How would you summarize the research on tracking/heterogeneous grouping? What did you think of the main article we read? Are you in favor of tracking or against it? Why?
The research we read seems to hinge on three major points: tracking is detrimental to minority and low income students, detracking, with built in support in classrooms, schools, and communities can help formerly tracked students succeed in a detracked academic setting, and higher achieving, formerly tracked, students are not challeneged enough in detracked classrooms and lose learning opportunities. I find all of the aforementioned points compelling. I do believe that tracking manufactures failing students. There appears to be a long held assumption in education that some kids "just can't get it", and somehow, it's our job, as teachers, to accept that idea and "do the best we can with them." From the first minute I sat in an Early College classroom, I knew that idea was preposterous. It's an illusion that educators have bought into to make their jobs easier and console their consciences. It's wrong to pigeonhole children from Kindergarten, sometimes Pre-K, into a group based on how smart one or two teachers thinks they are! It's almost impossible to escape that kind of judgement. Tracking is just wrong.
However, students continue to be tracked and I am faced with teaching students who've been so beaten up by the system that they have so little confidence in their own abilities that they are afraid to answer any question on their own because they are terrified of being wrong. (I've seen dozens of kids like this.) How can I offset the effects of tracking on my students, who will enter my classroom after being tracked for 9 or 10 years? Especially in an English classroom, where kids make it to 11th grade and CANNOT READ and have no support! I have read a lot of interesting ideas, but I still don't have a concrete answer.
I think we are dealing with a couple different issues here. The first is whether tracking is fair. In the setting of a public school, it absolutely is not. All parents pay about an equal amount of taxes, especially within a certain district, and to have one child receive a higher quality of education than another (as research has shown the lower tracked kids receive) is undemocratic.
The second issue is whether it works. This one seems to be a mixed bag. If you are in the lower track, you will be befitted tremendously by de-tracking. If you are in the high track, it will not affect you as much. Some research has shown that high track students benefit through life lesson from working with lower tracked students and maybe slightly better grades, but the main beneficiary is those who were low tracks.
I am in favor of de-tracking, especially in the public setting, but I have some concerns. I question whether it is truly possible to de-track a school -especially a high school. Though each individual classroom may be de-tracked, the school as a whole will not be so long as AP and college credit courses are offered. My senior year of high school there were two maths, Calculus and Algebra III. Because I had less than an A average in Algebra II, I was unable to choose Calc (not that I would have!)
Is this not a form of tracking? Putting all the kids who are bad at the subject in the same class together? It would not have mattered how smart the person I was paired with was, the class was full of people who hated math and were ready to be done with it just like me! I guess my answer would be that tracking should definitely not exist during lower and middle school, and then it might have to (in the form of different AP and non-AP classes) in high school.
I had a similar thought, Lee, while reading these articles. Is is not tracking the way some systems pigeon hole students into vocational, college, or remedial course work? I understand tracking in the way it is described in the articles- students being grouped together based on perceived intellectual abilities. It is easy to spot students and there specific tracks- in this county, anyway. I also think, as some research shows, these students are very aware of the situation. All of the evidence leads me to believe that tracking ultimately is not a good practice. But as Christy pointed out, the research that shows that de-tracked classes aren't challenging some students and that they are losing out on education is also compelling. Art Classes, like Social Studies Classes are also unique learning environments. As I was creating the list of ideas I had for infusing cultural capital lessons in to art lessons it all clicked. Art is all about interaction of ideas and human interactions. It is a content that lends it self well to the practice of de-tracking. There are many issues at play in all of the research and findings. The reality of de-tracking schools systems involves a major shift in ideological belief of entire communities at all levels. This will take time. I think if it is forced it could at some points, and as research shows could be met with much resistance. It has to begin in our classrooms and I think that as our students catch one they will begin to take it home with them, hopefully.
Students are stuck in tracks and sometimes that can raise a negative impact on their learning. It's basically saying that if you are on a career tech track that you are not as prepared or able to go to college as a college prep student. As to whether tracking is fair or not, I don't think that everyone benefits from tracking, but I must recognize that I was a product of tracking. I was in all honors and AP classes my senior year of high school. I know that I did well, but at the same time, I was the one that had to recognize that I was on a higher track than I should be, not the teachers. I decided not to take the AP English course and remained on the honors route. Looking back, I could fall into what Christy mentioned third. I was formerly tracked and was not challenged nearly enough. Placing students in a class that have not done well historically is not the best way to advance their learning. They need assistance and ideas from the students that are more advanced. I agree with what Lee mentioned about the students maybe needing tracking early on, and then use it in later schooling, but at the same time, the younger years are developmental years that influence later learning. It would be interesting to see this put into action.
-Tracking to me seems like a terrible idea. First off you are profiling students, and usually students never lose this profile that has been assigned to them at a young age. Tracking hurts all students learning, especially those in the lower track. When placed in the track, they are seen as not as smart and these are the students who are not encouraged to succeed in life. The those in the higher track do seem to benefit more from tracking but not much more. One thing that caught my attention was that when students in the higher track are de-tracked they suffer, because they are not challenged; so how can we challenge these students without leaving those who were in lower track behind once they have been de-tracked? How do we make de-tracking fair for everyone, that was once tracked? I know that my high school tracked in a way that you could graduate with honors, college prep or a general diploma, you also could choose from a fine arts track or vocational. Now I realize that fine art and vocational courses are a way of tracking but I do not completely disagree with this type. I like this personally, we had a choice if we wanted to take vocational courses in which I dislike, but many of the students at my high school choose this track due to the fact they wanted to go into those particular fields, agriculture was a big part of the vocational program. I went the fine art track, I took art classes all of high school, but the fine arts track did not necessarily focus on art it also included drama, journalism, chorus, band, etc. I liked this it gave me the opportunity to choose what I was interested in. So am I in favor of tracking well NO, not went it places students in either a lower or higher track, but yes I am if it gives students the opportunity to choose based on interest.
