The Importance Of Ability Grouping

I teach first grade at Lowe Elementary School; my class is made up of twenty-four very diverse seven year-olds; they come from all over the city of Louisville, from a variety of socio-economic situations. Each student brings a unique personality to our classroom community, and they all work hard to become “smarter and smarter” and to “go to college”. Thirteen students are boys and eleven are girls. Of these twenty-four students, three of them are English Language Learners. Additionally, eight students receive tier two interventions and two receive tier three interventions in reading. In math, five students are tier two and four are tier three. I also teach one student who receives ECE services for a developmental delay. Within my class there is a wide achievement gap.

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

I am a proponent of ability grouping. I believe that the best way to make progress is taking students and breaking them up into leveled sections so that they can achieve to their highest potential. To me, this is the only thing that truly makes sense. In an article from Newsweek.com entitled America Hates it's Gifted Kids (2014), by Chris Weller, while No Child Left Behind from 2001 did help to improve the scores of underachieving students across the nation, by some degree, we did terrible things for our gifted students. Many of these were left to fend for themselves. Gifted programs were often unfunded in order to handle the needs being created for underachieving students. When our gifted children may someday become our inventors, engineers, and doctors of the future, why on earth is their education and growth not as important as a student with special needs, or anyone else? We build individualized education plans for students who struggle, those with needs, yet we ignore other special abilities. Why can't we build a plan for them as well? Why don't we build a plan for each student, so that instead of a one-size-fits-all education, we provide a track for all students to run on based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, all can continue to grow. There is nothing that says a student who begins in one group cannot move up. There is nothing that says a student who struggles in math couldn't be a high achieving reader. In the Education Week (2004) article on tracking, the major concern against ability grouping has to do with labels. That the majority of students in low level ability groups are poor and minority, and that ability grouping sets a stigma on that particular population. Yet that is where they achieve! By giving specialized instruction at each individual level, all have a chance to grow, instead of lagging further behind, stagnating, or creating a greater challenge when their unique needs aren't met, and further

I observed Julie Tolbert’s gifted third, fourth, and fifth grade classes. The kids in each class were mainly girls but only by a few numbers. Each child had a different learning style, and while they are all in a gifted class some were slower than others with each subject. A child that did really well in the science part of the day might struggle more in the social studies part of the day. Julie would accommodate each learning style to the best of her ability seeing as her ratio was normally

While America’s educational community is emerged in discussing the No Child Left Behind Act, high stakes testing, and what these new versions of old ideas actually mean for the larger society, the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) 2005 report shows that African-American males continue to spiral further down the achievement ladder. They are not thriving or surviving in many school settings. They have been flagged by Statistics as the highest rank among students who choose to leave school; are suspended, expelled, or kicked out of school. Unfortunately, the same is also true when it comes to poor test scores, low GPAs and high rates of referral and placement in special education. In stark contrast, African-American males are underrepresented in gifted education (NCES, 2005; Whiting, 2004; as cited in (Whiting, 2006, p. 222).

Teachers need to be flexible in how students learn and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. For example, if a student is having trouble keeping up with written work, the student could accomplish a similar learning objective through a different method.

That race continues to matter in public school classrooms has become abundantly clear particularly in education as in schools across the United States the student population has become more and more diverse (Bergeron, 2008). At the same time the opportunity gap between White and Latino and Black students remains quite wide. According to Lubenski (2002), the achievement gaps occur when one group of students is grouped by race/ethnicity or gender outperforms another group and the difference in average scores for the two groups is significant. While some gaps have begun to close, the opportunity gap between White and Black academic performance has continued to widen (Bohrnstedt, Kitmitto, Ogut, Sherman, & Chan, 2015). Glazer (2007) asserted that, “the most urgent issue in American education for the last half century has been the failure of large numbers of Black students to complete their education and reach an average level of competence” (p.81).

Based on the studies and information regarding learning preferences, the question is then posed, does teaching strategy need to align with a students learning preference in order to be most effective for learning? The answer to this question according to studies is yes. Every student is different, and learns at a different pace, using different strategies, and have different levels of readiness, interest and motivation. (Gardner 2001) According to Howard Gardner, a Harvard educated developmental psychologist, as teachers, we need to employ multiple teaching modalities for optimal student learning. This includes the use of visual and audio media, verbal regurgitation of information processed, and written discussion of ideas learned.

