Disengaged Students and Instructional Group

Theory

Various research studies have been completed for group work, its efficacy, and its limitations. My research is trying to determine how to group students who tend to be disengaged and low achievers. Collaborative learning could really help struggling students learn but many times struggling students do not benefit and do not gain anything because they are disengaged. Another important consequence of students who do not participate appropriately to the group activities is that even the other students in the group perform at a much lower academic level. The high achievers learn less and the improvement for the strugglers is minimal or even non-existent. 

Homogeneous or ability groups versus heterogeneous or mixed-ability groups: what is the best strategy to engage the disengaged and/or the struggling student(s)?

What research states:

·     “Ability group occurs when teachers place students with similar academic abilities in instructional groups. To make the ability group placement, teachers utilize a student’s previous year’s report card … and/or their own classroom observations of the student’s progress and ability” (Clark-Ibanez, 2005: 57).

·      The benefit “behind ability groups is that students learn better with peers at the same academic level and that teacher can better teach students in smaller groups of similarly able students” (Clark-Ibanez, 2005:58).

·     “However, research finds that the practice of ability grouping creates and reinforces inequalities in the classroom” (Clark-Ibanez, 2005:58).

·     “Placements lead to more or less privileges and rewards” 

·     “Placement in lower ability groups often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a cycle of low expectations, fewer opportunities, and poor academic performance” (Oakes and Lipton, 1999).

·     “The impact of structured grouping systems (homogeneous groups) on the social and personal outcomes … has been well documented with lower attaining pupils typically becoming stigmatized, disaffected, and alienated from school” (Hallam and Ireson, 2007: 27).

·     “…at secondary level the majority of pupils report preferring ability grouping … the reason they give is that ability groups enables work to be set at an appropriate level (Hallam and Ireson, 2006).

·     “Given the limitations of ability and mixed-ability groups, perhaps we should explore other systems which offer more flexibility and enable students to progress … at a pace which they find facilitates their understanding” (Hallam and Ireson, 2007: 41).

·     Marzano suggests using ability groups sparingly; he would group students according to interests, alphabetically, or even randomly (p. 89).

·     Marzano suggests three types of possible grouping: 

Ø Informal – pair share or turn-to-your-neighbor

Ø Formal – for completing academic assignments; groups may last for several days; roles should be assigned too

Ø Base groups – long-term groups to provide support throughout a semester or an academic year (p.89-90).

What should the teacher do with the disengaged students?

·     “Collaborative learning offers the opportunities to work with students’ abilities, engage learning, and provide access to literacy materials” (Casey, 2008: 284).

·     During collaborative learning, students can be pulled for explicit instruction (Casey, 2008: 284).

·     Collaborative groups are built around active learning events based on student-selected interest (Casey, 2008: 285).

·     Teacher should guide the process by deciding areas of inquiry available for students (Casey, 2008: 285).

·     Central to students’ investigations are multiple texts that may include fiction, magazines, Internet, videos, photographs, and conversations with experts to guide their learning (Casey, 2008: 285).

·     Organize group around themes or shared areas of inquiry (Casey, 2008: 285).

·     Maintain consistency because struggling students need it (Casey, 2008: 288).

·     Struggling students resist participating because students are required to be active constructors of meaning (Casey, 2008: 289).

·     Teacher should be present and actively participate to the group work (Casey, 2008: 290).

·     Once students are confortable, teacher should introduce roles and gradually move students to being more independent and get ownership of literacy events (Casey, 2008: 290).

·     To better engage disengaged students, teacher has to assign very concrete tasks (Casey, 2008: 290).

Plan addressing disengaged students in instructional groups:

·     Always build groups around learning events that are based on student-selected interests and/or choices (theme, reading materials, reading excerpts, activities, analysis of preferred literary device, or graphing, or journaling, or annotating, or analyzing through student-chosen art/multiple intelligence – drawing, or using music to convey analysis, or acting, or creative writing); [UdL] 

·     Each group may have only three or four students with mixed abilities 

·     Teacher monitors initial group activities 

·     Once teacher identifies disengaged student(s), teacher can:

1.    Join the group and actively participate to the group work

OR

2.    Work one-on-one with the disengaged student(s) until student(s) feel(s) confortable and can collaborate with the other students in the group

OR

3.    Lead the group learning activities (what each students in the group should do), or even instruct, facilitate the entire group work

OR

4.    Assign a very concrete task to each student even the engaged ones to help the disengaged student(s) feel(s) confortable (student could decide to use his/her art to complete the assigned task)

·     Rotating groups is another possibility to see whether the disengaged student(s) feel(s) more confortable with some peers than others

·     Once the disengaged student(s) start(s) collaborating, introduce student-selected roles

·     Once disengaged student(s) become(s) collaborative, teacher can create Marzano’s formal groups that can last for some days or several days with assigned roles.

·     If the formal groups prove successful even for the disengaged student(s), teacher can introduce Marzano’s base groups that are long-term and could even cover an entire unit. 

References

Casey, Heather. (2008). Engaging the Disengaged: Using Learning Clubs to Motivate Struggling Adolescent Readers and Writers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.52(4), 284-294.

Clark-Ibanez, Marisol. (2005). Making Meaning of Ability Grouping in Two Urban School. International Review of Modern Sociology. 31(1), 57-79.

Marzano, R. J., D.J. Pickering, J. E. Pollock. (2001). Classroom Instruction the Works. Alexandria: ASCD.

Oakes, Jeannie and Martin Lipton. (1999). Teaching To Change The World. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill College.

Hallam, Susan and Judith Ireson. (2007). Secondary School Pupils’ Satisfaction with Their Ability Grouping Placements. British Educational Research Journal.33 (1), 27-45.