Factors to consider for your eLearning course's class size
Why do you think we limited the class size for this course? A Zoom meeting can accommodate hundreds of people. For online training, you don't need to worry about the classroom size, nor the expenses to travel the participants. If you want to spread the program far and wide, why not accept all those who are interested? What will be your class size for your own eLearning course? What factors will you consider?
Comments
It is true that zoom platform is designed for getting conference and communications around the world which allows many participants to interact at the same time. However, I consider that making an efective e-learning course, it is neccesary to evaluate many items and details in order to boost and enhanced the course objectives. One of them is the class size because it is important to define limit number of participants for specific course and its scope. Furthermore, it is relevant to consider that participant's interacctions are necesary for making a powerful workshop and strenght the quality learning. For example, If I had my own e-learning course related to the intern audit process and my main objective is to share the participants knowledge and technical skills for implementing an intern audit, I would consider the following factors such as qualification participant, experience, basic knowledge and implementation commitment. Depend on the participants answers, their interesting, the schedule course and the number of teacher, I would define an appropiate limit number of participants and also the breakout rooms I would divide in groups of two or three for the workshop. Finally, I would not try to forget the key messages and making a successful debrief.
In my view, course coordinators focus more on the quality outcome of this course. Importantly, want all participants to share their tones of useful experiences to other participants, so that they can learn from each other (situation-based from different countries). Moreover, large classroom is hard to control, hard to manage for group discussion, and hard to review all participants homework as well. Over this, some participants have tones of experiences to share, but they had no chance to share in large classroom. However, some participants just log in to attend the course, but they have not pay attention and do something else. In my SLMTA classroom size, I prefer around 30-40 participants. The maximum is 40 participants, and cannot more than this. With this number, it is feasibility for facilitators to manage to get the best outcome.
On my view I would consider the small class size for online training because it will allow Facilitators good time for reviewing the Homework assignment activities. I may not accept those who are interested to attend the course for only be wished to attend because of their interests, but I would go further to consider their engagement in a practical way of implementing tasks given during course work. In regards to the number of participants it is necessary to consider the ratio between Facilitators and Participants. For example 1 Facilitator to have about 10 participants for e-learning course so that It would be easy to engage them, make close follow up and appropriate support them whenever they need clarification on attending their homework or discussions at large. I would like to consider good Quality of participant’s commitment in the implementation of activities during workshop
Despite the fact that zoom meeting can accommodate hundreds of people, there are factors to consider for e-learning course and one is classroom size. For SLMTA e-learning we expect at the end of the course to have qualified participants who can deliver the intended message as required. In this case, a close follow up of participants is needed to ensure that they understand every bit of the lectures and discussions given. This can only be achieved through facilitators having control over participants by being able to facilitate discussions, go through their homework and be in a position to evaluate and monitor the performance of each participant.
I would prefer having a class of 30 participants at a ratio of 2-3 facilitators, This this i would be sure of having a good control over my class room and expect good outcome.
I would consider factor like: Ratio of participants to facilitators, Time needed by facilitators to go through the homework, Ability to monitor participation of each participant, ability to help slow learners because participants are always never the same.
Although the zoom platform could accommodate hundreds of people or participants at the same time, I think for effective learning, including adequate participants' participation and facilitator's feedback to happen, it is important for the facilitator or trainer to decide and work with a number that he/she could effectively teach, interact and give feedback appropriately on the individual bases. There will be no point in having a large number of people in training if you are unable to have all of them participate effectively and you are unable to have a proper review of each participant's performance and appropriate feedback given for effective learning to take place leading to good training outcome. A limited class size, therefore, offers the facilitator the opportunity to have proper control of the class given the limited time to be able to review the performance of each participant through assignments, class discussions, and total participation so that appropriate feedback is given. I would prefer to have a class size not exceeding 25 so that I could have absolute command over the class. This choice would, however, be dependent on factors such as; the number of facilitators that would be available, the number of assignments intended per week, the number of meetings scheduled per week, and the time allotted per each meeting session.
I think it depends on the objective of the course delivery. For example, if the objective is to spread information then the big scale of zoom can be largely useful since we will reach out to more targeted population but still in a limited selection. However if our target to get feedback and interaction then we may need to limit the size of group so that we can manage that all participant can have chance to interact with the speaker.
though might push through the idea of quantity against quality. The idea is to engage closely with participants and ensuring that learning is taking place, and subject understanding assessed through homework reviews. If the class grows too big, the facilitators might become overwhelmed with number of work pieces they need to review.
