Group+3

Mason Francis, Victoria Nichio, Michael Auten, Sarah Hutchins
 * Various Methods of**
 * Student** **Grouping**

** 1. Description of the Problem or Issue **

**Question:** What are the advantages and disadvantages of student grouping within a school?

Michael: What are the advantages and disadvantages of grouping students based on academic ability?
** 2. Research Summary ** ==== Victoria: Throughout my research, I've discovered that grouping students that have learning disabilities is an appropriate technique. These students need thorough attention to help them exceed to the next level of education. They will not get full support by being placed within a class that learns faster than they do, which is unfair to the individual. Not only does this cause problems for the disabled child, but it can slow down the process of teaching in the classroom. I read that teachers have trouble teaching heterogeneous ability classrooms because they are leaving out a lot of their students. Students will feel better about themselves if they are put in a class that they can perform at their best ability. On the other hand, students who are gifted and excel school, should not be grouped and given a separate classroom from their peers. If their parents feel they are a brighter pupil then they can enroll them in a program outside of school. Sarah: The research that I found regarding multi-age classrooms and other mixed-age learning environments, definitely seemed to lean in favor of heterogeneous grouping. That is, the benefits of grouping children in a learning environment which includes children of different ages outweigh the commonly voiced concerns. Some of these benefits include increased creativity, stronger relationships among students, teachers, and families, increased opportunities to exercise instincts to nurture, opportunities to reinforce and explore previously learned content, use of scaffolding techniques, peer tutoring, less competitive/threatening environment, each child learning at his/her own pace, and opportunities to grow socially and learn to work well with people who are older and younger. One of the drawbacks I found in my research is that often times high-stakes standardized testing aren't always effective in accurately showing what students in multi-aged classrooms have really learned. Another potential frustration is that it can also be difficult for teachers to make sure their curriculum is developmentally appropriate for every student—sometimes younger students get lost, and older students get bored. In general, the research seems to suggest that the multi-age style classrooms from many years ago were not a bad idea—in fact, such techniques have been proven to be quite advantageous academically and social-emotionally for many people. However, it is important to keep in mind that no two students are the same. Teachers, schools, and families need to be flexible and aware of which learning environment best suits each child, whether the answer is a homogeneous age grouping or a heterogeneous age-grouping.

Mason: Single-sex education was implemented in days when men and women were fundamentally different, for the wrong reasons. Modern research has consistently proven, however, that single-sex grouping has the potential to improve a child's learning experience. Therefore, the problem facing public school educators now, is accepting the risk that comes with single sex education. In our modern society, implementing a system that segregates men from women sends a very mixed message. Public school educators need to make sure they are prepared to handle those issues, when they arise. If handled correctly, the benefits from single-sex education could very inexpensively improve overall student ability. Michael: Student grouping by ability is a common practice today. Most people know it in the form of tracking. Tracking places students in specific tracks based on how well they perform in school. Tracking has been found to be counter productive as students in lower tracks often show a slower rate of learning compared to their peers in higher ability groups. There also is a difference between short term grouping and long term grouping. Some schools in California use what they call Intervention Classes. These Intervention classes were used to group students who were behind in their work to teach them at a faster rate in order to catch up. Once they caught up to their peers they were put back into the master schedule. Homogeneous grouping is found to be effective only with higher ability groups. Heterogeneous grouping was found to work well when the higher ability students were able to assist their peers. Also what most grouping programs don't account for is student self esteem. Students who feel that they are in the lower ability classes will show less effort to succeed in those classes. Overall grouping can work however schools need to account for many different variables that pertain to how different each child is.

** 3. Group Project Overview ** Our group project will attempt to identify the basic ideas behind grouping in education: both the positive and negative aspects.We will conduct a simple 2 part quiz. We will organize the class into two groups, based on their personal opinion of their skill level. There will be an artists group and a mathematics group. Both groups will be asked to answer one remedial calculus question, and also be asked to create an artistic impression of our teacher, Dr. Nancy Noonan. Hopefully, this experiment should yield two conclusive results. 1. Each group should perform better on the question catered to their group's skill. 2. The other question should illicit some sort of negative response from the students. This displays the basic positives and negatives of grouping in a simple experiment. ** 4. Visual Representation **  ** 5. Research Questions & Reference Summaries **
 * **Mason: Single Sex Grouping Annotated Bibliography **


 * **Victoria: Gifted and Disabled Student Grouping Annotated Bibliography **


 * **Michael:Student Grouping by Ability Annotated Bibliography**

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 * **Sarah: Annotated Bibliography: Mixed-Age Grouping**

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