Heterogeneous Classrooms Research Articles

A Study of Differentiated Instructional Change Over 3 Years

This study examines Title 1 heterogeneous classroom teachers' instructional behavior change through implementing well-designed research-based curriculum units and attending regular professional development activities across 3 years. Employing an experimental design, this study compares experimental and comparison teachers' behavioral changes as measured by an observation scale of differentiated teaching strategies across 3 years. The results show that experimental teachers received statistically significant and educationally important higher ratings than comparison teachers on differentiated strategy use and effectiveness across 3 years. The study corroborates the research literature that shows that teachers' instructional improvement takes 2 years to manifest its effectiveness and to shape belief in student learning benefits. Putting the Research to Use: This study suggests several areas of practical application. One area is in the reality versus the myth of professional development. These data suggest the need for multiple years of professional development, interspersed with observations that track the frequency and efficacy of targeting instructional behaviors. Thus, educational reformers must be clear about what change they want teachers to achieve and set about a 2- to 3-year plan for making it happen at the school level. This study also lends support to more systematic approaches to encouraging differentiation. It highlights the need for monitoring classroom implementation. The use of a well-validated observation tool such as the Classroom Observation Scale—Revised provides a venue for ongoing instructional monitoring and improvement. Moreover, embedding content pedagogy in actual curriculum for training reduces the chance for inaccurate teacher inferencing about how to employ a strategy effectively.

Detracking in Context: How Local Constructions of Ability Complicate Equity-Geared Reform

Background/Context Recent sociocultural studies of detracking describe the ways in which notions of ability—local understandings of students’ intellectual capacities—are at play in these settings, shaping both the politics and the practice of the reform. This study extends this examination into the classrooms of detracking schools. Purpose This article considers the enactment of detracking in the ninth grade social studies classrooms of three public high schools. Through a detailed look at classroom life in racially and socioeconomically distinct public high school settings, it explores how local notions of ability shape the implementation of classroom practices in general and of detracking reform in particular. Setting The research took place in three public comprehensive high schools in a northeastern state with the following student populations: 1) low income and predominantly African American and Latino students; 2) high income and predominantly White students; 3) socioeconomically diverse and predominantly African American and White students. Research Design This study used an interpretive research methodology and a multiple case study design. Data Collection and Analysis Data was collected at each of the three schools over the course of an academic year in the following ways: 1) extensive observations of detracked ninth grade social studies classes; 2) interviews with students and teachers participating in those classes; 3) shadowing of students through the school day; 4) collection of school generated documents. Findings/Results At the low income, majority African American and Latino school, detracking reform was framed by a discourse of deficit that posited all of the school's students as unwaveringly low in ability, and classroom practices provided little opportunity for students to either display or develop competence. In contrast, detracking at the suburban, homogeneous school spurred a creative curriculum targeted to the needs of individual students in the heterogeneous classroom, all of whom were presumed to be bright, motivated and college bound despite varied skills. At the racially and socioeconomically integrated school, a community and school system in which people were highly concerned with issues of equity and diversity, teaching practices in the detracked classroom emphasized flexibility and personalization, providing opportunities for students to examine social and cultural issues in a discussion-centered framework. Students, both within and among the three schools, experienced detracking reform in ways that were distinct and not equally beneficial. Conclusions Translating a structural reform into change that is meaningful for students is a complex endeavor. Effective detracking involves changes at multiple levels: in institutional structures, classroom practices, and teacher and student beliefs about ability.

