Results and discussion Melissa
المؤلف:
Steve Thornton & Sue Wilson
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P135-C13
2025-06-26
508
Results and discussion Melissa
In thinking about an important issue in mathematics education (Question 3), Melissa reflected on her experiences with, and reading about, setting students based on their perceived ability levels in mathematics. She discussed the pros and cons, noting that setting students into ability groups made life easier for the teacher, but asked whether the students were really being provided with differentiated learning opportunities, or whether they were just being given more (or less) of the same at a faster or slower pace.
Melissa described how, in teaching fractions to a year 7 class, her supervising teacher had asked her to split the class into three groups based on results in a pre-test. On reflection she felt that, while they had worked diligently through the work assigned, the most advanced students had not been challenged in any significant way, and that, in general, the lowest achieving students remained the lowest achievers. However one student who had been placed in the lowest achieving group was able to complete the post-test with only one error. This was exciting for both the student and his teacher, who had not expected such a result.
Melissa commented on the immense volume of literature on ability grouping, and asked why the practice continued to be widespread when there was significant evidence of negative social impact and limited academic impact. She expressed her disappointment that teachers at the school where she was teaching used the expression "Zoo" class to describe the lowest achieving group, saying that the grouping practice tended to concentrate students with behavioral problems into the one group. However she also recognized that, for one student in her year 7 class, being given work at a level with which he felt comfortable had completely changed his attitude towards mathematics, and she wondered if such a change would have taken place had the students been taught as a whole class. Melissa concluded by saying "I haven't got an answer, I'm still sitting on the fence".
As noted by my co-interviewer these, and most of the other students in the group, had thought deeply about their teaching, about what they had read and talked about in their academic studies, and about how it related to their practical experience. They did not provide glib answers, but saw knowledge of teaching as developing through reflection over a long period of time. Melissa noted that "by putting it all together (for the interview) it's touched on layers of other issues". The task built connections between the pre-service teachers' understandings of theory from their university studies and their practical experiences during professional experience in order to support the development of professional identity.
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