Printer-friendly versionGrouping by perceived abilities is fraught with peril for students. Take a look at a video that explores this common practice and offers some effective alternatives.
*Disclaimer: This video is hosted by YouTube. Many school districts may block this particular application.
How do you determine group assignment in your classroom?
Is it important to you to create racially and ethnically diverse groups?
Comments
Great video--we recently
Great video--we recently published an article that looks at the ill-effects of tracking, but also warns against sloppy detracking. It seems, to get this point to really stick with the most vocal parent groups, you really have to impress the point that static ability grouping is not just detrimental to struggling students, but high-achieving students, too.
There is a difference between
There is a difference between static grouping and mobile grouping. Mobile grouping is a valuable educational tool and has been utilized for many years to boost students to achievement. It is also naturally occurring in societies across the globe. People move from groups through achievement into higher groups, or lower through non-achievement.
Grouping gives students the help and confidence they need to perform, excel, and MOVE to a higher group, thus self-esteem is a by-product of achievement. Neither achievement nor self - esteem can be artificially bestowed on a person.
Your illogical attitude towards grouping is destructive and counter-productive. It results, as it has for 45 years, in the implosion of the public school system and has damaged students beyond what could have been imagined.
It should not be necessary for me to say that grouping should not follow racial lines, and does not, but your bias
implies that you think it can only be done along racial lines.
Your ill-informed stance hurts most the students you should be helping. Open your minds.
Parents of highly-capable
Parents of highly-capable children most likely complain that their child's learning needs are unmet in heterogeneous classrooms. If true educational differentiation existed, then the issue of grouping would become moot. Testing and the immense support that is provided to students who struggle has forced schools to focus its energies on the students who are at risk of not meeting proficiency. Thus, classrooms may be heterogeneous in their groupings, but the education is largely homogeneous.
The first speaker was
The first speaker was correct; the issue of grouping students is complex. However, the speakers seemed to ignore the complexity and just spoke against grouping. By ignoring the complexity of the issue, they ignored the legitimate arguments in favor of grouping.
I have been intimately involved with grouping, or non-grouping, since fifth grade. When I was in grades 5-8, I was separated into the "gifted" classes and learned more than the children in the regular classes. (BTW, these "gifted" classes were the first racially integrated classed I ever attended.) In high school, I was in the top track, out of three. In two semesters, I was in the regular track in English. It was terrible. I didn't learn anything, except that I had time to write a short story while the other students were learning material I had covered in 7th and 8th grade. Now I teach in a non-tracked environment. It is discouraging to see the best students have to wait until the weakest students grasp course concepts. They would be much better off going to an elite school where they would be surrounded by other smart students.
When classes are composed of students with a wide ranges of abilities, the smarter ones must sacrifice their learning; they get an education, but they don't learn as much; their opportunity costs are high.
I think practically any teacher who has to teach students with widely varying abilities is frustrated by trying to target the instruction to the right level. There is always a judgement call: how many students at the top do I ignore v. how many students at the bottom do I leave out.
Using the logic of the speakers in the video, we would be correct in not grouping students by age. After all, there would be a great deal of diversity if 6-, 7- and 8-year olds were in the same classrooms.
I suppose it is impossible to address an complex issue like this in a 5-minute video, but there are good arguments for grouping. The speakers treat the arguments for grouping as if they were just ignorant naive ideas held by people who don't really understand education.
My only comment to you
My only comment to you is...since when are the 'Best Students" the 'gifted' ones. I have been a teacher for 15 years, and the best students are the hardest working ones...not the smartest! The best students are the ones who work as hard as they can to acheive, no matter what their 'level' is. Tracking causes the gifted to stay gifted (which is great) and the average to stay average. If students of varying abilities never hear their 'higher level' peers, they will never leave the 'average' group. We ALL know that the best teacher a student can have is another student, and he best way a child can learn is by teaching others!
Teaching children of widely varying abilities is the JOB of a teacher. Through the use of differentiated instruction and creative teaching, a GOOD teacher meets the needs of all students without having to separate the so called 'best' ones.
I completely agree, Beth. I
I completely agree, Beth.
I cringed every time I saw "best" equated with "smartest." This is not only erroneous, but it is simply untrue. Yes, I believe that there are truly "gifted" students (which is different than "best" and "smartest"). Yes, I believe that curricula should be taught to gifted students at their level. I also concur with Beth's statement that the job of the teacher is to teach every child--not just the one's who get it easier than others.
