in class size to benefit student achievement? Many people seem to assume so, but the research offers little guidance. As Bohrnstedt and Stecher point out, "no well-developed theory suggests why teaching in smaller classes should be different than in larger classes."
Instead of focusing on specific teaching techniques that work best in smaller classes, most studies look at effective teaching practices in general and examine whether teachers engage in more of these practices in smaller classes. Smaller class size may simply enhance the instructional strategies already employed by effective teachers.
Bohrnstedt and Stecher recommend that school officials pay careful attention to teaching practices in small classes so they can design professional-development programs to equip teachers with suitable new skills.
Charles M. Achilles (1999), a principal researcher in the Tennessee STAR project, asserts that teachers may not need to change their teaching strategies to obtain the benefits of CSR. He contends that teachers may be able to do more with fewer kids using the same strategies educators have long known to be most effective, such as the following:
• Instruction is guided by a preplanned curriculum.
• Students are carefully oriented to lessons.
• Instruction is clear and focused.
• Learning progress is monitored closely, and when students do not understand, they are retaught.
• Class time is used for learning, not discipline.
• Personal interactions are positive.
• Instructional groups formed in classrooms fit instructional needs.
In smaller classes, Achilles reasons, classroom management is easier and basic instruction can be completed quicker, allowing teachers additional time to practice effective teaching techniques, such as planning for lessons and dividing the class into groups. Additional time is also available to cover additional materials.
Pointing to data from Project STAR and other studies, Achilles asserts that smaller class size automatically guarantees that teachers will use effective teaching practices, regardless of whether they have small-class experience or not.
Effective teachers are skilled teachers. In smaller classes, the key to teachers’ success with student achievement is the know-how to be effective with fewer students. Conditions that foster good teaching will lead to improved learning for students. Small classes can facilitate these favorable conditions, but only with well-planned implementation guidelines. CL
