[IAEP] Constructionism

[Costello, Rob R]

> I have some first hand evidence that mixed age classes do not always
> work  particularly well.

Yes, my own idea is that in itself, tends to make things worse, at least
in maths

ie in a maths class, there may be a spread of abilities in a group of 14
year olds, when ranked by some testing, of say 5 years, (ie some are 2
or 3 three years below the average, some 2 or 3 years above) 

(leaving aside the question of what should be tested and how, I think
many teachers would observe that the spread of abilities in many classes
is something like this - just as some kids start school already reading,
while some of their peers have evidently never handled a book)

Mixing in another year level or two doesn't help address this - it makes
it worse - you now have 7 years of developmental spread - which tends to
make the teaching more difficult, not less, at least in subjects like
maths 

That is, unless the cross age structure is used to group kids at stage
related, rather than age related, levels - kids are grouped by where
they are up to, rather than just the fact of being 14 

Need to keep the grouping dynamic so its not seen as implicit streaming
- and indeed the kids may have varying skills in the sub-topics- even
within a "subject" like maths different kids will have different skills
in different areas - like handling number questions as opposed to
spatial ones etc - so rework the groups often out of a larger pool - 

even get the kids to self assess when they to go to the next workshop on
a particular topic - with adult supervision of the process

Its what we're trying to do in the state system in our country town -
use more flexible learning communities rather than age related classes
to help kids and teachers work more in the "zone of proximal
development" 
 

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