Ability Grouping in Education Essay

Grouping of students can be by learning style, interest, readiness, task, or other teacher determined criteria. Flexible grouping is one of the non-negotiables in the differentiated instruction

Ever since Spearman proposed the intelligence theory with G factor, there were several other intelligence theories proposed in response or as an alternative to Spearman’s. Among those, Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory would be the most influential ones as they are widely accepted and used in real life. Both of the theories share a critical view towards the unitary perspective which is the traditional definition of intelligence. However, the two theories differ in which they don’t agree with what factors should be the measures of intelligence, as well as the emphasis of the two theories.

“Alright,” the teacher says to the students, “I’m going to number all of you off into groups. Each group will read a section from the textbook and become experts on that section. Then, each group will teach the rest of the class what they learned from their reading.” This is an instruction common to the classrooms in the United States. More and more is the pedagogy of public education leaning in favor of team-based activities, projects, and learning. Group work is generally seen as an ultimately beneficial way to teach students, but this may be somewhat of a fallacy. The emphasis on group-based learning in public schools causes a multitude of problems.

In “A Rounded Version: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, Howard Gardner illustrates how there are a variety of intelligences. Gardner starts off with an example how IQ tests may predict achievement in school but may not predict achievement in life. After finding out certain parts of the brain are responsible for certain functions, such as “Broca’s Area” which is responsible for sentence production, Gardner proposes the existence of multiple intelligences. Multiple studies later led him to propose seven distinct intelligences; Musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Each intelligence has certain classifications. According to Gardner’s classifications, I realized my intelligences are bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, and intrapersonal.

Grouping should be reviewed and altered based on student improvements and needs. Students can learn a lot from their peers who may not be at their same ability level. Students can also be grouped by their differences in order to help students grow at all different levels. Students’ gender, social class, and race should not be the main variable associated with sorting students into

Small groups require active teaching with much teacher guidance or involvement. Small groups can teach the context better than a larger group, allowing for no child to be struggling and left behind. Reading, math and science can benefit from small group interaction. Each student has a chance to be heard, voice his opinion or conclusion, get a response from the teacher and the other group participants, and close the gap for error. The key for successful learning is when the teacher involves himself and gets excited about what the children are to be taught. This is also true in group study as

Jane Elliott witnessed third grade students who once loved and cared for each other change within a twenty-four-hour period (1985). The exercise A Class Divided is a great tool that teachers could use to become better equipped in the cultural aspect of education. This exercise would be best to apply with educators and the administrators of the district. A Class Divided would greatly improve the relationships between students and teachers, families and school districts, and lastly the overall cultural understanding of the effects of discrimination.

Howard Gardner is a psychologist that developed the multiple intelligence theory. He identified three original domains of functioning, each of which has several more specialized functions. :(a) cognitive or thought area which involves verbal-linguistic intelligence (learning and using language); (b) Logical mathematical intelligence is how a person understands and uses logical mathematics and abstract symbol systems; (c) a sensate area, which helps with auditory components. A few other domains include practical intelligence and creative intelligence. With practical intelligence you may ask questions such as: how does a person relate to the world around them? Do they have the ability to adapt to certain situations? With creative intelligence you may ask questions such as: how quickly can this person solve a new problem when presented with it? Can they automatically apply a new skill when they are presented with the problem again?

In school there is only one style of learning per class for all students. Not all students learn the same way, which is why teachers need to teach each student according to which group they learn best whether it's by taking, visual, or some things don't work, it is said that “it is true of course, that groups do not learn; individuals do (source D) which is why schools need to work on individuality instead of groups for us to become better learners. In the other hand, schools should keep conformity by farming groups of individuals with their own type of learning style in

In elementary, my fellow students and I would often get split into different reading groups based on how well we could read. Being in these small groups where we were all at the same level made it easier to learn the material. We all moved at the same pace and could finish our books at the same time. Being placed in a reading group with students who were faster than me would have made the process more difficult. Being with students who read slower would have been much too easy. It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Which bed was perfect for me? Instead of separating children

Pros: Supporters suggest gifted classes as a way of tracking to keep the talented students out of mixed ability classes that otherwise would restrict their learning and would place these students in boring classes. Duflo, Duppas, and Kremer (2011) state that the benefits of math ability tracking along with pedagogy that narrowly targets specifics may outweigh the affect of being in a classroom with classmates having lower math skill sets. Ansalone believes a more positive self-concept of students with low IQ when grouped homogeneously (2010). Vanfossen agrees that tracking improves self-concept and motivation (1987). Grouping is often seen as a way to maximize learning potential with the smallest financial investment. Teachers accept tracking because teaching is made easier by limiting the wide range of academic diversity in the individual classroom. Successful teachers often incorporate tracking within their classroom based on students’ ability now commonly called differentiation which stirs a moan within most teacher collaboratives. Ability tracking can be used as an aid to cover the most standards as quickly as possible. Gifted students in mixed ability classes get impatient with their peers who are struggling with the material and continue to ask questions when the majority of the class is ready to move on to newer concepts. Lower ability students may not ask questions they need answered because they are embarrassed to admit they do not understand the standard

Once students are grouped, they generally stay at that level for their school careers, and the gap between achievement and levels becomes exaggerated over time. The notion that students' achievement levels at any given time will predict their achievement in the future becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (Slavin, 1990). Wheelock doesn't dismiss all forms of ability grouping. For example, a group might be set up within a class to help students who are having difficulty with a specific skill, or a group might be formed to "pre-teach" a skill to a group of students who might have difficulty grasping a concept.

Howard Gardner recognizes that intelligence is more than the single logical-mathematical processing of stored facts that intelligence tests assess. He views intelligence as problem-solving, problem-creating, and problem-finding across a range of situations. There are a total of eight Multiple Intelligences: Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Musical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and lastly, Naturalist Intelligence. These Intelligences allow educators to carefully integrate several content areas within a specific curricula.

In order to promote the utmost success of students, numerous studies have been conducted to determine the ideal organization strategies for grouping within classrooms. There are two major types of grouping, heterogeneous and homogeneous. Heterogeneous grouping can be described as randomly grouping students together. The teacher does not group based on any specific criteria and attempts to involve all types of students within each group. In further detail, there may be one student who overachieves at mathematics and a student that performs below average in mathematics within the same group. Homogeneous grouping is arranging students together based on their academic achievement in particular subjects. For instance, a homogeneous group will contain students who are all around the same reading level. There are two divisions within homogeneous grouping. One is within-class grouping. This means that the students

I just went to one of the classes require for this class (where you take surveys) and I noticed that they ask questions about a certain topic, then they teach you about that topic and then they ask you the same questions again trying to figure out if after learning about the topic your views change. So I learned that the survey would not be reliable because I learned more in between the two tests. I really enjoyed and was interested in learning about Robert Sternberg Triarchic Theory of intelligence because makes a lot of sense to me. My family has always talked about book smarts and street smarts. My sister has componential intelligence while I have more contextual intelligence. Which isn’t bad either way, we are just made different and while I may have to work harder in school my sister on the other hand needs more guidance with life tasks like street smarts. I was also surprised to hear that even if you have high intelligence you might not get the best grades. That made me wonder if those are the people who are really naturally smart and just don’t apply themselves or is it they just don’t do well testing? I really learned a lot in this chapter how intelligence