Flexible Grouping

Jennifer Torres and Melissa Gray

Concordia University St. Paul

Effective Practices in Differentiated Instruction 594, Cohort 680

Professor Susan Walker

December 8, 2012

1Flexible Grouping

What is Flexible Grouping? Flexible grouping involves students being able to

work in groups that are geared towards skill-based or interest-based work.

Students are given time to work cooperatively, collaboratively, and independently towards mastering information and ideas by exploring and discovering within the students’ group.

Flexible grouping has students work with peers, but not just the with the same students that are at their ability level.

This is type of grouping, blends students into not seeing themselves as the struggler or the advanced student in the group.

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History is an important but often overlooked content area for all students in this current era of accountability. Yet instruction in history can help students become problem solvers and learn to make interpretations from multiple perspectives. This article reports the results of a pilot study examining history learning across three groups of students (i.e., students with disabilities, students without disabilities, and students enrolled in an honors class) as they studied history (a unit on Andrew Jackson) through a Web-based history learning environment--the Virtual History Museum. The results indicate students in all three ability groups made gains from pretest to posttest in factual knowledge and reasoning about key concepts of the unit. The results provide preliminary support that a Web-based learning environment that includes features to assist students with mild disabilities can improve learning for all students at about the same rate. (Contains 3 tables.)

Okolo, C. M., Englert, C., Bouck, E. C., Heutsche, A., & Wang, H. (2011). The Virtual History Museum: Learning U.S. History in Diverse Eighth Grade Classrooms. Remedial And Special Education, 32(5), 417-428.

How Effective is Flexible Grouping?Five year Implementation

of Flexible Grouping According to Castle (2005) “during a 5-year flexible grouping implementation. Results showed that the percentage of students attaining mastery increased in 16 of 19 over-time comparisons. Increases in the percentage of students At Mastery ranged from 10% to 57%. The percentage of teachers using flexible grouping on a weekly basis increased from 25% to 95% during the same 5-year period. Teachers attributed the impact of flexible grouping to (a) focused instruction related to particular learning needs, (b) the ability to keep student attention focused on the instructional task, and (c) increased student confidence. The results support the use of flexible grouping to improve student learning for below-goal students without the potentially negative effects of ability grouping.”

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How did Flexible Grouping get started…

Tieso, C. L. (2003). Ability Grouping Is Not Just Tracking Anymore. Roeper Review, 26(1), 29-36. Major opposition is Slavin and J Oaks.

Ability grouping practices have come under attach the past two decades because of concerns over issues of social and economic equity and potential damage to students’ self-concept and self-efficacy. Oakes (1985) and Slavin (1990) expressed concern that the self-concept and self-efficacy of students who are place in low ability groups will suffer due to stigma of such an assignment. However Kilik and Kilik (1982) found in 15 controlled studies of between-class ability grouping and self-concept that the average effect size was -.06. Effects of groupings were slightly positive for low ability groupings and slightly negative for high ability groupings. This effect on low ability students may be due to their opportunity to interact with their teacher and others in the classroom without the sometimes intimidating presence of high ability students. High ability students often suffer early drop in self-esteem due to presence or high ability students in their group (Marsh & Parker, 1985). Different groups of students may need different types and levels of instruction to facilitate learning.

Bode proposed that the controversy over ability grouping has become one of equity versus excellence. Opponents stress inequitable effects, especially on low groups. Suggest that research supporting the equity argument is largely qualitative and anecdotal in nature. “some of these contradictory conclusions can be attributed to the face that different outcomes are being referenced” p1.

Majority of research on ability grouping is that most studies review used aptitude or ability tests to regroup students for instruction. Most elementary schools today do not use IQ or aptitude tests as a placement tool. More likely to use specific achievement tests or demonstrated performance as a means to group students.

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How did Flexible Grouping get started Continued… Emphasized one major review of

ability grouping studies published by Goldber, passow, and Justmand (1966) in which IQ tests were used as a preassessment for initial placement, there was no evidence of any curriculum adjustment, and the comparison of achievement gains among groups was nonsignificant. After reporting nonsignificant results in many of the studies he analyses, he concluded that mixed ability classrooms are more effective in raising student achievement levels.

Majority of research is 25+ years old!

Joplin grouping - Preassessment of specific skills or prior knowledge and then students go to a different teacher for instruction at their level

Within-class or flexible small grouping formed

Researchers are divided on effects of such groupings but most agree that some form of temporary ability grouping may have significant effects on students achievement.

Groupings alone will only have small to moderate effects on achievement if they are non complemented with appropriately modified and differentiated curricula (kulik & Kulik, 1992; Roggers, 1993; Slavin, 1987).

Two classroom based practices appear to hold promise for increase student achievement: curriculum revision or modification and differentiation (p. 32)

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Comparing and Contrasting Ability and flexible grouping…

“When I think of flexible grouping, I picture working with sand castles that the tide will wash away. I think of ability grouping as working with concrete to build permanent foundations meant to withstand change” Michael (1999).

Misconceptions on Grouping

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Misconceptions on Grouping Continued…

Allan, S. (1991). Ability-Grouping Research Reviews: What Do They Say About Grouping And The Gifted?. Educational Leadership, 48(6), 60.

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Flexible grouping is a type of differentiated instruction that is rooted from ability grouping. The purpose for flexible grouping is to provide students a chance to work with others in all subject matters and social situations. Throughout the research, this type of differentiated instruction factors in students that are below or advanced in their grade level. One thing to consider is the students that are in the middle or students that are close to or at grade level.

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Flexible grouping has shown to be effective for teachers and students. When implementing flexible grouping within differentiated instructed environment it goes along the lines of being creative and getting the students’ interest. According to Barbour (1990) “With this flexible grouping philosophy, the teacher was able to accommodate diverse interests, learning rates and learning styles.” This ensures their amount of engagement of working in a group cooperatively and collaboratively.

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A sales pitch for website called “netTrekker d.i.” Thanks to the Web, teachers can assign research projects, confident that there's an abundance of information at students' fingertips. Students like doing research online; they can focus on complex topics and create thorough and thoughtful reports. For elementary students searching for simple texts and images to high school students looking for sophisticated data, the information is available online.However, the web offers challenges as well as benefits. Some sites are too simple; some are too complex, and many are off-topic. With so many options, how do teachers provide the best resources and search parameters for their students? How do they find sites that address the various learning styles and academic needs? They start with netTrekker d.i., an academic search engine that delivers the best web resources so that searches are productive. Smart searching with its new tools that address such variables as reading level and facility with the English language makes the difference. Students in a single class may read at very different grade levels, but web sites generally don't offer information on how to gauge their difficult netTrekker d.i. has nine readability analysis tools built in so teachers can search web sites by readability level and target search results to student reading skills.

Differentiated instruction and the web. (2005, August). Technology & Learning, 26(1), 41. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA135706909&v=2.1&u=mnaconcordia&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w

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References

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