Our recent assignment for class asked us to view the blogs of our group members and provide feedback on what we see. My shortcomings were definitely present when viewing and critiquing the work of my group members. But seeing my short comings and using the suggestions from my group members, I am thankful for their support and suggestions. I have done a lot of work tonight as far as my data goes and several conclusions are surfacing as I really dig deep into what I have collected so far. I had planned to finish my research this week because of fall break coming up. I thought that maybe I was finished after completing the last few interviews but there is one more area that I want to focus on to help me answer my question. I will visit both classes tomorrow to observe interruptions in each of the classes. My plan is to hopefully gain some type of conclusion in regards to the negative effects of ability grouping and how that grouping can cause a variety of behavior problems. These new ideas come from my personal experiences with ability grouping and how challenging it can be to teach a group of students where there are not enough leaders or too many leaders. I hope that my findings reveal that this type of grouping can have a negative effect on the behavior of students. I always remember this being such a struggle when I taught students who were ability grouped.
I finished analyzing my MAP data from 10 students that I have chosen to focus on for various reasons which will be laid out in my findings presentation. I chose five students from the group of struggling readers and five students from the group of advanced readers. Based on student percentiles over the course of fourth grade (Fall, Winter, and Spring) and the beginning of fifth, I can conclude that students who are considered struggling readers and were in the struggling reading class in fourth and fifth showed a negative growth from the beginning of fourth to the beginning of fifth. The students who were advanced readers and were grouped accordingly in both fourth and fifth grade showed positive growth from the beginning of fourth to the beginning of fifth. I can conclude that high readers benefit from this type of grouping and low readers do not benefit from this grouping. I feel confident about this finding and its evident, based on this data, that ability grouping negatively effects low readers.
This information from the MAP data is what I expected but the findings from my interviews and surveys contradicts this theory. I'm anxious to analyze my further findings and determine a final conclusion.
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