Academic performance levels in classes comprised of mixed-ability students as well as those results in classes where advanced placement courses are taught are spotlighted.
The article discusses low, medium and high achievers, and the conclusions reached are quite interesting.
Are Top Students Getting Short Shrift? includes several essays about mixing high achieving students with low achievers in the same classroom. Here's what one "expert" had to say:
"RAND Corporation scholars have previously determined that low-achieving students benefit when placed in mixed-ability classrooms (faring about five percentage points better than those placed in lower-track classes) but that high-achievers fared six percentage points worse in such general classes.
Teachers tend to focus on the middle of the pack. Or, more typically of late, on the least proficient students.
In the past decade, would-be reformers have focused relentlessly on closing “achievement gaps,” leaving advanced students to fend for themselves. The Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless has reported that, while the nation’s lowest-achieving students made significant gains in reading and math between 2000 and 2007, the progress by top students was “anemic.” And it’s not as if we can afford to coast. Just 6 percent of U.S. eighth graders scored “advanced” on the 2007 international math and science assessment, while more than a dozen nations fared at least twice as well."
However, other studies make the case that most students are capable of performing at high levels. When conditions are right and such things as cash incentives, time on task, and solid instructional support are present, previously "average" students will often excel.
Thus, the number of students taking and passing A.P. classes increases dramatically when students and teachers are motivated to achieve high scores.
Tellingly, the use of both pupil and teacher incentives at one tough urban school had the following effect:
"Forty-six students enrolled in Mr. Nystrom’s class in 2009, up from 12 the year before, of whom six had earned qualifying scores of at least 3 out of 5. Of the 46 students, 22 earned qualifying scores on exams in May 2010.
Last fall, enrollment surged to 61 students. Forty-three of those passed the exam, and 15, or 25 percent, got the top score. Worldwide, 13 percent of the 143,000 people who took the statistics exam got 5’s this year.
Thirty-one low-income students from Mr. Nystrom’s class passed the exam, more than at any other high school in Massachusetts."
What all this says clearly, at least to me, is that given the right set of circumstances, motivated students and teachers will perform at levels much higher than previously believed possible. The "trick" is to openly encourage and reward students and good teachers to set and reach high performance goals. It's really that simple. Be unrealistic!
My own view has long been that we essentially begin as 'C' Students, and then some of us will work hard to get an 'A' while others will accept a 'C' or even lower grade.
Stated differently, it's what we set out or expect to achieve that matters most. When our goals and expectations are high, and there is adequate outside support to help us reach them, we'll more often than not achieve the "impossible."
This is known as the Pygmalion effect, or the unusually high performance levels reached when others place great expectations on us to excel. Kind of an 'if you can dream it, you can do it' approach to life.
Accordingly, whether low or high expectations are placed on the student by his teacher, classmates, coach, teammates, parents or interested others, the student will tend to fulfill those outsider expectations. The expectations of others, high or low, good or bad, often become a self-fulfilling prophecy, in other words.
To repeat, when high expectations are placed on us, we tend to perform at a level which matches those high expectations. Unfortunately, the low expectations formula works equally well. So the positive or negative expectations of coaches, teachers and parents correlate strongly to student or player performance.
Simply put, motivation, incentivization and expectation, combined with purposeful instruction and guidance, generally represent the difference between success and failure.
Thanks. Bob.
No comments:
Post a Comment