My class size is going to depend on the number of facilitators we have, but a fair precedence has been set. A class of less than 25 would probably be manageable/on this one Katy it would be nice to hear the facilitator review on our class size and the work load they have- has it been manageable?
For my class, I will consider participants that are strategically positioned to implement QMS at their facilities or those that are able to mentor others, I would consider a class of 25!
I think you limited the class size because of the number of Master TOTs that were available. This is because there is need to have a reasonable workload for each TOT in order to deliver quality content. You never wanted to compromise on the quality of the training.
I will consider the number of co-trainers available as well as the duration of the training when determining the size of the class. This is to allow us reasonable time time to deliver our content and evaluate the class effectively.
I will also not compromise on the quality of the training. A class of 24 participants and three trainers will be what i would consider appropriate.
Katy, this depends on certain circumstances, fore instance, if it's a national election campaign, millions can be taught by their cunning politicians since the process doesn't require brainwork!!! . However, in academics and serious practical classes like SLMTA, few numbers are necessary to be sure of quality products. Think about marking assignments of 100 compared to 10 participants!! it is important to train a number of people that can be given adequate time where you are able to monitor learning and participant's performance.
Madam Katy, I support your decision to keep the class size for this online course to a reasonable size. This is due to the fact that it can affect both a student's course experience and outcomes as well as an instructor's course teaching experience. The rationale is that interaction between instructors and students in a course positively correlates with class size.
Furthermore, teaching-learning objectives higher on Bloom's Taxonomy, such as creation, evaluation, analysis, and application, often require more time-consuming pedagogies for both the student and instructor (i.e., writing assignments) hence a smaller class of about 10 – 20 participants compared with "larger" classes (30 to 50) that can work well for teaching and assessing learning objectives such as "remembering" and "understanding. Therefore, the optimal class size can vary depending on the course type (lower level vs. advanced).
Finally, the optimal class size can vary depending on the instructor's prior experience with online teaching; I think a class size of 12 is appropriate for instructors new to teaching online, handling objectives higher on Bloom's Taxonomy.
Thank you all for your comments. For us (the SLMTA 3 eLearning master trainers), we limit our class size to 24-28 people based on 2 limiting factors:
Yes, Dr Katy, it is worth limiting the number of trainees to a reasonable manageable class size. As for me i have been dreaming of teaching at least 25. As a trainer who will be doing it on-line for the first time, the required time, speed and zoom skill to manage my class, a bigger class would be a bit of a challenge to address the participants needs, and ultimately affect the intended objective of producing mentors to take our Labs for accreditation strive.
I would like to have a class of 20 trainees, the reason being the trainees are full-time bench technologists and one technologist per lab as well as the number of Master TOT trainers available in the country. another reason is for the start a huge class might not be manageable and will assess how the first training will be and think of increasing the number in the second cohort.
I concur with limiting number of training participants, as the number of participants should be proportional with the number of facilitators, so that the follow up of the participants should be effective= review all participants homework, participants interaction, questions, participation, ... As the number of participants is lager and the time allocated to the training is limit, some trainees can miss the time to explain themselves, limited time to ask questions which can lead to the low productivity of the training. in other words if poor decision is made during the beginning of the training the process and product will be for the poor quality.
Even we can have a hundred people in a zoom class we should limit the size. Trainer should have time to fallow participant and make sure that they participate actively in the class. In addition, Trainer need time to review homework.
after our discussions with our countrymates on the implementation of SLMTA in our country, we discovered a favorable number of 20 participants with the aim to graduate 15 if push comes to push will do. there are many factors involved we are one organization and if take a huge number of participants operations will be affected and TAT will be highly affected. it was observed that most of us that attended this training are office based as to compare to the staff we are going to train are working on the bench. so only one person per lab especially in small to medium labs for efficient and uninterrupted services, some labs have only one technical person,etc...
@Stefanus Kamati That is one very good insight and important factor to consider. Thanks for sharing that, Stefanus.
Dear Dr. Katy,
Thank you so much for your recommendation. After, I start reviewing participant homework for teach back session, I realize how hard it is. Therefore, large classroom is hard to manage it with limited facilitator and limited timeframe. I strongly support your idea that with these limited participants is reasonable to manage and response well. Due to, we are not only focus on this work, but we still have other keys task to response as well. Quality need effort and time.
Regards,
Kimsorn
@Dr. Katy Yao thank you
@Kimsorn Pa I am so glad that you now understand "our pain" 😅. It is a lot hard than you thought!!