Exploring Developmentally Appropriate Practice

1
Exploring Developmentally Appropriate Practice

• Multiage Groupings

2
The following presentation and versions of it was
used to provide information about the multiage
concept to staff and parent groups throughout
Battle River School Division. It provides the
key basic concepts about multiage as well as some
of the corresponding research that supports the
multiage rationale.
3
Successful Learning Experiences

• Teachers, researchers, and parents report the
  same findings about learning in that learning
  takes place when students
• Want to learn and need to learn.
• Realize what they have learned.
• Enjoy what they are doing.
• Can relate what they are doing to their total
  experience.
• Are able to take risks.

4

• Feel a sense of support.
• Talk about their new knowledge with others.
• Feel good about themselves.
• Have opportunities to work with others.
• Get to make some decisions.
• Have a chance to touch, smell, hear, feel and
  think.

5
What is Multiage?

• the practice of grouping children of different
  chronological ages with a wide range of abilities
  in the same classroom. Students progress
  academically and socially over the course of two
  or more years.

6
Rationale for Multiage

• Chronological age and mental age do not always
  correspond.

7
Children are able to work at different
developmental levels without obvious remediation,
thus avoiding the social or emotional damage
typically caused by retention. Age and
achievement differences are more readily accepted
as normal by children.
Children need self-esteem to develop their
individual potential. The way they feel about
themselves is related to their ability to learn.
The classroom climate and the nature of school
work contribute directly to the way students feel
about themselves. (Bruner 1960)
8
When students stay with their teacher for more
than one year there is greater opportunity for
continuity of learning.
Children gain knowledge by creating
relationships. (Caine and Caine 1991) Teachers in
multiage classrooms report saving hours of
instructional time at the beginning of the year
because a large number of students are already
familiar with routines and are able to model them
to new students. (Gaustad 1992)
9
The increasing diversity of contemporary society
is more easily accommodated by multiage groupings.
Children develop many ways of understanding the
world. We now recognize that they are using many
different kinds of intelligences as they describe
what and how they think, feel, or do. As we come
to understand more about human potential we
realize the need to provide a variety of
opportunities for people to represent what they
know in order to gain a richer view of
learning. (Gardner 1995)
10
Multiage groupings are more in keeping with the
way children in naturalistic settings group
themselves for play and projects.
Children learn through a process of play. It is
a natural universal learning activity of children
and adults. It plays a significant role in a
childs development and learning and must be
incorporated on a daily basis in the primary
years alongside project work and systematic
instruction. (Katz and Chard 1991)
11
Multiage instructional strategies are focused on
a continuum of learning from simple to more
complex material.
Children strive to make sense of their world
based on what they have already learned,
experienced, and constructed. (Donaldson 1978,
Piaget 1977, Wells 1986)
12
There is an emphasis in multiage groupings on
progression at the students own rate.
Children learn best in an environment that
encourages risk taking and from their mistakes.
(Goodman 1986, Smith 1984) Educators have moved
beyond thinking that learning is rote
memorization. (Cambourne 1988)
13
Multiage instructional strategies create learning
environments where students are active learners.
Children learn through collaboration with others.
Social, emotional, and intellectual development
is fostered through interaction with others. All
significant development and learning occurs in
the context of social interaction. (Vigotsky
1978, Wells 1986) Children are not passive
observers of the world they inhabit. They dont
want to watch someone else build the castle they
want to get their hands on the Legos and build
one themselves. (Barker 2003)
14
Multiage groupings can lead to more positive
student attitudes and behavior, with no loss of
academic achievement.
In 57 studies of students academic achievement
between 1967 and 1990 based on standardized
achievement tests, 91 indicated that for all
comparisons the non-graded (multiage) groups
performed better (58) or as well as (33) the
graded groups on measures of academic
achievement. (Barbara Nelson Pavan
1992) Students in schools with high
implementation of non-gradedness (multiage) had
more positive attitudes toward school and better
self-concepts than those in schools with low
implementation. (Barbara Nelson Pavan 1992)
15
The Paradigm Shifts

• From a curriculum centered approach to a student
  learning centered approach.
• From time being the constant in schooling to
  learning being the constant.

16
The Premise

• Learning is most relevant when it is approached
  on a continuum and proceeds according to student
  need.