William Bennett John Hattie, and Bert Creemers all produced lists that identified research-based practices that were effective in the classroom. The writer has used strategies that work from their lists on a daily basis, including differentiating instruction and reinforcement with play or games. Cooperative learning has also been used frequently to give opportunities for students to collaborate in order to negotiate meaning, teach and learn from one another. Benjamin Bloom’s (76) unit of instruction “guides teachers to the most appropriate use of research-based strategies but does not constrain them as to day-to-day lesson design” (83). Instructional strategies are integrated into the unit plan, but should remain flexible in order to meet student needs and goals.

In today’s society, tracking (and its two sub-groups: ability grouping and differentiated instruction) is to be considered one of education's most controversial topic. Numerous articles have been written throughout decades, depicting the pros and cons of what some call “modern-day segregation”. Although tracking can be a helpful way to educate students, the reality of it is, is that it’s harmful to many students when done incorrectly. When done wrong, tracking is only helpful to a select group of students. For students of certain races, academic stance, and economic stance, tracking is harmful to their education and therefore, I believe tracking shouldn’t be practiced in our school systems unless it’s done in a manner that benefits everyone.

Effectiveness of Strategy one has been proven to be effective with consistency. This strategy will be effective when students understand what is expected and it is constantly reinforced in a positive manner. When positive reinforcers are given it can have a constructive influence on student’s behaviors.

In this case, some people refute that gifted students are practically children with adult minds who are capable of diving into the real-world while they have merely begun to test the waters. Others counter with the belief that pushing gifted youth to tackle subjects above the average student of their grade is socially damaging. However, K. Elijah (2011) explains that gifted students who are not being challenged can develop an extreme boredom in school which can lead to disruptive behaviors that will evolve into dropping out of school. In the same article, gifted students are credited with learning quicker, more deeply, and tend to practice material for memorization less (Elijah, 2011). Also, “Acceleration of Gifted Students” (2003) further clarifies that when gifted students are properly assisted in developing an educational program, they report to be satisfied emotionally and academically. Students also tended to have more self-confidence, and no negative effects of acceleration were reported in a survey of non-gifted and gifted students (“Acceleration,” 2003). Assisting gifted students is imperative whether it be through homogeneous grouping, heterogeneous grouping, and/or acceleration in order to provide proper instruction that will benefit these

The No Child Left Behind Act has stacked the deck against schools with special needs. At this point in time with the 2004 elections right around the corner, it seems that this Act is taking a lot of criticism for it's rigid approach to the educational progress of our children today. No Child Left Behind has some wonderful goals and aspirations: to "close the student achievement gap, make public schools accountable, set standards of excellence for every child, and put a qualified teacher in every classroom". (http://www.NCLB.gov) In this paper I will be discussing how this new law closes "the student achievement gap" and setting "standards of excellence for every child" using some of the psychological

There is an important factor in grouping students together with or without disabilities. You must know how a student will work out in some different groupings, for example a student that will act out or misbehave in or around certain other students or vice versa how the student will act out if someone else acts good or bad will they follow along. Some placements will work in the favor of the class and help students come positively out as helpful or willing to work well with others. It is a great task to make some good decisions in helping group some students that may not be able to have had the experience of someone very different from themselves and it can bring out the best from each other. Mrs. Robinson has a rotational grouping so that most students get to work with each other at some point and time, it really seems to work out great in her classroom or resource room as they call it.

In the Westglen School, K-6: Universal Design for Learning video, we see boys and girls of several different age groups that range from kindergarten to sixth grade. The classrooms seem diverse ethnically and culturally. We are shown that the universal design for learning means each child is included no matter what their learning style is or if they have a disability. Learning styles applies to Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences which dismisses the idea of general intelligences and “defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to engage in a wide range of culturally valued activities” (Berk and Meyers, 2016, p. 449). In this video, the professionals identify learning barriers or missed opportunities associated with each child and apply their needs in the classroom setting.