That said, I do flexible grouping a lot. I teach in High School Foreign Language, so it is easy to see who 'gets it' quicker than others. I give these students higher level thinking activities, give the special services students modified activities, and give all the rest multiple activities that bridge both groups. Also, these groups are oftentimes changing with only a few constants. So, yes, we must differentiate, but also, we must be flexible. Preconceived notions on student ability have no place in the classroom.
Beth's comment is spot on! A
Beth's comment is spot on!
A serious problem in public schools today that is predominantly ignored is that gifted students are not being accelerated. If gifted students were accelerated, then there would be no need to speak of gifted students being held back until lower achievers "catch up". There are many ways to differentiate and most require thinking outside the box and learning from successful models.
This mantra of the high achievers being held back until the lowest achievers "catch up" has been invented by the public school bureaucrats in order to justify ability grouping. The most successful classrooms have high expectations for ALL the students. High expectations are the key to higher achievement. This is absolutely doable, but schools seem to sabotage this heterogenous model with high expectations in order to get the majority of parents to complain about diversity in the classroom and so justify going back to creaming out the lowest achievers.
In our struggles to have our twin girls with Down syndrome included in the regular classroom, we noticed the dumbing down of the curriculum/instruction as the classrooms became more diverse over time. Low expectations are the biggest problem. It is a rare teacher who keeps expectations high for all the students. The needs of gifted students can be met in heterogenous groups, if teachers are trained to differentiate. Differentiating assignments and accelerating gifted students would help.
Another problem is that schools do not consider the damage to emotional and mental health of struggling students when they are forced to be in the "dummy" group. All the kids know who is in the "dummy" group and who is in the "smart" group. Kids are bullied and ridiculed. Self-esteem issues resulting from ability grouping are ignored by schools. I believe they do what is convenient and cost-effective, not what is best for students. My kids definitely learn more from their peers than they do from adults, including their parents.
Finally, I would prefer that my kids learn 50% of the material in a classroom with high expectations than to learn 100% of the material in a classroom with dumbed-down (or nonexistent) expectations. But schools say that because our kids cannot learn 80 to 100% of the material, they need to be creamed out where they would learn virtually nothing.
The 'smartest" students are
The 'smartest" students are the hardest-working students--no room for discussion. They may have already done work that they are now being assigned in class-but it was work, and they did it. No on has a magical gift, denied to others, through which he or she achieved academic competence without doing the work--so please stop resenting this while pretending to admire it. When you compare standardized test scores with work done you will find not merely a positive, but a near-perfect correlation.
This is the best argument for ability grouping--that students who find themselves ahead may forget how to work--even at something they like, or in a special interest. As a teacher and a parent , I permitted my daughter's school to put her in a special class for the 'gifted', hoping that work would be required of her--not a few academic frills with no underlying foundation of concepts, as in the worst of home-schooling.
As for the rest of your argument, the counter-argument is that the 'best' students will do most of the talking--and the average students will permit this. They will learn to be led by others who are more outspoken, better prepared, and better informed--perhaps at the expense of learning to think for themselves.
> If students of varying
> If students of varying abilities never hear their 'higher level' peers, they will never leave the 'average' group.
This is an argument based on meeting the needs of average and below-average students, potentially at the expense of gifted students. It's also not based on any evidence as far as I know. In my experience, the quality of teaching given to average and below-average students does not depend on the presence of gifted students.
> We ALL know that the best teacher a student can have is another student, and he best way a child can learn is by teaching others!
No, we don't all know that at all. I think the best teacher a student can have is one with a good background in education, who knows the material and how to effectively adapt to the needs of different students. Expertise in the subject matter helps a great deal, and so does having a bent for teaching. Neither of those can be presumed in another student; the idea is quite ridiculous.
The idea that the best way a child can learn is by teaching is without solid evidentiary support. Like your other statements, they are the sorts of things parroted about by egalitarian minded teachers who know little about the research findings over the last forty years about the ways students actually learn best.
I agree with this assessment
I agree with this assessment when it comes to high achieving children. In an ideal world, a teacher could address each individual child's learning style in a heterogeneous classroom. But the vast majority of teaching is done for the middle half of the class. The struggling children are pulled out for "content mastery" and the high achievers, well, they'll do fine regardless, right, so why worry about boredom and unfulfilled potential? Every child deserves a curriculum that addresses his/her needs. Sadly in our factory-modeled school systems that stresses standardized test results, that seems too tall of an order. Leave no child behind -- and no child unchallenged, please.
