Evaluation Essay: How Class Size Affects Learning
Most of us would indeed agree that class sizes in schools
have an impact regarding student performance. Class size, in this case, refers
to the actual number of students in class. Although most people argue that
larger classes have a negative on the class performance of the students, some
bet to differ. According to a past Salt Lake City Tribune article, the
executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, Judi Clark said, “Class
size is really irrelevant in this day and age in education. It’s not about how
many children you have in the classroom. It’s about how you’re leveraging
technology to deliver one-on-one instruction." So how do classes affect
the learning and performance of students? In the recent past, SAGE test results
have shown that most schools scoring within a range of “D†and “F†have
attributed this to having large classes. Such large classes imply that students
have less working computers which means they have a small chance of exercising
computer-based learning or even complete enough practice writing activities.
This paper will focus on the impact of class sizes on learning and general
performance of students and how this can relate to the book “David and Goliathâ€
by Malcolm Gladwell. It will also address the rhetorical appeals of ethos,
pathos, and logos.
According to the article “Class Size and Student Achievementâ€
by Dominic J. Brewer, J Douglas Willms, Adam Gamoran and Ronald G. Ehrenberg
from Cornell’s university’s Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, there
are several disadvantages of large class size. First, it can intensify the
disruptive behavior in the classroom; second it can significantly reduce the
amount of time that students can actively interact or engage with each other;
third it can eliminate numerous methods by which students are usually assessed
e.g. writing assignments and open-ended assessments; fourth it substantially
limits the amount of time with which the instructor can spend working with each
individual student; fifth, it can reduce the material the instructor can cover;
sixth, it can inhibit learning in class by reducing the forms of teaching
methods that teachers can employ in classrooms (Jenkins).
Better still, there’s evidence to prove that over-crowded
classrooms actually reduce learning. According to the Tennessee Student Teacher
Achievement Research (STAR), conducted between 1985 to 1989, random students
were chosen from kindergarten to third grade and placed in classes some in
small classes and others in large classes. 13 to 17 students in smaller classes
performed .015 to .020 which translates to about 5% higher on standardized
tests especially in reading as well as Mathematics. Four other studies: one in
Great Britain, one in California, one in Canada and one in Wisconsin
illustrated increased test scores with smaller classes even though their growth
were inconsequential in middle school and high school. However, we could attribute
this to teachers not changing their teaching methodology. For instance,
lecturing is a highly ineffective way of teaching. Instead, a more
student-centered approach would yield positive results in smaller classes.
Malcolm Glad well's 'David and Goliath' is a good book that
relates to how class size affects learning. The book’s theme revolves around
the general knowledge and history that can make it appear that David’s don’t
have what it takes and that Goliaths are unbeatable. Propaganda of all sorts is
manipulated by the Goliaths to reinforce this myth. However, on closer study
and inspection of the Goliath and its ways, David is then armed with the
knowledge and wits necessary to defeat it ("David And Goliath – Malcolm
Gladwell – Cliff Notes"). Ironically, in this case, small classes could be referred to
as Goliaths while the large classes are the Davids. Students in large classes
could match students in small classes or even surpass them if they come better
prepared for classes and utilize all the available resources. Having a better
teaching staff that is well paid and with a high verbal ability could also be a
plus.
The rhetorical appeals of ethos appeal to ethics and refer to
a means of convincing credibility of the persuader or someone of the character.
Here, the rhetor is therefore perceived by the audience to be either credible
or not. The use of the word “ethical†here is contrary to popular
understanding. There are two kinds of ethos namely: extrinsic and intrinsic
ethos. While the latter is concerned with how the writer speaks or writes,
extrinsic is concerned with the experience, education, expertise and the character
of the rhetor. Pathos refers to an appeal to emotion also known as a pathetic
appeal or rather a way to convince an audience to concur with an argument
through means of creating an emotional response. Here pathetic has been used
differently from our usual understanding of the word “pathetic.†Pathos is
usually used to describe the attempt by the rhetor to appeal to “an audience's
sense of identity, their self-interest, and their emotions.†If the rhetor can
succeed in creating a common sense of identity with their audience, then we can
say the author is using a pathetic appeal. Lastly, logos is a method of
persuading an audience by reason, and it appeals to logic or rather, it’s a
logical appeal. Observers can recognize that the rhetor is trying to use logos
to persuade the audience, but that recognition does not mean that the rhetor is
succeeding. The term logos is therefore used to describe or illustrate what
kind of rhetorical appeal is being made, and not to evaluate whether an appeal
makes sense to us (observers) or not or whether it makes sense to an audience
being addressed. With this in mind, we can, therefore, determine whether
whatever we’ve just covered lies on pathos, ethos or logos rhetorical appeal (Williams).
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