Student+Grouping+by+Ability+Annotated+Bibliography

 Michael Auten

Corcoran, T., & Silander, M. (2009). Future of Children (Vol. 19, pp. 157-183).

 This article goes into the effects of cooperative learning and project based learning. The article states how well designed group strategies allow students to express ideas and ask questions with ease. However the groups in schools are more focused on student discussion rather than the students actually teaching each other. The authors of the article also claim that adaptive instruction, which it is referring to how the teaching style changes as to how the students learn, will have the greatest potential for education in the future.

 I wanted to use this article to help me provide a negative to the grouping f students. The whole point of it was to get them to teach their peers as a way of helping them. However this article shows how their group work could be counter productive as they are more focused on each other than learning. It also goes into how the whole project based learning idea in education should work and how it applied to high schools in the United States.

Catsambis, S., & Buttaro, A. r. (2012). Revisiting "Kindergarten as Academic Boot Camp": A Nationwide Study of Ability Grouping and Psycho-Social Development. Social Psychology Of Education: An International Journal, 15(4), 483-515.

 This article goes into the difference of how well and fast a high ability group of students learns when compared to a low ability group of students. In this case the authors observed kindergartners that were grouped based on ability and those that were ungrouped. The authors found that lower ability groups learned at a slower rate than their higher ability peers. Also they found that lower ability grouped children learned at a slower rate than those students that were not grouped. The higher ability groups were found to show a much more accelerated development in other aspects of learning such as people skills and self control.

 I liked this article because it compared grouping of high versus low ability and both of those groups versus not grouped. I was surprised that not only did the high ability students learned faster, but they also developed other life skills before their peers. The authors went into the social aspect of grouping which is what I was really after. Because students will eventually figure out that they are being clumped together based on whether they can learn what is being taught or not. Obviously they are going to have some form of an opinion on that whether they like it or not and that opinion will affect how they will learn.

Patchan, M., Hawk, B., Stevens, C., & Schunn, C. (2013). Instructional Science (2nd ed., Vol. 41, pp. 381-405).

 This article focuses on the grouping of students based on the writing ability of students. It compares the grouping of a high ability student with a high ability student and a low ability student with a high ability student. They used two papers, one written by a high ability student and the other written by a low ability student. They had peers review the papers and make comments on them, then analysed how the peers commented on the papers. The experiment found that grouping of dissimilar abilities in students was more beneficial.

 I liked how this article went into how higher skill leveled peers would help their lower skilled leveled peers. The higher skilled students would identify the problems with the writing and on a higher skilled paper they commented on substance issues. I liked how the article pointed out the difference in higher skilled to higher skilled help to lower to higher skilled help.

Sexton, J. (2010). Leveling the Playing Field: Increasing Student Achievement through Data-Driven Ability Grouping and Instructional Practices. Online Submission,

 This report focused on increasing student comprehension and achievement. The placed students into different language arts classes and further split the classes into two different learning groups within those classes. Then they would collect data and use it for further grouping and instructional planning. The test scores of the fifth grade students involved would allow for further instructional planning. The results of the research showed that there was a positive relationship between analysing the scores of the students and student achievement.

 I liked how this paper focused on equality pointing out how ability grouping can be very unequal. Fir example how it may end up that students are also all from the same background in both the lower ability and higher ability classes making moving up harder. The author used quizzes to gauge independent ability. Also I liked how the author was concerned with student self esteem. For example the student could feel upset over being in the “dumb” class and wouldn’t feel motivated to try harder.

Student Grouping (flexible). (2013). In California Dept. of Education. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from [|__http://pubs.cde.ca.gov/tcsii/ch2/stdntgrpng.aspx__]

 This article goes into how adolescents work very well with learning exercises that require groups. This article also went into how schools place students into an intervention class to help them catch up if they fall behind in their grade level. The intervention classes were smaller groups that would accelerate learning and still leave room for a flexible schedule. This article also talked about how tracking does a disservice to students at all grade levels. It states that it keeps the lower ability students down and also can end up separate students by more than just grades. Tracking is overall disliked for keeping students stuck in a loop of lower level classes.

 I liked this article from what I believed to be a reputable website with it being posted on California’s Department of Education’s website. The article gives me a perspective that temporary ability grouping is actually much more viable than permanent ability grouping. Although this article doesn't provide a lot of data it does provide some data that gives me a perspective on other types of ability grouping.