Student to Instructor Ratios
October 17, 2008I just finished responding to a question about class size in an e-mail group I am a part of. I thought I would add the response to my blog as well.
The class size is directly related to the design of the course.
If the course is designed with large amounts of interaction between students and instructors (student to student / Instructor to student) then the class size must be limited to allow adequate interaction and engagement with the instructor. In other words, you must keep the student to instructor ratio to around 15:1. Otherwise you are doing an injustice to both the student AND instructor. The students will not get the timely feedback they want and deserve and the Instructor will be overwhelmed with the amount of work required to run the course.
On the other hand, if the course is designed with minimal instructor engagement you are much more free with your ratios. These courses are designed using “objective” assessments of the material using the LMS’s testing/quiz features to deliver and grade the assessments. The students are split into groups to work as “teams” to complete any subjective assignments which then reduces the number of papers etc. that the instructor must grade. This reduces the amount of time the instructor spends on individual papers so he/she can concentrate on a more global discussion. Using this method the instructor can get away with a larger student to instructor ratio such as 30:1
Sometimes, subjective assignments can be completely taken out of the equations which will then dramatically increase the manageable class size. Let the LMS do the work for you by quizzing and testing the students understanding of the material. This gives the students instant feedback, saving the instructor the work of grading. This allows the instructor to become more of a “Facilitator” or “Guide on the side” who answers questions as they arise. Discussions can still be used to clarify topics that are still somewhat unclear. With this method I regularly run courses with an student to instructor ratio of 100:1 and have run classes as large as 500:1.
