It depends. Depends upon the level of the class being taught, the difficulty of the subject matter, and the time of year.
For the beginner level 100 and 200 classes, I can easily work with 20 students, providing each student with a great level of instruction.
For 300 level classes, my "sweet spot" is right at 12 to 14 students in an online classroom.
At the 400 level classes, if there are too many students, there isn't enough of me to go around - at least the way I instruct in small groups of 4 or 5 students provides needed interaction and stimilus for each student.
The time of year? It makes a big difference to some of the students. While there are students that are focussed on the class work most all the time, there are some who are right on the cusp of the margin, and items like a great summer day or having football (or another sport) season can be enough distraction to a student to cause difficulties. No, not a full moon, even that people do seem to go "crazy" during a full moon, rather during the winter seasons, people stay inside more often, while during the summer, there is a lot of activities to complete with classes.
Penny,
I believe that is also the optimal amount for most classes. So if this is optimal, why do some institutions offer courses with 200 students?
Herbert Brown III
I have taught in a lot of different sized classes from 1 to 40. Too few people makes for a quite and low interactive classroom, but too many makes for a confusing and often student overwhelming classroom. I like classes that are about 15-25 people.
Jonida,
This is also my magic number, but it does depend somewhat on the content of the course and level of interaction desired. I prefer courses with substantial interaction with the students which would require smaller numbers. Writing intensive courses or highly technical courses that I teach I would prefer fewer if possible to provide the students with the one-on-one help that many will need.
Herbert Brown III
Albert,
My maximum is closer to 20-25 in most courses I teach. Much beyond that I find I cannot give the students the individual attention they are due. It does depend on the content of the course and delivery methods used.
Herbert Brown III
Roberto,
What about the actual number of students in a course to one instructor? Do you believe that an online course with 200 students to one faculty member can be an effective online course?
Herbert Brown III
In my experience the best ration is 20 to 25 students. This way the instructor has time each week to give constructive feedback for each assignment and discussion board participation.
Of course that depends on the topic... The University of Illinois had at one time an econ course with 1000 students... I believe the Cornell has a similar psych course but the goals and objectives of the courses very different from the online course for working adults, many of who are returning to school.
Note that these large courses are supplemented with tutorials, etc. (And I talked my kids out of attending both of these colleges ..ok?)
For online courses I believe that 40 students is the max... I personally will facilitate one course if the class size is too "larger" in my opinion.
This is a good question. I've found that it varies depending on the course. For instance, some courses may go as high as 60-40 meaning 60% student response to 40% faculty responses to the discussion board depending on the material covered such as those courses most challenging to students like statistics or math. On the other hand I have not seen it below 75-25 whereby the faculty is responding to about 25% of student postings on the discussion board.
Instructors need to find a balance in each classroom in order to properly motivate students in the learning process.
I wholly agree, I've taught a wide variety of topics, presently mostly in design and web development, but things as far reaching as welding (former career) diving and sailing.
Each course, each topic, has a best ratio, but each instructor's 'best ratio' will vary.
I find I'm most effective when I have a large enough class where everyone gets attention and gets all of their questions answered. In a course related to web scripting, this is a smaller number than say, Flash or a design oriented course, where the student interaction can be a more powerful tool than individual instructor attention.
Tech side, there are a couple right ways to do things, design side, there are millions of subtle variations. An instructor has an enormous amount of influence, so in a tech situation, 1+1=2 and a strong influence has students doing things properly. In a design situation, 1+1=Blue, or 1+1= giraffe, and if the instructor has too much influence, EVERYONE's projects will be Blue or Giraffe.
Trip Bauer
Albert,
I agree, all of these are critical determining factors. Do you think it is ever appropriate to have a 200 to 1 instructor student ratio?
Herbert Brown III
My answer is there is no such thing as the optimal student instructor ratio unless we specify the nature of the content, the quality of students, the level of technology, type of assignments. However, you can determine when the ratio needs to be changed. I would lower the ratio when the instructor does not have sufficient time to provide feedback, the instructor does not have time to monitor students' activities, the instructor does not have time to respond to students' poor performance... etc. Therefore, I set a standard for myself to accept courses if I have the time to devote to the course; second, I make sure that I have some flex time that I can give students when unexpected problems arise such as Hurricane Sandy.
I essentially react to this question in the same way in my traditional class rooms.
My concern is that optimal is not defined. We have a different answer if the educational service is for profit, the service is evaluated only educational merit, or the service is evaluated only on student performance after graduation. The optimal student instructor ratio is based on evaluation of performances. The issue arises concerning whose performance: student or instructor... I am not sure how to separate them the evaluation of students from the instructors. We can find instances where poor instuctor perfomance is obvious.
Christopher,
Exactly! They ran the course using an automated learning tool from a textbook vendor for MS Office and provided more of a help desk feature when students had problems. Other courses like this are similar to the correspondence model, read the textbook, complete the online multiple choice quizzes. That is the course. You really can't do quality interaction with that many students.
Herbert Brown III
WOW 200! I would image with this there is some automation involved particularly with assessments. Based on my past experience I think a good number would be around 30 as a maximum number. This would allow me to establish one-to-one relationships with students.
Ron,
Well put Ron. I agree in general with a 16-20 to 1 ratio for many classes. This provides you the ability to give the students the individual feedback they need. I would also suggest that in some courses this ratio would be high. It also depends on the content of the course. Writing intensive courses require MUCH more time to give students the detailed feedback they need on their writing. I have also seen courses with 200 students (MS Office). Do you think a course can be effective with 200 students?
Herbert Brown III
After teaching Information Technology courses for 10 years, I would say that the optimal online student-instructor ratio would be in the range of 20 to 25 students. This ratio allows the instructor to spend more 1 on 1 time with each student both live online and via email.
Over the years, I have found that email responses to individual questions by students can take as much time as all other forms of student-instructor communications combined. Typically, the majority of students will not review the Live Chat archives which leads to confusion about the assignment instructions as well as the topics being covered weekly.
In classes that I taught where the student-instructor ratio was below 25 students, I was able to make a more positive impact on the students by explaining to them in detail the proper methods & tools to use to reach their desired outcomes.
Once the ration exceeded 25 students per instructor, I noticed a significant decrease in their grades, as well as, in thier ability to understand the material and assignment expectations.
Personally, I believe that when less time is available to interact with the students, their performance will be directly affected. One must keep in mind that thier are other barries to online learning (online experience, time zones, culture, knowledge in the field, language, etc.) that will also contribute to thier performance, so additional time will be required to address these issues as well...
Christopher,
You are correct there are many factors that influence ones ability to provide timely feedback and that is directly correlated to the student-teacher ratio. However, I have seen colleges encourage online courses with 200-250 students (Microsoft Office) as a money maker, what do you think about that? If you had a magic ratio what would it be?
Herbert Brown III
I believe the optimal online student-instructor ratio is based on several factors including course discipline, the university's policy for grading assignments and providing feedback. These factors are important because it dictates how much time an instructor has for evaluation and feedback. For example I have taught at universities where assignments had to been graded within a week (prior to the due date for the next assignment) and then at other universities where assignments must be graded with 72 hours. In the latter example the student-instructor ratio would need to be lower as compared to the former example. Also certain discipline requires more assignments than other thus more time would be needed to grade these assignments.
