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How many students are in your science class if you teach grades 5 - 8? When I was teaching middle school, it seems as if the recommended number was 20-25. Our classes are considerably larger than that. I'm collecting this information to help with recommendations for a STEM program.
Thanks!
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Mine are all 32-36...I teach high school though
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There are 11-16 students in our middle school science classes (grades 5-8). If you can, I would not have a class larger than 20 especially if you are doing STEM activities.
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I am fortunate to have small classes- my smallest is 8, and largest is 22. It makes it great for labs and hands on activities! The only problem I have with the class of 8 is it is hard to generate class discussions since the group is quiet.
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Hi Anne,
If you are trying to sway your administration to make your class sizes smaller, you might try doing a survey of your neighboring school districts. If you can show that those districts with similar demographics are able to provide smaller class sizes, that is information that interests our administrators! Also safety issues come in to play with class sizes that are larger than numbers recommended by safety guidelines. You lab was made to hold a maximum number of students. You might check and find out what that maximum number is for your situation. Rob Roy addresses this safety concern in his article, 'Safer Science: Pay Attention to Lab Occupancy Load'.
Carolyn
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Our classes are upwards of 30, which is a number well above what NSTA recommends
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Ours vary quite a bit. I have had a low as 20 and as high as 33. Some of my colleagues have had to squeeze 36 students in lab rooms designed for 24.
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I have an average of 12 students in my resource room science classes..
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All of these numbers make me jealous. I have found that my smaller class sizes ranging from 21-23 are a lot easier to handle and keep engaged. I would love to have a class of 15, which would make labs and doing hands on activities a lot more fun and easy to supervise. I do have a class of 28 and it is ridiculous how fast disruptions and misbehavior can occur. I know it is just 5 extra students but i can see the difference in how my classroom management skills are put to the test.
Another factor to keep in mind is the size of the room and accessibility to lab equipment like the all important lab tables. I do have a handful but when it comes to doing labs it gets crowded and because we are limited, groups do have to be larger.
I know my answer was typical and everyone loves small classroom sizes, but reality sucks and working with my 28 and imagining classes over 30 really does make me cringe. Much props to all of you who can manage those extra full classrooms.
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I have 10. Our whole school, PK through 8th, has 155 students.
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i am not a teacher as of yet but my FIELD EXPERIENCE teacher that i shadow have about 21 students in her science class. she told me some other teachers have less and some have more but the maximum is 27.
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25-33, high school. I will be teaching one class of AP Biology. I have been told that the class can not push through if there are less than 15. But 20 should be a good number. However, in the future, they are pushing for 48 students in a class using the Blended Learning Model--which they interpret as "stations". Other teachers that I know complain about this because they have create at least 3 preps. There are also concerns about classroom management issues.
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All my classes have between 32-36. At some points of the year two of my classes were up to 38, and of course these are the classes with the majority of my IEP students.
Looking forward to next year, the class size is at least 15 students smaller--looking forward to havin 30 or less in a room again. The large class sizes are such a disservice to these students (my son being one of them). You can't help everyone, if they don't ask for help--they usually don't get help. Can't do as many hands on activities as I would like....
DEFINATELY FRUSTRATING!!!!
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Currently my biology (high school) class sizes are at about 30.
There is also a significant percentage of IEP, ELL and other special needs students (typically 20 - 30 % of students have special learning needs).
This is too large and crowded for the space. Labs are nearly impossible to conduct - not enough bench space, so I now have 1/2 of the group do a lab activity, then switch. The other group works on quiet activities (reading, data analysis, homework, etc.).
Field trips are very difficult too.
Definately not optimal for either hands-on activities, lab safety or student-teacher ratios.
If I recall, NSTA recommends no more than 24 students per class in their Lab Safety Position Statements.
You would think Lab Safety & Lab Occupancy arguments would be effective with administrations. However, I have tried this lab safety argument in my district and it falls on deaf ears....
I know that I simply cannot do as many labs as I would like with these large class sizes. Frustrating for educators and not good for student learning.
I also teach college-level Biology and am concerned that students will be entering college in the future lacking in basic lab science skills due to overcrowded high school classes.
Some school districts seem to think "Virtual Labs" of "Videos of labs" can replace hands-on learning in big science classes as they scale up class sizes. This is a huge misunderstanding of how to best use online and multimedia to enrich learning.
Dorothy
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I am SO jealous of you that have numbers below 25.
I usually have 25-28 in my "regular" classes, 26-28 in my "advanced" classes and 23-27 in my "remedial" classes with no assigned aide.
It seems to me there is an OSHA law that governs the number of students we are allowed, but I am unable to find it. I will continue to look
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