Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
These are basically education aids, who can specialize in a variety of different teaching or behavioural intervention methods.
The ideal solution of course is to have smaller classes sizes supplemented with educational assistants.
My personal opinion is over a certain threshold, additional children have a multiplying effect in a classroom. 1 or 2 extra students doesn't sound like a lot, but it really is at any age group.
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Ideal class size, from my experience - I don't know offhand of data to support this - is either 18 or 12 students. Grades K-8 it's 18 students. There are enough voices in the room to provide differences in ideas and opinions, you've got enough personalities for kids to find like-minded friends, the number 18 divides really well into a whole bunch of different-sized groupings, but it's a totally manageable number of kids, there's the opportunity to get to each one individually and spend focused time with them.
Grades 9-12 I prefer 12 students. Again, this number divides really easily into groups, you have even more opportunity to spend focused time with each student, there is more chance for kids to have their voices heard. Get lower than 12 though and kids can start to get sick of each other. You end up with very dominant voices controlling a lot of classroom discussion.