Importance Of Maintaining Ability Grouping In Schools

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Recommended: Impact of cooperative learning

Breanna Martin
Raybuck-Bonilla
English 12
10 April 2014
Maintaining Ability Grouping in Schools
By trying to teach children of varying abilities in one classroom, the American society is undermining and under-developing some of its brightest young people. One of the oldest and most controversial forms of education is ability grouping or “tracking” of students. It has always been a topic of debate among academic researchers and child psychologists whether students should be differentiated and grouped according to their academic skills and abilities. Students should be integrated according to their academic skills and abilities because the concept of ability grouping can have an increase on pace, provide individual attention and boost confidence.
To begin with, by integrating students according to their strengths, students are not forced to wait or rush and the pace of a classroom setting or an individual’s learning process can increase. When students are grouped together based on their skill level, the pressure is lessened of when or how fast the topic must be covered. The students that grasp the concept are able to move on when they have reached the appropriate understanding. Likewise, students with learning styles where they take longer to understand concepts are not falling behind because the class needs to move on; they simply take the time they need to learn and then progress at the appropriate time. In modern day classrooms, there are thirty to forty some-odd students, who all have a slightly different, if not completely different, learning style than another and one teacher to teach each individual. In most cases, the teacher wants and tries to help the students who are struggling, but in the process, they end up “leaving ...

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...nly achieving up to the teacher’s expectations. If students are placed in a grouping where learning is done at a slower pace and concepts are understood in a longer period of time, then some students may work to that level even though they are capable of achieving more. There is the possibility of pigeon-holding students into how “smart” or “intelligent” they are and some may only work to the level they are grouped in. Even if they did not do so consciously, teachers may treat students in the different groups as superior of inferior based on their groupings, leading to the perception by the students that they are not talented enough to do as well as their peers in other groups. If your school is considering the possibility of using ability grouping as an educational tool, help them to consider the above advantages and disadvantages before making any policy decisions.

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