A note on a simple procedure for redistributing a teacher's student contacts.

A class of twelve third-grade students in a rural school of two grades per teacher was observed to determine the frequency of student-teacher contacts for each student. Requiring each child to go to a play area when he completed his work resulted in changing the distribution of these contacts so that the better students used fewer teacher contacts. In addition, the number of completed assignments of all students increased and data are presented which imply that the poorer students of the class received more of the teacher's available time than previously. The application of this procedure to special pupil populations would probably be very useful. A number of advantages and limitations of the procedure are described.