Stephanie,
All good points. Hang in there! ;-]
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Robert,
I completely agree. I have been in proprietary ed for 16 years (online for thirteen) from instructor to college president. Your point is well taken. However, like all other businesses the individual institution must choose its niche by choosing the balance of quality and cost. There are fast food restaurants and there is fine dining. Both types have customers. Maybe we will see similar divergences develop in the online schooling industry.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I have had the opportunity to teach anywhere from 4 to 30 students online and feel that 18 is the max acceptable ratio. Beyond this the ability to provide unique and substantive feedback in discussion boards is not practical. This is of course a function of the courses I teach which are highly quantitative. It is difficult to continuously comment on a correct equation. This ratio would of course increase if I taught a course where opinions were a factor.
Hi Joe, Your response makes a lot of sense. The complexity of materials and assignments (and the work the instructor is expected to do in correlation with them) should be considered. I have only worked in situations where all students submitted assignments at one deadline, and then instructors had very short deadlines in which to grade all the work.
As I'm to understand, actually, there is now a Federal mandate that all final grades for courses are posted within 48 hours of the end of a course. Does this influence the maximum number of students you see as working well in a class? Or, perhaps, the way that the final deadlines for assignments are laid out?
- L. Garner
I tend to agree that a smaller student to teacher ratio makes for a better course. I have taught courses with 35-40 students, and found that my time is extremely limited with each student. Being pressed for time may translate into shorter emails, responses and grades taking longer to post, or students not feeling like they are getting personal attention. It also tends to affect my life/work balance negatively.
I prefer to work with smaller numbers of students (8-12 being optimal), which makes it feel as if I am giving each student a maximum ammount of personal attention. With fewer students, each student gets more direct comments about their own work, and each student gets all of the 'personal attention' they desire. Grades are posted more quickly, and emails answered rapidly. The online platform seems especially suited to smaller course sections, as well, especially when students are expected to interact with each other through online discussions and chats.
This will be my first experience with online interactive instruction, so I would be comfortable starting with a smaller number like 7 to 10 students per instructor. Experience will be my final answer on this question - so can I get back to you on this one? :-)
This is a very important question. I teach at a variety of college and the student to instructor ratios range from 20 to 40 students. In my experience, it is difficult to provide quality formative feedback to over 30 students. Most online faculty teach multiple courses and can have over 100 students each session. For each course, I have found that 25 students is an optimal number.
I just finished teaching my first online class, on IT project management. There were 30 - 35 students, and for a first time instructor this was too many. Learning the class, the virtual tools, keeping up with everything to make sure I was responsive to questions, grading in a timely manner, and dealing with academic integrity issues for the first time took a significant amount of time. It will get easier as time goes on, and eventually 30 will be ok. However, for first time instructors I recommend around 15.
Fabian,
Thank you for your response. I currently teach online at 30-35:1 and find it quite difficult to just develop formative feedback with so many students--that is unless I teach only one or two classes a session or have only a few assignments to grade each session. How many classes do you teach each session and how many lessens a week to you have to assess for each student at 30:1?
Bob
Dr. V,
I agree I would like to see lower ratios. The several online sessions I have taught with ratios at 3, 4, or 5 to 1 were very rewarding. I actually got to know the students and they go to know me. We shared our unique knowledge and experiences and related that to each module of our course work.
However, I teach business in a for-profit institution. From a business stand-point, it is unlikely to be cost-effective or cost-competitive with such low student-faculty ratios.
Bob
In an online class, I think that the optimal ratio is approximately 18 to 1.
I stated 18-1 because this number allows me to post responses to a large percentage of students' answers each week. This ratio also allows sufficient interaction between students. Moreover, this ratio allows me to group the students in groups that are not "too little" and not "too big," as one of the three bears or some other kind of creature said in a child's story.
I agree that 30:1 is not optimal for connecting with students or for their interaction. When there are are 30 or more students in a class they do not have to interact with each other often. One week a student could reply to two classmates, and the next to two others. In a 5 week class, statistically, a student would never have to talk to another student more than once and sometimes not at all.
With smaller class sizes, i get to know the students better through their written work and especially DB posts, while I find students make some relationships with their classmates.
I teach both a smaller class (maximum 25, usually closer to 20) and high enrollment classes with 35+ students. I find sometimes I get to the end of the class with 35 students and still do not recognize all the names.
Mara,
Yes, the term is fairly relativistic. Many tend to think of small as less than 10. Very indefinite at this point.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
It wasn't clear from the material just what a "small" class was considered to be. I have classes now with just one or two people, but it's tough to have discussion board assignments with that few.
I've had classes of up to 35 (a statistics class) and the main drawback to a class that size online is the same as it was in a traditional classroom: grading assignments in a timely fashion. Theoretically, thousands could listen to the chats I record; the sticking point is giving them feedback.
EL102 - Online Teaching Techniques
Student-Teacher ratio
I have read numerous articles on the ideal student-faculty ratio for both online and on-ground classes. The ratios vary greatly dependent upon the subject, the teaching method, the level or involvement of academic study, and many other variables. The obvious interpretation says the lower the ratio, the better the learning potential due to greater interface between faculty and student. Student-Faculty ratios have been used for years by students, parents, teachers, administrators, employers, government, and media to evaluate education competency on many levels, including: teaching quality, institution quality, student quality (potential for hiring), for allocation of resources, and for managing recruiting and enrollment.