From the Field: A Proposal for Educating Leaders for Social Justice

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to suggest the structure and content of an educational leadership program whose aim is to prepare principals for social justice work. Research Design: The authors have conceptualized foundational components for a comprehensive principalship program focused on social justice. They assert that educational leaders for social justice must have three goals at the forefront of their efforts: (a) They must raise the academic achievement of all the students in their school, that is, high test scores do matter; (b) they must prepare their students to live as critical citizens in society; and (c) both of these goals can only be achieved when leaders assign students to inclusive, heterogeneous classrooms that provide all students access to a rich and engaging curriculum. The components addressed for this social justice—oriented principalship preparation program include (a) how students should be selected for such a program and (b) an outline of the knowledge and content for educating social justice leaders. The importance of induction/praxis after students graduate from these programs is discussed. Conclusions: The aim of this article is to provoke a discussion in the field and spark faculty to engage in ongoing conversations and thinking about their own programs and to imagine new avenues for future research in this area. Faculty also can use these suggestions as a guide to assess their efforts and to bolster program quality, sensitive to the unique needs and schooling contexts of their particular students.

English

For deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, the emergence of Instant Messaging technology and digital pagers has been perhaps one of the greatest liberating communication technological breakthroughs since the advent of the TTY. Instant Messaging has evolved into an everyday socially compelling, portable, and “real time” communication mode for students. The focus of this paper is on the pedagogical implications of using Instant Messaging technology to promote student learning and on the process of implementing the technology in order to engage deaf and hard-of-hearing students, both in and out of the science classroom. Applications include in-class learning activities (in homogeneous and heterogeneous communication mode classrooms), out-of-class discussion/study groups, “virtual lectures” with content experts in the field, and communication with students while on co-operative work assignments. Perceived benefits to deaf students, deaf and hearing students in an inclusive environment, as well as benefits to teaching faculty are presented. Technological modifications and instructional application protocols (i.e., hardware, software, and logistical considerations) that are required to maximize the student learning experience are also discussed.

Promoting Equity in Mathematics: One Teacher“s Journey

The impact of using a problem-based curriculum in a heterogeneous classroom environment in a pilot program. The author finds tracking does not offer challenges to minority and struggling students. A problem based curriculum provides equity for all students.

Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice: What's Good, What's Bad, and How Can One Be Sure?

Mr. Davis, a professor, advises readers of this article who are practitioners not to trust everything he and his colleagues have to say about schools. Then he explains why and offers helpful tips that will allow teachers and administrators to make their own judgments about what they can profitably apply from educational research. ********** We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood --William James I TEACH at a large research university and deeply appreciate the opportunities I have to help shape the careers of aspiring school leaders and, in some ways, the institution of public education itself. As expected of professors in universities like mine, I have written quite a bit and conducted several research studies that I hope have made a reasonable contribution to my field. But I often wonder how much of what I've written has actually made a difference in the lives of school practitioners. For that matter, I wonder how much of what is thought about and produced by scholars and researchers actually affects the way administrators and teachers behave in schools. And most important of all, I wonder how practitioners learn to judge the quality of research and determine what research to pay attention to and what to ignore. These questions are crucial, especially now that the mandates of No Child Left Behind and the standards and accountability movement are pressuring American public schools to use research-based programs. Feedback from the field suggests that a gap between research and practice persists while bridges between them remain tenuous and unsteady. It appears that comparatively little of what is written and thought about by scholars and policy makers actually has any appreciable impact on classrooms or drives durable systemwide reform efforts. In their acclaimed book on school reform, Tinkering Toward Utopia, Larry Cuban and David Tyack trace the long and often confounding history of reform efforts in American public schools. (1) They argue that, despite decades of reform initiatives and millions of dollars spent in the pursuit of educational innovation, the fundamental tenets of effective educational practice have changed very little. Of course, not all reform efforts have been research-based, and not all good research is lost in the trickledown journey between the halls of academe and Ms. Doe's third-grade classroom. But enough of value is lost to raise suspicions about the relevance of the work of researchers and the vitality of the relationship between researchers and public school practitioners. For decades, public schools in America have been awash in waves of reform that have emerged from a slippery melange of empirical research studies, politically formulated mandates, and locally derived best-practice initiatives. Most have been well intentioned, many have been misguided, and some have come to schools without careful regard for hard evidence or with distorted claims of causality. Unfortunately, some of what has made it into Ms. Doe's classroom may not represent the best research, nor has it necessarily been applied with fidelity to the scientifically supportable findings from which it was derived. A close look at how research findings relating to such topics as heterogeneous classrooms, mainstreaming of special-needs students, social promotion, bilingual education, and instructional methods are actually applied in public school classrooms reveals numerous variations based on local policies and politics, management philosophies, school culture, student characteristics, levels of teachers' skill, and available resources. But today, now that public schools have entered an era of high-stakes accountability and standards-based instruction in which decisions about educational programs and activities are expected to be closely aligned with empirical research and evidentiary data, it can be argued that scholars and practitioners must redouble their efforts to bridge the gap between theory and practice. …

