Some professors prefer small class sizes to foster better relations with students

Though students complain about their homework load and cost of tuition, professors have their own complaints.

Class sizes can affect the relationship between students and professors.

Kari Johnson, a business professor for K201, a course that focuses on the “computer in business,” said with the amount of students enrolled in introductory-level classes, large class size is the most efficient way, and sometimes the only way, to provide students with the necessary amount of class sections.

Students might have their own opinions about class sizes, but professors also have preferences. With the variety of classes professors teach within their school, one semester they might have a class of 15 students and the next semester they have to stand in front of a PowerPoint to lecture to about 300 students.

Johnson has recently switched to teaching the lecture section of K201.

“I used to teach the lab section,” she said. “This is a lot different.”

With the switch she, like many teachers, came to the realization that it is difficult to develop a similar relationship with students in larger classes as she did in
smaller classes.

“My pet peeve is that I don’t know everyone’s name,” she said.

This pet peeve is one School of Journalism professor Jim Bright knows well.

“Before I began teaching J110, I asked my colleagues that had taught it in the past, ‘How can I get to know all the students?’” Bright said. “And they simply said you just can’t do it.”

This did not sit well with Bright, who had had the opportunity to teach classes as small as 16 students. He would attempt to engage students in his lectures by standing at the door when students walked in and by setting up a time for students to come and get coffee with the professor so students could stop by, introduce themselves and ask questions.

Like many professors, Bright enjoys teaching the smaller classes.

“In the smaller classes, I can talk to students, find their hopes and dreams – find what they are passionate about,” he said. “When I hear from them later in life, I like to know I played a part.”

Bright has had the opportunity to teach classes with hundreds of students and classes with fewer than 20 students, but Spanish professor Erin McNulty is glad her classes are always capped in the twenties.

“In my cases I feel that students actually get a chance to learn,” she said.

McNulty, who currently teaches S250, a fourth-semester-level Spanish course, explains that all language classes must have small class sizes because it is the only way to make sure students get the necessary interaction to learn
the language.

“In language we are teaching you how to communicate by reading, writing and interacting,” McNulty said. “You have to have lots of contact with the students. which is only possible in small classes.”

Professors who teach lecture classes might wish to understand their students, but in the end there are hundreds of students with only one teacher and a few
associate instructors.

Bright may have the best way to sum up the feelings of professors.

“There just aren’t enough hours in the day,” he said. “We simply can’t spend the extra amount of time.”