Class size and quality of education

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toothless rufus

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What do you all think? Are larger class sizes (200ish) necessarily worse, or are smaller class sizes (100ish) necessarily better? Does size matter?

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it probably won't matter....I'm basing this on the fact that my class size is huge (~250), but we are broken up into small groups for labs and any activity where you would need involvement w/ faculty
 
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Sit in the front--then you can pretend it's a small class. The quality of education probably depends more on the teacher than the class size. You probably would want to make sure that for certain things they split you into small groups.
 
It just depends on what you like, really.
 
It depends on your own preference. I hated huge classes at Rutgers so it was an easy choice for me. I can tell you some of the advantages to a small class: Teachers know all of our names, can be helpful when you look for letters or just networking. Even the deans walk the halls and know us. The school has a family environment since we all know each other, maybe sometimes too well, and look out for each other. Resources are readily available since there are much less of us competing to use them; gym, library, study rooms, standardized patient labs, skeletons, cadavers (1 for every 4 students), and whatever else there is.
 
My thought (like others here) is that it probably doesn't matter. I came from a small liberal arts college where my biggest class was Freshman year Intro Bio w/ 100 students. After that, all my other classes were <35, so I was a little worried coming in. I can honestly say that I have never had a problem w/ my class (205) + DPM students & occasionally the 20+ PA's that share our classes.

I have noticed that our class attendance is only 60% but either way, w/ all the resources provided, you shouldn't have any problems. DMU puts all .ppts online, lecture mp3's online, all lecture halls have a good sounds system so that you can hear no matter where you are & screens are very visible. In actuality, class size would be my last consideration.
 
Smaller school = less people per body, more time to ask questions to profs and TAs, more academic resources (TA help, review sessions, prosection practical practice) at least in my small class.
 
Less people per body does not necessarily make for better education. I think 4 people/body at one lab period is perfect (2 on each side). I found that I never learned as much on dissection days b/c you have so much to expose & find that you don't have time to learn.

However, DMU technically has 8 students/body because labs are split up so that each group has lab twice a week.We spent the first 20-30 minutes reviewing on what the group did the lab before w/ the instructors pointing out structures. This is broadcast to a closed circuit TV system that everyone can see if you can't see the body the instructors are doing the demo on.

I think other people will probably agree that you don't learn all that much when you are working like mad to find all the structures you are assigned so the two lab period set-up works perfectly.
 
Smaller school = less people per body, more time to ask questions to profs and TAs, more academic resources (TA help, review sessions, prosection practical practice) at least in my small class.

This doesn't hold true if the school can accomodate the larger class size. PCOM is designed to have a big class and that why they do it. Granted we don't have TAs..............the professors are available to ask questions to.

This whole thread is somewhat pointless because no one can compare the way the different schools doo it objectively since you only go to one school. I had 300+ people classes in undergrad and can say PCOM does a much better job of handling the excess people. But i wouldn't say i can compare the two because i think having a school that is focused on medicine and one that has to support 60 other majors are two different things.
 
For med schools, I think it does count. Faculty to student ratio is more important, though I'd say. A larger class may have more competition for research, resources, and study space but a larger hospital system and school could always accomodate a larger class even better than a small school might accomodate a small class. I'd look to Wayne State, as an example though, where things go wrong. The class size has swelled to almost 300 students, and the first year lecture hall is overflowed, and they now cas the lecture in overflow lecture halls (oh, I mean non-traditional "break out rooms").
 
For med schools, I think it does count. Faculty to student ratio is more important, though I'd say. A larger class may have more competition for research, resources, and study space but a larger hospital system and school could always accomodate a larger class even better than a small school might accomodate a small class. I'd look to Wayne State, as an example though, where things go wrong. The class size has swelled to almost 300 students, and the first year lecture hall is overflowed, and they now cas the lecture in overflow lecture halls (oh, I mean non-traditional "break out rooms").

Medical school is really easy to manipulate the faculty to student ratio because many clinicians count as faculty even htough they don't teach classes. Many times its a reward for somehting did. PCOM has an overflow room for the second years (first years lecture hall is bigger). It is only used when class is mandatory because the rest of the time the lecture hall is about half full. No one goes to class during their second year.
 
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