“Chemistry for all, instead of chemistry just for the elite”: Lessons learned from detracked chemistry classrooms

AbstractWithin the already limited literature on instructional practices in detracked classrooms, there are even fewer research‐based studies of detracked science classrooms. This article attempts to address this gap in the research literature, delving into the unique challenges and instructional responses to teaching detracked science. The authors report on a case study of two chemistry teachers' heterogeneous classrooms at a racially diverse, public high school in California, where all students have been required to take chemistry since the school's founding in 1994. The authors highlight the following four beliefs and instructional practices that were instrumental in teachers' successful efforts to teach detracked chemistry classes: (1) teachers' true belief in a developmental conception of ability and intelligence; (2) a focus on an inquiry‐based pedagogical approach to chemistry foregrounding real‐world contexts; (3) a focus on teaching students study skills; and (4) a strong sense of community in the classroom, where students are held responsible for their own and each other's learning. To illustrate each of these findings, the authors select vivid examples from fieldnotes of classroom observations as well as interviews of teachers and students that make clear how teachers enacted and students experienced these elements in chemistry classrooms. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 91:683–709, 2007

A Study of Curriculum Effectiveness in Social Studies

This quasi-experimental study examines the effects on student performance of a Javits-funded curriculum designed to respond to the needs of high-ability students in elementary and middle school social studies. The curriculum, implemented with all students in heterogeneous classrooms, addresses state standards while integrating advanced content, higher level process emphases, and a conceptual orientation. Data collection focuses on student performance in conceptual reasoning, critical thinking, and content learning and on teacher demonstration of specific desired teaching behaviors. Results demonstrate significant and important differences between treatment and comparison groups in the area of content learning, favoring the treatment group; no significant differences are found for the small subsample of gifted students. Subanalyses yield differential results for specific units and schools, potentially indicating issues of treatment fidelity. Contextual challenges and implications of the study are discussed, including issues related to social studies curriculum implementation and differentiation in the current standards-based environment.

The Socioaffective Impact of Acceleration and Ability Grouping

Although the academic gains associated with acceleration and peer ability grouping are well documented, resistance to their use for gifted students continues because of concerns that such practices will cause social or emotional harm to students. Results from the broad research indicate that grade skipping, early school entrance, and early admission to college have socioaffective benefits for gifted students who are selected on the basis of demonstrated academic, social, and emotional maturity, but may be harmful to unselected students who are arbitrarily accelerated on the basis of IQ, achievement, or social maturity. There is little research on the socioaffective effects of peer ability grouping. The limited evidence indicates strong benefits for highly gifted students and possibly for some minority or disadvantaged gifted students. Robust evidence does not exist to support the idea that heterogeneous classroom grouping per se significantly increases the risk for adjustment problems among moderately gifted students. Recommendations for best practice based on the available evidence are presented.

Are Heterogeneous or Homogeneous Groups More Beneficial to Students?

This study investigated the relative benefits to the student of working in homogeneous versus heterogeneous classroom groups. Correlation analysis of 18 desirable outcomes versus 8 personality-based heterogeneity variables reveals that heterogeneity associates with advantages as well as disadvantages. Ways in which group composition might be customized to benefit students with particular needs or to emphasize particular goals are described, along with their potential downsides.

