OCR Text |
Show I Learning Report Rendered by School District I High school students do not necessarily learn faster in small groups than in large classes. This was the major conclusion reached reach-ed in an exiierimental study recently re-cently conducted in a Colorado school district as requited by Utah Foundation, ti-.e private governmental research organization. organiza-tion. The experiment was conducted conduct-ed in the Jefferson County School District R . 1 (a district which j adjoins Denver on the west) in cooperation with the Ford Foundation's Foun-dation's fund for the Advancement Advance-ment of Education and the National Na-tional Association of Secondary School Principals. Dr. Gordon K. Paterson, study director, noted that the results came as a surprise sur-prise to him and other educators educa-tors working on the project and could 'snake up the whole field of education." For purposes of the study, 1,-075 1,-075 tenth and eleventh grade pupils were divided into classes of ten, twenty, thirty-five and sixty or more (up to 84) students. Subjects taught included language lang-uage arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. One certified certifi-ed teacher was assigned to each class in the ten, twenty and thirty-five category. With minor exceptions, ex-ceptions, two certified teachers were assigned to the larger classes. clas-ses. A testing program was conducted con-ducted at the beginning and the close of the school year and the results were evaluated. Among the important findings and conclusions drawn from the experiment were the following: 1. Other factors being equivalent, equiva-lent, the number of learners in a teachinglearing situation is insignificant. 2. small grouping of identified high capacity learners is not academically nor economically feasible. 3. Team-teacher is an approach to meeting the existing personnel person-nel shortage. The report recommended that "the proportion of teaching-teams teaching-teams and other re-deployment of staff be explored more fully. "It observes that "this experiment appears to have far-sweeping Implications Im-plications for improving utilization utiliza-tion of teaching personnel." |