Cohen Chapter 5 Page 7
“The mix in any single group does not have to represent the proportion of minority students or gender balance in your class. Mechanically insuring that each group has equal numbers of males and females or one or two students of color has the disadvantage of making the basis of your decision clear to the students. They will tend to focus on their fellow members as representatives of their race or gender and are much less likely to respond to them as individual persons.” I thought this method of dividing the class into groups seemed like a very unusual way for a teacher to think. Most of the time when my teacher or I divide up the children into partners or groups it is random (we draw sticks), however, sometimes we use ability level to divide the students. For example, after the DRA tests were complete, we divided the class into reading groups according to their reading level. Even though the students in the highest group are sometimes silly together because they are good friends, we left the groups according to their reading levels because in my teacher’s experience this has been the most successful method for her classrooms. For our math groups, we have the class divided randomly in their groups according to their names. We did not look at race or gender when dividing the groups, however we kept some students separated because of problems within the first few weeks. After a few weeks of math workshops we are going to re-divide the math groups according to skill level.
I agree with Cohen’s statement that it is not a good idea to divide groups based solely on gender or race, however in the first grade setting I do not think his reasoning behind the statement is accurate. In our class, the only time we have talked about race was when one boy stated “my skin is darker than your skin so I am going to use a darker crayon”. The other boy nodded in agreement, and both boys continued to color. I do not feel first graders would see each other as representative of an entire race or gender, however this may easily happen in older grades.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteMy classroom groups are also divided by skill levels. We also looked at DWA and MLPP scored to create our literacy and guided reading groups. We do not do too many math groups but when we do, we typically pair or group children based upon their learning styles and behavior. We look at the oral language and skill level of each child in that particular subject to create out groups. We also take into account which students work well together and which ones do not. Unlike your classroom that often chooses groups at random, my CT’s groups are meticulously chosen prior to the activity. Race or gender is rarely, if ever, taken into account. I have so much ethnic diversity in my class that I do not think it would be possible to divide children with race or gender taken into consideration. It is an interesting perspective to read about and it was informative to know how other teachers group children. I enjoy reading about these types of teaching strategies because I think it is really beneficial to know the different ways you can group children together.
I completely agree with you. I do not believe that learners should be broken up by race, gender, or ethnicity. I believe that the most effective groups are those in which the dynamics of the group are set up in such a way that the learners work successfully together, whether it be by personality, ability, etc. I do find it interesting how Cohen talked about how people may divide learners up by race or gender. I might see how they might think that that is relevant, if the objective was for multiple perspectives, for example, for a social studies unit on cultures, but I do not see how it is relevant in any other way. I totally agree with Cohen, that learners might start to see each other as representatives for their race/gender. The only thing that I can think of is for the purpose of different perspectives. However, on that same note, I think that all learners come with a specific perspective so I do not see the need to blatantly choose to separate students by race and/or gender. Furthermore, I have read that it is actually beneficial sometimes to place learners of the same ethnicity together, especially if they are ELL learners, so that they are able to work together in their native language, and get the most out of the lesson. Thus, I agree with you that I believe there are other methods that are better to separate learners. However, I am still undecided about what that method is. So often ability level is chosen as the way to separate learners, however, I have discovered that I am not so sure if that works the best anymore. I was the one placed in charge of putting my learners at specific tables and I did it based on personality, skill level, and amount of classroom stamina. What I have found, is that the tables work really well together. Thus, I feel like maybe it is a combination of all of the factors. I have seen just skill level before and sometimes I have seen that not work for the best of all the learners. Thus, I am still uncertain as to what I truly believe.
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