Gifted Students and Ability Grouping

It is interesting that, within a week of #edchatie and #gtie both discussing mixed ability/streaming/setting on twitter, this article by Dr Emer Smyth of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) appears in the Independent. 

"Some second-level schools use streaming, placing pupils in particular classes on the basis of entry tests. Thus some pupils are taught in lower ability classes, not only for English and maths but also for metalwork, physical education and religious education." 

In my experience, most Irish schools engage in setting, not streaming. Streaming, whereby a student is placed into a high or low ability stream for all subjects does not make sense to me. It does not allow for the very many students who are much better at some subjects than others. Setting for individual subjects such as maths and Irish/English makes perfect sense as I cannot imagine how a teacher could adequately teach both higher and lower level in the one class when the course work is different, never mind having to deal with the wide range of student abilities. 

But now to the bee in my bonnet:

"Contrary to popular perceptions, there is no benefit to those placed in higher ability classes; their results are similar to their peers in mixed classes."

Everything I have read suggests that high ability students do better in high ability groups than mixed ability groups. I fully accept the drawbacks for lower ability students, but I am not convinced that the negative impact is entirely due to the grouping itself. It seems to be at least partly related to the expectations, the behaviours and the teaching. However, that's another issue.  In this article, Dr Emer Smyth refers to a "ceiling on potential achievement" being set in lower ability classes. Could a similar ceiling effect not also be part of the reason  that high ability students in high ability streams do no better than their peers in mixed ability classes? 

International expert, Dr Deborah Ruf has just written published School is Not Real Life, Part 3 in which she says:

"Most people think that teachers teach to the average. Well, no, they don't. They can't! If they taught to the average, too many of the slower learners simply wouldn't catch on to most of what was happening in the classroom. Teachers teach to the top of the bottom third once they know their class. This way, they reach the slower learners fairly well and the majority of the kids in the middle get lots of encouragement and opportunity to manage their time, learn study skills, and how to handle a certain amount of intellectual struggle and feel success when they finally "get it." The sad truth, though, is that the brightest students end up spending a lot of time waiting for something new to happen. Depending on a number of other factors, like whether they are male or female and their personality profiles, they learn a lot that ends up not being helpful to real life. They learn that if you are smart, you don't need to study or work hard. They learn that their parents and teachers don't know what they are talking about if they think this assignment matters. They learn that they are smarter than everyone else in the class and are in for a shock when they actually do get out into the real world."

Why is equality of achievement the holy grail of education? What about equality of challenge? Are we closing the achievement gap by holding the most able back? In what other area are we so focused on equality of achievement? We are happy to promote and celebrate the pursuit of excellence in sport and music, for example. Why not also in learning? Why is the education system in Ireland now heading down the same standardised testing route as the US with its No Child Left Behind policy? It has now become known as the No Child Gets Ahead Act and, to my mind this is not fair or equitable either.


Here is the transcript for #gtie chat on setting/streaming and mixed ability.
Here is the transcript for #edchatie on setting/streaming and mixed ability.


Glad to have that off my chest. Off to make dinner now!

Gifted Learners and Lev Vygotsky's ZPD

Lev Vygotsky was a pioneering Russian psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose interest in the fields of developmental psychology, education and culture led to his being known as “the father of cultural-historical psychology”. A prolific author who researched relationships between thought, language, speech and play, Vygotsky studied the development of cognitive skills in children and developed a concept known as the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD). He described it as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” .

Arguing against the use of tests to examine a child’s progress, Vygotsky said that what should be measured is a child’s ability to problem-solve independently, rather than with assistance. Real learning takes place in the ZPD, according to Vygotsky and the later psychologists who developed his idea further. This ZPD is the area of growth which is just beyond the current ability of the learner but not so far as to be impossible or demoralising. If the level is set so low that the child has already mastered the task, or so high that the student cannot achieve it without considerable assistance, effective learning will not take place. The ZPD is the zone where the student, aided by a teacher or expert, can stretch to the point just beyond their current capabilities. This is where learning is internalised and previous skills can be built upon, according to Vygotsky.

Later psychologists and educationalists elaborated on Vygotsky’s idea of the ZPD by introducing the concept of scaffolding. Scaffolding is the provision of sufficient support to learners that they are able to reach their ZPD. The support offered is only enough to allow the student to build on prior knowledge and skills and is gradually reduced and removed as the learner enters his or her ZPD. Examples of instructional scaffolding are resource materials, visual aids, templates, guidelines and verbal or written demonstration.

The concepts of ZPD and instructional scaffolding are now applied wider than Vygotsky’s original context of problem-solving to a range of educational domains such as reading, reciprocal teaching and problem-based learning. Many researchers now believe that young children learn their native language while in their zone of proximal development, with scaffolding provided by their parents as the child’s skills develop.

The ZPD has particular resonance for highly able learners. In many classrooms the material regularly presented to them would be within their current ability level and therefore would not bring them into their zone of promixal development. All students need to be required to work in their ZPD on a regular basis, including gifted learners. Where most students experience this level of challenge daily, highly able children for whom the regular curriculum holds less challenge may not. In order to internalize the learning process, to experience the stretching of their capability beyond what is easily achievable we must find a way to ensure that gifted pupils enter their ZPD. Effective differentiation can go some way to this goal.

In a paper entitled “Different Differentiation” Paul and Sharon Ginnis outline eight different strategies which teachers can use to ensure that every pupil works in their ZPD. They recommend setting the parameters by planning the task between the outcome projected for their most able and their least able learners. The ZPD of the class is within this. The two factors of the challenge of the task and the skill of the individual learner will determine the outcome. If the gap between these two factors is either too big or too small, outcomes will be less successful. Interestingly, they point out that in both cases (too little challenge or too much) the likely result is the same, that of disengagement and underachievement.

The strategies they describe cover a range of teaching approaches, from a higher level of teacher control to a more student-controlled task. From setting a task above and below the core task expected of the majority of the class, through peer-coaching and ability grouping, all the way to what they label “self-service” there is a menu of styles. Each of them have at their centre the goal of having each student work in their ZPD. For exceptionally able children, opportunities to work in the types of learning environments described would allow them to learn how to synthesize their learning and how it feels to be challenged to reach a goal. These are not usual outcomes for highly able children in Irish classrooms who often find themselves with little or no challenge for long periods of time. We need fresh approaches and an increased awareness that opportunity of challenge is essential for all learners and that gifted pupils need this as much as any other. It is not exclusive or elitist or selfish, it is only fair.

Link to the paper on “Different Differentiation” is here

More on Lev Vygotsky can be found here