There are some subjects in
There are some subjects in which grouping with regard to ability is especially efficient for the teacher and beneficial for students---who need to not only master the basics of "grade level" material ---but be challenged. One such area that especially benefits from grouping is mathematics. I see this in my own children: one who attends a city-wide "gifted" school (which is diverse racially and economically) and another who attends a dual-language class that is supposedly "gifted" but has students at the lower end of "grade level." The students at the "higher end of ability" in this second class are not getting challenging material in math and are often "bored."
Almost all forms of education
Almost all forms of education today ARE grouped in some form. It can be argued that education does this with very little research or evidence of its effectiveness. The most obvious is grouping by age. I can only believe this practice is taking place for purposes of ease of community rather than effectiveness for the learner.
Grouping, in my mind, must be practiced with balance. The ability to be a good student is a learned set of skills. "Better" students are simply more accomplished at these skills, and we should provide them the opportunity to stretch their skills. Students who have not yet achieved those sets of skills can be taught to raise their game, but it can be difficult to do solely in a classroom. Good parents take this responsibility seriously, and will work with the school to increase skills for their children.
I truly enjoy comments from people who have no idea what it is like to be an educator in a classroom. The comments that differentiation of the MATERIAL for all students as the solution is entirely ignorant. The DELIVERY of the material in a differentiated classroom is the most critical piece, along with a completely different set of materials that provide the appropriate depth and complexity for each student. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a teacher to deliver instruction in 30 different forms, leaving a large portion of each classroom bored or behind.
Great teachers and schools know that we must have balance. Grouping for purpose is necessary, at times, for high quality instruction. The key is to not harbor any belief that one group is advantaged over any other. The infuriating part of this discussion is the idea that students with a deeper set of skills are somehow "better". I despise the term "gifted", as it implies "superior". Likewise, the idea that we would hold them back in any way, for the betterment of those less skilled, is equally disrespectful.
Create a school day where students can achieve as they so choose, and where they can feel the balance of the greater culture and community. It is possible, if we remove the boundaries in ALL of our minds regarding what it means to be an inclusive society.
As the parent of a
As the parent of a kindergartener in a public school, I think it's important that both educators and parents be kept up to speed on the research behind the pedagogy. My child is at the higher end of the ability spectrum (ie, reading and writing beyond her grade level), but in no way does that mean she is "better" than another student. I remind her often that everyone learns at their own pace and everyone is capable of learning. But I also get frustrated that she is not always being challenged. Her teacher will often ask her to do something more (eg, write sentences) without grouping, but they also group. I love the idea of grouping kids by different levels and having them work together. Content mastery is important but school is also about learning other important life skills like cooperation and leadership and collective responsibility. Of course this is kindergarten so it's not as urgent for my child to be accelerated (ie, if she's already reading at first or second grade level is it important for her to read even beyond that?). But I do wonder what it means for her future learning. I want her to be challenged and interested but I think there are different ways to do that. My point though is that if more parents (and teachers) were told the reasons for doing things a certain way they might be less inclined to complain that their kids aren't grouped...And also, it's important that the pedagogical techniques employed have some basis in sound research!
I didn't see the video as
I didn't see the video as completely one sided. I appreciated the suggestion to use "ability" grouping as it pertains to a specific skill that certain students need which others do not. If a teacher is purposefully using differentiation strategies where texts, activities and assessments are not the same for all students, no one should feel bored or frustrated. There are plenty of resources out there to help teachers design meaningful learning experiences for a variety of learners.
What disturbed me about your posting was that you labeled students as "smarter", insinuating that the difference in learning style was based on intelligence. Since you are an educator and have a hand in shaping the lives of the students in your care, I would encourage you to take the time to learn about the many, many, other factors that can affect the way your students learn. Many struggling students do NOT lack intelligence. It is your job to know exactly what it is that is hindering progress and then go about addressing it. Ability grouping can turn in to a really lame reason not to offer differentiated instruction. It can also, apparently, instill in a child the notion that they are smarter than those who work at a different pace- a notion they then carry in to their adulthood.
Thank you for this! I look
Thank you for this! I look forward to sharing it with my school district and with families. If you can point me to specific research that illustrates the ineffectiveness of ability grouping and to the tangible benefits of differentiation, to universal design for learning, and/or to inclusive education, that would also be VERY helpful.
Rachel, Take a look at the
Rachel, Take a look at the Grouping Case that's part of the Teaching Diverse Students Initiative (TDSi). As you move through the case, several studies are referenced. Go to http://www.tolerance.org/tdsi/grouping_premise
To explore and learn more about TDSi, just click on Professional Development in the nav bar at top, and then on TDSi near the bottom of the page.