Teaching Teachers to Build Equitable Classrooms

Whether they are the outcome of global immigration trends, residential living patterns, or educational reform efforts such as detracking, heterogeneous classrooms pose considerable pedagogical challenges for educators. This article describes a systemic approach to restructuring the classroom with the goal of establishing and maintaining an equitable environment by creating curriculum, instruction, and assessments deliberately and purposefully to address the range of previous academic achievement and academic skills, the linguistic variability, and the intellectual diversity found in heterogeneous classrooms. A reconceptualization of intellectual competence, academic ability, or just plain being smart is at the core of teachers' efforts to build equitable classrooms. In practice, to narrow the achievement gap and to build equitable classrooms, teachers need to work toward equal-status, balanced interaction among students working together in small learning groups. The article also details the necessary conditions for teachers to learn and to practice equitable pedagogy.

Intellectual Role Taking: Supporting Discussion in Heterogeneous Elementary Science Classes

One of the major challenges of teaching whole class lessons in heterogeneous classrooms rests in finding ways to engage all participants in the conversation. Intellectual role taking, an approach developed and studied in the teaching of elementary science and history lessons, provides one possibility for handling this perennial pedagogical dilemma. Intellectual role taking builds on 2 wellknown and well-studied pedagogical approaches —complex instruction (Cohen, 1984, 1994) and reciprocal teaching (RT; Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Complex instruction provided a foundation for small group work time and RT informed the development of intellectual roles to be used during small group time and whole class discussions. This article provides a detailed description of the approach, highlighting the school contexts and research literatures that informed its development. Examples from elementary science lessons are included and suggestions for using it in elementary history lessons are discussed.

Teacher Actions to Maximize Mathematics Learning Opportunities in Heterogeneous Classrooms

The basic unit of school based mathematics teaching is the lesson. This article is a contribution to understanding teacher actions that facilitate successful lessons, defined as those that engage all students, especially those who may sometimes feel alienated from mathematics and schooling, in productive and successful mathematical thinking and learning. An underlying assumption is that lessons can seek to build a sense in the students that their experience has elements in common with the rest of the class and that this can be done through attention to particular aspects of the mathematical and socio-mathematical goals. We examine three teacher actions that address the mathematical goals: using open-ended tasks, preparing prompts to support students experiencing difficulty, and posing extension tasks to students who finish the set tasks quickly; as well as actions that address the socio-mathematical goals by making classroom processes explicit. To illustrate and elaborate these actions, we describe a particular lesson taught to a heterogeneous upper primary (age 11–12) class.

A Rationale for Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom

This article articulates what might be called a value-based argument, a philosophical statement, one that emphasizes principles and perspectives that have remained precious to the author throughout 40 years in the field of education. It is the author's perspective on research and the school experience rather than a review of the research literature and, as such, strongly reflects a point of view. The author argues that heterogeneous classrooms and differentiated instruction must form the core of the classroom experience for students in a democracy that works.

The case for individualizing behavior management approaches in inclusive classrooms

In today's heterogeneous classrooms, one-method-fitsall- students behavior management approaches are ineffective and often harmful. To succeed with all of their students, teachers should determine whether students have emotional disorders, conduct/behavior disorders, robust male-typical behavior patterns, culturally influenced behavior, learning problems or disabilities and so on, and select and implement behavior management techniques that are particularlyappropriate for each group.

The effects of metacognitive training versus worked-out examples on students' mathematical reasoning.

