Optimum class size is 1.4
This text is part of: "Problem of Schooling" by Piotr Wozniak (2017-2024)
Class of size of 1.4
The optimum class size is a bogus problem with easy answers for those who care about true learning. I do like to claim that the optimum class size is 1.4, and use the claim as a clickbait. However, the number 1.4 has some significance as explained below.
One person class size is almost perfect, e.g. for incremental reading, watching YouTube, Netflix, etc. However, the optimum class size cannot be 1.0 because communication and cooperation make serious sense in education.
Two people class size can also be great, e.g. for brainstorming, for chatting about a topic of interest, or for just meandering conversation about anything regardless of its significance.
Three people class starts showing problems, e.g. when watching a video, two may pause to chat when they find common ground, but the third student may be annoyed with the interruption. A group of three may need to choose a common goal, which may be a problem among three randomly grouped free learners.
With larger audiences, passive learning might still work, but it makes sense only when it is self-selected. If someone choose a TED talk for you, chances are you would react with yawns independent of the size of the class. This is why you can watch a TED talk in a class of a million students over YouTube. All you need is your own choice, your own timing, and your own pace. In the end, it will still likely be a solo experience.
My number 1.4 as the optimum class size is bogus. It is my way of ridiculing the abuse of the "evidence-based educational practice". It is important to note that as all generalizations and averages in education, a specific number, if existed, would entail a danger of using "evidence-based" practice. The truth depends on the person and the context. Despite all those complex dependencies, the answer to that question in the title in trivially simple: for each context, just asks the student! If he feels good in a given setting, the number is right.
"Experts" disagree
Optimum class size can instantly be visualized by the optimum number of users of a single computer used for educational purposes. Everyone seems to speak of "accepted wisdom" that smaller class sizes are beneficial, and yet wisdom seems to count for little.
John Hattie and PISA use villain metrics that obscure true development and focus on the compliance with standards. The damage to the power of the learn drive is never measured and consider in blind alley optimizations. Class size does not matter because creativity or problems solving or sheer curiosity are not measured. On a good assembly line, high volume is welcome as long as product quality is certified. That on its own speaks volumes about the quality of metrics we use in education.
Malcolm Gladwell claims that there is an optimum class size, perhaps 18-24. This is supposed to be derived from group dynamics where smaller groups allowed dominant students to take the lead and derail the course of the class. This is again based on the value of compliance and programming brains rather than true value of learning where individual strengths allow of creative exploration for a subset of students, at least. It is not the fist time Gladwell supports intellectual submissiveness. He wrote in support of Ritalin decades ago (see: Confusing creativity with ADHD).
When the analysts notice that children with special needs benefits most from small class sizes they are right. The only caveat is that "special needs" is a cover for disabilities, while all healthy children have special needs, interests and passions.
The debate about class size is a perfect illustration of the pathology of the education system designed as a mass production factory. The voice or parents or children is disregarded. Societal level of intelligence gets a systematic hit at the very start of brain development.
Further reading
- Declaration of Educational Emancipation: simple answer to questions about the optimality in learning
- Inherent problems of classroom schooling: the concept of a classroom should be retired
- Problems with special-needs education: why fitting kids into a classroom generates special needs epidemic
Averaging intellectual development
Figure: Tentative simulation of skill convergence in classroom learning. Left: Students experience free learning and are stratified at skill levels from 0 to 10. Their development is exponential and the exponent correlates mildly with the starting skill level. The growth exponent might be inaccurately called "talent". The most "talented" group reach the skill level of 90, and all students average 42 at the end of the learning period (thick blue average growth line). Right: The same group of students with the same stratification of skills is subjected to classroom learning. If we assume constant push zone function, and derive growth exponent from the hypothetical semantic distance from the required target skill level, we can see a slowdown in overall growth. Gifted students experience slowed development (red regress zone), average students may benefit if lecturing meets their semantic distance optimum (blue acceleration zone). The weakest students enter the most harmful brown regress zone in which they can become "rejects" of the system. The growth exponents have generously not been made negative on the assumption that in a good classroom we can hope of not experiencing an actual regress. The skill levels tend to converge, esp. at upper skill echelons. The overall growth is suppressed and reaches 31 at the end of the learning period (thick red average growth line)