The ability grouping video
The ability grouping video would not work on any of our computers. Please advise.
It is likely that your school
It is likely that your school blocks access to YouTube. Do you know if this is the case? If so, you may have to try viewing the video from another location. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I am a teacher at keenan High
I am a teacher at keenan High School, and I would love to have a written copy of the article against ability grouping. Thank you
We have several resources on
We have several resources on grouping that you can print and share with colleagues here
I am a gifted coordinator for
I am a gifted coordinator for several school districts. I also work with special needs students. Your info on grouping is so important. Flexible grouping done right is one way to make certain that all students get what they need academically, intellectually and socially. Done poorly, it can be horrible for students. I like the video and hope to use it in showing teacher how to work well with all kinds of students.
I think its important that we
I think its important that we hear from teachers that have experience on both ends of the spectrum. I think that your comment that flexible grouping has to be done right to be effective; the same applies to any other teaching method.
Martin Luther King tells us,
Martin Luther King tells us, "A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan." Apparently, this video is the production of group committed to that cause. No statistics or genuine research provided to support any aspect of the position. The target? Parents of and identified gifted learners. Heaven forbid that these students need a different form of education. The underlying intellectual bigotry was clear. Why not allow them to move forward as fast as they can and graduate when ready?
Truly the road to mediocrity is paved with the intellectual neglect and bigotry described here. Meet the needs of middle; forget the rest.
What about ability grouping
What about ability grouping for short term interventions, such as grouping students who need particular help with decoding? They are only grouped for the skill training, then return to the heterogeneous class and when they progress from this skill, the move on to other groups if needed.
What a neat little package!
What a neat little package! The first speaker hints at research around this issue when she says "...when you look at this impirically..." However, no research for any of the points made is ever cited! Come on people, when you're talking about education, educate. Don't just enflame. Some parents will use this to say, "See, I knew it all along..." When this complex issue is presented with social media level credibility and not academic level credibility, all you get is more confusion and less clarity. Sadly, it is a trap we're all falling into these days.
This idea that tracking
This idea that tracking and/or ability grouping as thinly disguised segregation is not new. To point that out, as they do in this video, is not enflamitory - it's bringing up an old debate that needs to be had. And if that debate takes place - the emperical evidence will clearly show the true face of the failure of segregation. Look at "ability grouped" classes and unless you are "colorblind" you'll see 21st Century segregation in practice. I'm not sure what parents you're referring to - but the parents that usually say things like "See, I knew it all along..." are almost exclusively members of privileged groups looking to have their kids identified as "gifted" or "high ability" or whatever and seperated from the "unwashed masses." Nothing but modern-day segregation or American apartheid.
I teach in a multi-age K-2
I teach in a multi-age K-2 classroom. We ability group. We don't hold any student back. I have first graders in my second grade language arts class. I have moved kindergartners up to the first grade math class. We have seen no indication of grouping having adverse effects on the students. No group is treated differently from another. How do these people know this? Are they teachers? Have they spent any quality length of time in a classroom that uses this practice? In our MAC we hae 3 teachers. One for each grade and 2 assistants. We have 52 students in our classroom. Our classroom is a 3-room pod with central space and a workroom. Our program works. Parents request their child be in our classes. We have high expectations of all our students at their level. We teach science/social studies to all of them together. I feel it is wonderful teaching strategy. It fits my teaching style as well as my colleagues'. So to hear this I say to each his own. What works for one does not work for another. But, to condemn the whole strategy is inappropriate.
I was put in the advanced
I was put in the advanced reading group in 2nd grade and stayed tracked in "gifted" classes through high school. This not only taught me that I was "smart", it also taught me that I was "smarter-than". Smarter than the students who weren't privileged enough to be advanced readers in elementary school. Smarter than the children who were younger in the same grade (I'm lucky to have been born in the fall and not summer). Smarter than the majority of students of color who faced stereotypes and institutional discrimination that prevented their access to "gifted" education.
I have spent years unlearning the superiority I internalized because of these programs. Believing we are "smarter than the others" is dehumanizing and unfair.
There is no one way to be "smart" and intellectual ability is not something we are born with that stays the same throughout our lives. That understanding fueled the field of Eugenics and now fuels the thinking behind many gifted programs.
Today I teach in a large urban school district that continues to perpetuate institutional racial superiority through ability grouping. Each of us needs to take a close look at the assumptions we've made about what it means to be "smart" and who has access to that label in our schools.