There have been several attempts to establish the best student to faculty balance. For example, Switzerland has established a standard student-teacher ratio to be implemented in Swiss Universities by 2015. At the master’s level—40:1 for humanities and social sciences and 35:1 for technical sciences; and at the bachelor’s level—60:1 for all disciplines (Schenker-Wicki and Hürlimann, 2005). Although these are on-ground standards, the ratios still seem too high even if the course materials are comprehensive and comprehendible. However, everyone seems to agree, there and many variables.
Let’s look at an online study. An article entitled, A Framework for Evaluating Class Size in Online Education, by Susan H. Taft, Tracy Perkowski, and Lorene S. Martin of Kent State University, conducted a study for the best online student-faculty ratios.
They divided their study into three educational framework models:
1) Objectivist-constructivist, where objectivists have no upper limit and constuctivists see 20-25:1 is optimum
2) Community of inquiry, where Teaching-presence (direct instruction or lecture) is 25:1 and both Cognitive-presence (indirect instruction or student activity) and social-presence (interactive student and faculty activity) are 20:1.
3) Bloom’s Taxonomy, where lower levels is 30:1, middle levels range 16-40:1 and upper levels are 15:1
The study concluded that a combination of framework models may provide better results. For example:
Grouping A—Objectivist, restricted COI, and lower level Bloom’s for a ratio of 30:1;
Grouping B—a combination of the middle levels all three frameworks and is 16-30:1; and
Grouping C—is Constructivist, full COI, and upper level Bloom’s and is 15:1.
The Taft et al (2011) study did offer this caveat, “Note: The recommended course sizes are based on a synthesis of research findings from the literature review, and implications for teaching strategies from the three educational frameworks.â€
Let’s look at an on-ground example. According to Schenker-Wicki (2011), before their study there was neither accepted definition nor empirical evidence to support a best student-faculty ratio for universities. Their study found the optimum number of students to faculty in an on-ground university business administration program varied by academic level and percentage of teaching delivered.
Three degrees of teaching delivery were used and student-faculty rations recommended;
Degree 1—significant interaction with faculty at 55.5% (a mixture of teaching and research focus); BA 27:1, MBA 22.1 Degree 2—full-focus faculty interaction at 90% (a teaching focus); BA 44:1, MBA 7:1
Degree 3—minor faculty interaction at 15% (a research focus); BA 35:1, MBA 6:1
Allow me to offer an opinion. Although I have neither empirical evidence nor researched proof, I have some experience with and have read about online university class sizes. I have taught almost 90 online sessions, with an average of three MBA classes per session, where the maximum number of students changed periodically from 20 to 25, to 30, to 35, and to 40 per class. I have also taught online MBA classes with as few as three and as many as 45 students. The online classes have all followed the same course structure—the model/lesson/topic—and was given in a condensed five week, two assignment per week, format.
I will limit my cursory study to the educational framework I use, an online 50-60% faculty action focus. However, I will expand it to include the number of classes per session. Doing so will allow me to offer a faculty perspective on workload and quality. I see a 20:1 student-faculty ratio and a three class per session course load as difficult, but doable. I base that finding on the number of hours faculty have to effectively assist each student.
Let’ Calculate: 20 students x 3 classes x 2 assignments = 120 assignments to grade each week. That is 40 hours to grade 120 assignments, or 20 minutes on each assignment—minus access, navigation, and upload times. These are graduate papers needing comprehensive responses developing conceptual inference and must be supported by several viable research sources. It seems difficult to fully interpret these papers and write a formative explanation of findings as feedback to the students in so little time.
Additionally, faculty still conduct six chat hours and four office hours a week, maintain a daily presence on the DB, and respond to email several times daily. Of course, that does not include the additional professional development and extracurricular tasking given faculty.
Interestingly, my student-faculty ratio findings closely match both the cited studies. I’m not sure that is comforting.
Bob
Schenker-Wicki, A. & M. Inauen (2011), The economics of teaching: what lies behind student-faculty ratios?; Higher Education Management & Policy; 2011, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p31-50, 20p
Schenker-Wicki, A. & M. Hurlimann (2005), Studie zur satndardisierung von kaston und zur financierung, Swiss University Conference, Berne
Taft, S. H., T. Perkowski, & L.S. Martin (2011), A framework for evaluating class size in online education, The Quarterly Review of Distance Education Vol. 12, No. 3, 2011
In my opinion, the optimal student teacher ratio is about 16 students to every instructor. In this way, there are not too may students, and not an excessive amout of work for the instructor to do.
Mara,
Very true. The one-to-one interactivity has been verified to be significant in resolving student issues with the material.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Thomas,
Very good point. The student makeup of the class has a significant impact.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Participation in small classes is likely to be low. I'd consider a "small" class to be just one or two students. However, interaction in classes as large as 40 is also likely to be poor. It seems to me that the optimal online student-instructor ratio for online classes in general is somewhere between 5 students to 30 students per instructor. It's worth noting, though, that the class recommends one-on-one chat sessions to identify issues that students may be having with the material.
The answer for me to this has to do with the motivation and hunger to learn in the students. If I have 12-15 highly energized and inquisitive students ... that is enough because my energy will be spent in nurturing their creativity and passion. Alas, in the real world it may take 20-25 students to generate enough critical mass to get the "ball rolling". I'm not trying to be elusive here, but for me the quality of student would dictate the number I could best facilitate. Thanks, Tom