17
Attributes Embedded in the Multiage Model

• Multiage and Mixed-Ability Grouping Within the
  multiage classroom or program, there is an
  absence of grade levels and related labels.
  Opportunities exist for each child to interact
  with children of varying backgrounds, abilities,
  interests, personalities and ages.
• Flexible Grouping Patterns for Learning Within
  a typical multiage classroom, children work in
  various grouping patterns as individuals,
  pairs, triads, small groups, large groups, or
  whole class. Such short-term groupings are based
  on interest, needs, learning style, problem
  solving, skill, instruction, and reinforcement.
  In this approach to grouping for learning, the
  teachers choose the grouping strategy that is
  most appropriate for the learning situation and
  facilitates learning for each individual child.

18

• Continuous Progress Children learn along a
  continuum they move from easier to more
  difficult material and from simple to more
  complex strategies at their own pace, making
  continuous progress rather than being promoted on
  a year or required to wait until the next school
  year to move forward in the curriculum. It is
  success oriented, avoiding the problems
  associated with retention.
• Qualitative Reporting Progress is related in
  terms of continuous growth and development of the
  whole child without comparison to others.
  Qualitative reporting is based on how well
  children meet developmental and educational
  standards. These reports can be provided in a
  variety of formats, such as formal progress
  reports, portfolios, developmental checklists,
  parent-teacher conferences, anecdotal records,
  and videotapes.

19
Key Guiding Questions

• What is education for?
• What kind of human beings and what kind of
  society do we want to produce?
• What methods of instruction and classroom
  organization as well as what subject matter do we
  need to produce these results?
• What opportunities do we dare not miss?

20
Advantages of Multiage Groupings

• Students
• Sense of community/family.
• Offers a natural learning situation family and
  society are multi-aged.
• Improved ability to relate to different age
  groups.
• Focus on the individual child.
• Work that meets individual needs, needed skill vs
  grade level skill.
• The learning process is important.
• Children encouraged to be independent thinkers.
• Flexible learning environment with a wide variety
  of learning styles and ages together over
  extended time.
• Allows students to teach each other some of the
  time.
• Self concept often improves because the fact that
  children learn at different rates is less
  obvious.
• Enhances the possibility of socialization as
  older children learn to work with and respect
  younger students and younger students gain
  maturity from interacting with older colleagues.
• Leadership opportunities for all students at an
  early age.
• Opportunity for shy reserved child to become
  increasingly more self reliant.
• Respect for all ages.
• There is a sense of security when students stay
  with the same teacher for more than one year.

21

• Teachers
• Various ages and experiences enhance and enrich
  the classroom.
• Ability to focus on the learner and not just the
  curriculum.
• Can concentrate on the process not just the
  product.
• Get to know students and parents better and more
  quickly.
• Time required in the start up can be reduced if
  half or more of the class is returning for
  another year.
• Teachers are better acquainted with students and
  more aware of individual development and rates of
  progress. More accurate diagnosis and evaluation
  of student progress.
• Older children act as models for younger ones.
• Continuous records are meaningful and long term
  planning is effective.
• Children become increasingly independent as
  learners.

22

• Parents
• Get to know childs teacher well and can work
  closely with them over a longer period of time.
• Children are more often relaxed and happy about
  school.
• Continuous model means success rather than
  failure.
• Children are less worried about moving to a new
  teacher they already know.
• Small group and individual instruction can be
  accommodated.
• School
• Discipline problems can be reduced. The presence
  of older/younger children can have a stabilizing
  influence. Improved ability in relating to
  others. More consistency in expectations and
  consequences.
• Initiates a more cooperative environment.
• Fewer changes of classes, teacher, and demands
  made by new requirements and different
  procedures.
• Less fragmentation of curriculum when a
  continuous approach is taken.

23
Disadvantages

• Working continuously to provide instruction that
  meets a variety of learning styles and needs is
  always more challenging than asking students to
  complete a common task.
• The possibility that personality clashes could
  prevent a lasting positive relationship.
• Perception that older/brighter students will not
  be stretched and that weaker students will
  struggle.
• The wide range of resources needed to meet the
  needs of the classroom.
• Assessment needs to be ongoing and individual.