Thank you, well said Ilsa! I
Thank you, well said Ilsa! I too was placed in "gifted" programs and was taught to be "smarter than". This fueled my own feelings of confidence, courage, intelligence, and a whole other gamut of externally reinforced “positive” feelings based on making comparisons - Me vs the Other. In the past I even believed, “there was no ability grouping in my school-we were all equal when I was a kid” - blinded by my privilege and arrogance. Really how can I teach about fairness when unfairness is seen through the child’s eye who doesn’t get to attempt to read the “chapter” book that looks interesting to them? Really how can I teach about justice when injustice lives in my teaching strategies? How can I teach about equality when I show students they are not equal in many areas by separating them? I imply to students that I separate you because it is “good” for you. I also see that I don’t empower students to learn from each other and listen and value their differences and similarities-because they don’t have opportunity to be empowered by this on a consistent basis. What am I teaching implicitly? Although my values are explicitly shared openly with students-there is a clear contradiction in my methods (when I am using ability grouping) and my messages-when we talk about injustice.
Based on my own childhood schooling experience….I remember thinking in defense of ability grouping, “I don’t remember the other kids being upset by not being in the “gifted” program” – how could I know or remember? I wasn’t where they were-I was in the “gifted” group- I never looked at the Other group. But now I see the eyes of desire, looking over at the “gifted” level readers, waiting for judgment or inclusion that doesn’t come, because judgment has already been implied by the method and inclusion is no likely unless they improve their reading in exponential amounts. And how will this happen? If I keep grouping by ability? Awareness that is what stories like these are giving us..Reinforcing what we already know at our core…
My own awareness has come from listening to the stories of my adult friends who have fought their own sense on inferiority to achieve their deepest dreams. One friend wanted(s) to be a writer and writes wonderfully articulate and inspiring stories-but only shares them with those she’s closest to-she was placed in remedial reading at age 12 and believed herself to be able to read and write well before that…she struggles to this day to find confidence within around her comprehension, writing, reading, when confidence without isn’t enough anymore….who else was ability grouped and what is your story?
Here is another recent article on ability grouping:
Educational Leadership: Reading to Learn: I Got Grouped
Charles Dickens had almost no
Charles Dickens had almost no formal education, having attained most of his education on the streets.
When my child exited public school 5 years ago to attend a private school, his IQ was 93. Now his IQ is 135. IQ is NOT static. It goes up with education.
IQ scores are meaningless, especially for nonverbal students. Why do they give nonverbal children with Down syndrome the WISC at age 5? The test is designed for verbal students from ages 6 to 12!
Ilsa and Kelly, Thank you so
Ilsa and Kelly, Thank you so much for sharing your testimonies. All students have gifts, many of which are buried under layers of depression and angst caused school policies which clobber self-esteem and confidence.
As a docent at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, I have indeed experienced the air of superiority of gifted students we lead through the museum. One student told me once, in the middle of the tour, that he was bored. The gifted teachers also have the same air of superiority - I suppose this is where the students learn it. The teachers feel special for being the "gifted" teachers. How many gifted teachers do you know who simply say they teach? They usually say, "I'm a gifted teacher." I asked once if a particular school district practiced inclusion of students with disabilities and was told, "Not in my class, I teach the gifted students!" I said, "So you would not include Stephen Hawkings in your class?" Honestly, these stereotypes have got to go!
I think we need to learn from teachers like Erin Gruell (Freedom Writers' Diary) and John Taylor Gatto and Jaime Escalante who taught at-risk minority students that the school system had given up on and creamed out to the periphery. These award-winning teachers prove that poor, black, and Hispanic students can achieve at least to the level of white middle class students. In Gruell's case, her students were learning so much that the Honors students across the hall wanted to move to her class.
This was an excellent video
This was an excellent video presentation with a very enlightening message. Grouping should be targeted to specific skill for all students. I have seen this practiced on a limited basis where advance readers went to a higher grade for language arts only then returned to their base class.
What if all elementary students rotated to a skills development program delivered by multi media instruction? No child would be left behind.
Students should be taught
Students should be taught based on what they already know. Don't re-teach them a subject. Once they know a subject, they should move on. It's not a "track," it's meeting kids where they are and moving them forward. If they are hardworking or if the subject comes more easily to them, they will move forward faster. Don't penalize them for knowing something or working hard by keeping them back. It may be beneficial for the kids who don't know the subject, but it is to the detriment of the student who does. No wonder their parents complain.
Very much agreed.
Very much agreed.