Grouping for Instruction: Whole Class
Mixed ability - heterogeneous
Whole class instruction is when teachers present a lesson to the whole class with little differentiation in either content or assessment for any student's ability. This is the most common form of whole class grouping in Australian schools.
The purpose of whole class instruction is that all students are presented with a series of learning tasks to allow them to acquire and/or practise their learning. The pace of instruction is such that all students can master it. Learning is then assessed using standardised measures such as graded assignments or topic tests.
Whole class instruction is most appropriate for low average learners.
Key Elements in the Research
Research has suggested that any form of small group work is better in terms of academic gains than whole class instruction.
The mixed ability - heterogeneous classroom may contain children a wide range of intellectual ability. Start (1995) suggests the learning rate of children with above 130 IQ is approximately eight times faster than that of children below 70 IQ.
In a mixed ability classroom even though teachers believe they are teaching to the middle group, researchers have noted that teachers are really teaching to the "steering group" not quite the bottom child in the class but about the third student from the bottom. What this means is that the class is taught at the rate with which the child at the 25th percentile can cope. The teacher expects between 90 per cent and 75 per cent of children to learn the material (easy or hard) that is taught in any session, on any day or week. As a result the lesson is pitched in speed and content (the amount and complexity of material) to ensure that students operating at these levels do learn.
In fact the desire to teach all, at the same time and the same material, means that we may be teaching our gifted students to learn less and more slowly, according to recently conducted brain based research with gifted and high potential students. Repetition and practice drill required in the regular classroom was thought to have actually resulted in gifted children forgetting and mis-learning material.
Gifted and high potential students might fail to learn because when a task is not sufficiently challenging the brain does not release enough of the chemicals needed for learning: dopamine, noradrenalin, serotonin and others.
On non-academic indicators when students are placed in mixed ability groups self-esteem goes up for poorer students, and down for faster, more able students.
In mixed ability classrooms, students of average ability are capable of learning more and faster while the gifted student may actually forget and mis-learn material taught at the pace often used in the mixed ability classroom. In not learning how to learn there may be later problems with the development of study skills.
Equality in education does not require that all students have exactly the same experiences. Rather education in a democracy promises that everyone will have an equal opportunity to actualise their potential, to learn as much as they can. (Fiedler et al, 2002, p 111)
Like ability - homogeneous groups
Like ability - homogenous groups of students are placed together and receive instruction based on their performance on achievement tests and/or tests of ability. This may be full time as in a specific school for gifted children, or it may be a full time gifted class or program within a school.
The purpose of like ability groups is to allow gifted and high potential students to learn and to socialise with intellectual and (potentially chronological age) peers in an appropriately differentiated learning environment on a full time basis.
This approach is most appropriate for students who score at least in the moderately gifted (>130) range on an individual IQ assessment. Like ability groups are appropriate for a student who is achieving beyond year level or a de-motivated gifted student whose placement may re-engage them. Students should enjoy working in groups with other gifted and high potential students, all of whom enjoy learning and challenging each other in fast-paced learning activities.
In its most obvious form this grouping is a "special" school – a school for the gifted. Just as Victoria has its Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) or Victorian College for the Arts Secondary School (VCASS), so too some cities in certain countries have primary and/or secondary schools for the gifted. Extensive testing is required before a place is offered and usually large waiting lists exist. Some schools have specialty interests and attract gifted and high potential students with outstanding abilities in science, mathematics, technology as well as the liberal, visual or performing arts.
Full-time like ability grouping requires a sufficient number of gifted and high potential students to be able to have a class of gifted and high potential students at every year level although, by their philosophy the "gifted" school is not likely to be structured along year level-for-age requirements.
Key Elements in the Research
Research suggests that when gifted and high potential students are placed in full time gifted groupings (such as a special school) the achievement levels when compared to equally gifted and high potential students in mixed ability (regular) classroom show that the academic effect is substantial and positive.
Like ability groupings, either part or full time, allow students to make more accurate assessments of their abilities when they compare themselves with children of similar enhanced abilities. Such comparisons lead generally to a lack of smugness, intellectual snobbery or arrogance and perhaps even modesty about their abilities. There have been studies which have suggested gifted and high potential students' self-esteem drops when grouped with students of similar ability. This is slight and is noted on entry to the program and in most cases affects the areas of self-concept specific to academic areas.
Some researchers refer to this as the Big Fish Little Pond Effect (BFLPE). The BFLPE occurs when equally able students have lower academic self-concepts when they compare themselves with more able students and higher academic self-concepts when they compare themselves with less able students. The BFLPE predicts a decline in academic self-concept but predicts no decline (or at least much smaller declines) in self concept in non-academic areas. It is possible that academic gains were not solely due to the like ability groups students were placed in but also to the differentiated curriculum student experienced.
Gross (1993) is clear about the benefits of ability grouping, seeing it as absolutely essential for exceptionally and profoundly gifted children if they are to have any chance of finding intellectual and social companionship. (p 272)
International research supports the value of gifted students being placed with similarly gifted and high potential peers in full time environments, especially where curriculum differentiation occurs to meet the diversity of the gifted and high potential students' learning needs.
Research suggests that if like ability groups are not available full-time, then part-time grouping is preferable to the mixed ability grouping. In these classrooms, program options such as subject-based acceleration or group-based acceleration must be employed to provide gifted and high potential students with opportunities to access a curriculum more commensurate with their abilities.