How to make online discussions beneficial regardless of class size

This week, we talked about a variety of things, but all topics revolved around how to make a class with online components more beneficial to students.  In a discussion, I chose to give my two cents on what class size considerations we should take regarding online discussions and whether or not there is an ideal class size for online discussions... Rather than summarize what my answer was, I thought I would give my full answer here.  Instructors who had discussed this with also agreed with my points listed out here...

I don’t think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer this question, but I would think we would need at least 4 students to carry out a good discussion, especially if it is a discussion that is to revolve around an entire week’s worth of information.  I say this because there should be at least two people to initiate a discussion in a timely manner, and at least two additional people to reply and help evolve the discussion into something deeper. 

If the class is too large, a great way to make discussions beneficial to all is to separate the class into smaller groups for discussion.  I don’t think all discussions need smaller groups, for instance if the discussion requires much shorter and more generalized answers, a discussion with 20 or so students would be just fine.  But if we are looking at a discussion like this one, where students are to formulate detailed answers and replies, it would be best to separate the class off into smaller groups of size 4-8 so that the discussion stays more focused.  

I think Administrators need to be mindful of general class size though, because while it can be easy on students to separate the class off into smaller groups for many discussions, it can be too difficult for an instructor if the general class size is too large.  I know a number of universities that allows for 60 students to be in one class handled by a single instructor.  That is way too much for any instructor to pay close attention to or grade.  Even 30 students, which is a standard maximum is “pushing it.”  An ideal maximum number of students per class would be 20-25 regardless of how you handle the class discussions so that we can actually get to every student.