The present study is rooted in a cognitive-metacognitive approach. The study examines two ways to structure group interaction: one is based on worked-out examples (WE) and the other on metacognitive training (MT). Both methods were implemented in cooperative settings, and both guided students to focus on the problem's essential parts and on appropriate problem-solving strategies. The aim of the present study is twofold: (a) to investigate the effects of metacognitive training versus worked-out examples on students' mathematical reasoning and mathematical communication; and (b) to compare the long-term effects of the two methods on students' mathematical achievement. The study was conducted in two academic years. Participants for the first year of the study were 122 eighth-grade Israeli students who studied algebra in five heterogeneous classrooms with no tracking. In addition, problem-solving behaviours of eight groups (N = 32) were videotaped and analysed. A year later, when these participants were ninth graders, they were re-examined using the same test as the one administered in eighth grade. Three measures were used to assess students' mathematical achievement: a pretest, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test. ANOVA was carried out on the post-test scores with respect to the following criteria: verbal explanations, algebraic representations and algebraic solution. In addition, chi-square and Mann-Whitney procedures were used to analyse cooperative, cognitive, and metacognitive behaviours. Within cooperative settings, students who were exposed to metacognitive training outperformed students who were exposed to worked-out examples on both the immediate and delayed post-tests. In particular, the differences between the two conditions were observed on students' ability to explain their mathematical reasoning during the discourse and in writing. Lower achievers gained more under the MT than under WE condition. The findings indicate that the kind of task and the way group interaction is structured are two important variables in implementing cooperative learning, each of which is likely to have different effects on mathematical communication and achievement outcomes.

Social Disadvantage and Students' Perceived Injustice in Socially Integrated Schools in Israel

In this study we explored “objective” and attributed explanations of perceived injustice (PI) with respect to instrumental and relational rewards among junior high school students. Despite the socially heterogeneous school and classroom setting, PI found was relatively modest and differentiated by domain. It was more effectively accounted for by cognitive ability than by socioeconomic status, while the effect of ethnic extraction was very small. PI was attributed much less to social background than to teacher and individual factors with regards to instrumental rewards, and to teacher and peer behavior concerning relational rewards. To explain these findings we have suggested the egalitarian climate of the school and its success in bringing students to comply with the meritocratic norm, the disadvantaged students' rational consideration of the positive contribution of the integrated school to their life chances, and the diminishing ethnic identification among the younger strata of the Israeli society.

Coteaching for Content Understanding: A Schoolwide Model

This article describes a promising form of professional collaboration: coteaching between a content area teacher and a special education teacher. In an investigation of a schoolwide coteaching model in an urban middle school that places students with disabilities in heterogeneous classrooms, researchers interviewed key school leaders and made detailed observations of coteaching. The study found that although content teachers conduct more of the instruction and special education teachers provide more individualized assistance, both use a full range of instructional roles. Essential to the success of coteaching partnerships were collaborative school structures, equal status rules for teachers, a commitment to all students' learning, and strong content knowledge.

A comparison study of student attitudes and perceptions in homogeneous and heterogeneous classrooms

Despite arguments advocating mainstreaming and heterogeneous grouping as the best option for most, if not all students, the findings of this study suggest that homogeneous classes may serve the needs of academically talented and gifted students without detrimental effects to other students served in heterogeneous classrooms. The researcher compared a number of different measures for fifth and eighth grade students in both types of classrooms. These measures included student academic achievement as well as students’ perceptions of themselves as learners, of their school experience, and of their teachers’ behaviors and attitudes. Anticipated differences in academic achievement, consistent with initial placement criteria, were found. Statistically significant differences were identified for students’ perceptions of teachers’ behaviors and attitudes, but the anticipated differences in students’ attitudes towards themselves and their school experiences were not present.

Glimpses of a highly gifted child in a heterogeneous classroom

This article reports on the activities and interactions of a highly gifted 9‐year‐old boy as he functioned in a fifth grade classroom with 28 other students of mixed ability levels. His asynchronous development, with intellectual ability exceeding social and emotional development, created difficulties for him in the school setting. School modifications took little account of affective needs and resulted in limited success in the cognitive area despite considerable efforts on the part of staff. Suggestions are offered for helping highly gifted students achieve greater academic and social success when they are placed in heterogeneous settings.