Tracking seems to be a hard thing to figure out; their are a lot of things to wade through and consider. It seems unfair to place students into certain classes based on their academic performance. Tracking is basically modern day segregation, seperating lower and higher achieving students into seperate classes.
As a social studies teacher, I am 100% against tracking. As the article pointed out, social studies classes NEED a mixture of students from different backgrounds, races, religions, and so on. The world is made up of different people and in order to study different regions, political issues, governments, etc it is important to have a wide range of viewpoints in the classroom. It can be nearly impossible to gain these different views if everyone in the classroom is relatively the same. No matter what their achievment level, when a student cant see different peoples views about different issues, then they lose something. Social studies is about learning to appreciate different cultures, and by segregating students into specific groups we are killing the general concept of the subject in general.
I dont know if we will ever completly stop tracking in schools, but it is vital to the subject of social studies that classrooms be de-tracked. Areas like English and Social studies thrive on different viewpoints and they may be the best place to start fighting against tracking.
Tracking is a system used in schools where the placement of students in the classroom is based on academic performance. By doing this students will be grouped from top students all the way down tp the lowest preforming students.
I believe that CJ hit the nail on the head with the concern about tracking in a social studies classroom. The entire class is spent learning about different cultures, religions, races, governments and so on. If the entire class is made up of students that are all the same the class will then lose something. It is interesting and exciting to see students of different backgrounds converse about topics. It is almost like you can see some of them have an epiphany when they realize they might agree more with someone else's view instead of their own. Although the main subject being disgussed is history, I also believe that tracking in any classroom setting is unfair. I use the term "unfair" because when we use this system everyone loses out particularly the students.
On the other hand I understand the need for having a more challenging class for those students who do prefrom well academically. It wouldn't be right to not challenge them in the classroom. If they aren't challenged then they will get bored with the class and start preforming poorly, not because they don't understand it, but because they don't feel like doing the assignment is necessary.
I guess my question is, why do we have tacking in school systems when we are being taught to use differentiation. If we offer different assessments/assignments that challenge higher achieving students than we get rid of that chance of them losing interest, and we still have a variety of students in our classrooms.
Erin makes a great point about students of higher academic performance "getting bored" when classes are not challenging. It reminds me of my sister when she was in 3rd or 4th grade. She is very smart and was completing her assignments long before anyone else. The teacher maybe should have given her another assignment or used differentiation and made her assignments challenge her more. Instead, she let my sister help other students who were struggling in the class. My sister didnt mind, she actually enjoyed it but I dont know if that was the right move. Should they have placed her in different class? This is what the research means by more advanced students "losing out", but Im sure that it probably helped my sister understand the assignments even better by helping other students, I definatly dont think it "hurt" her. Any thoughts???
Erin, I think the answer to your last question is that many teachers do not use differentiation in their classrooms because they don't know how to differentiate their assignments or lessons or they don't want to change their lesson plans to make those changes.
I thought the article about detracking in social studies classrooms was intriguing. I hadn't thought about the evident contradiction between tracked students and the content they are learning. I remember being detracked in my 8th grade Science and GA History classes. I had classes with kids I'd never seen before! We were all mixed together during our electives, but somehow, I always had classes with at least 5 or 6 people I knew, so I just sat with them. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, especially in my GA History class because it became clear, very quickly, that I was "smart". My friends and I got different assignments that the other students, assignments that were "challenging", while the kid next to me got a word search. It was strange. Maybe that was differentiation?
I think what you say is very true C.J., I often found myself done in classes much quicker than other students. I don't think it hurts to work with the students that are not finished with assignments because they often provide insight about things that I did not even think about at times. The teachers did not differentiate from what I could tell, and this led to a lot of down time to finish homework and assignments for other class or often discussions about social gossip. I do not remember getting different assignments than my peers, but I was in the honors courses, so I guess the teachers thought that we were all on the same track and didn't need differentiation...? I don't think that was necessarily the case because each student was different. Does anyone think there is a need for differentiation in classes that are upper level courses such as honors and AP or is the tracking system enough differentiation?
You ask a very good question C.J. How do we help out the lower tracks without bringing down the upper tracks? This is especially difficult since most schools contain some form of tracking (AP is a form of tracking, I believe) Historically, more schools have had tracking than not. Even worse, Nature seems to favor tracking. We talked about the Matthew Effect, and it seems to come into play here as well. Those who are lower tracked get worse, while those on the top tracks get better.
Also, what Christy is describing still seems like tracking to me. I feel like if I got an essay question and the kid next to me got a word search I would become frustrated and group with those who had "real" assignments. It almost seems more demeaning for lower achieving students to be in a class with students who 'get' it. I would have hated to be in a Calculus class (versus Algebra III) because everyone would have been much smarter than me! I may have learned more, but I also might have become frustrated and mentally shut down completely.
I think differentiation is key when it comes to classrooms that are "detracked", which to me should be all classrooms. I also think having a child choose their educational path is very important because it helps the student to take responsibility for their own education. Now, that might only be helpful in a household where a student is taught how education is important...but like Jenn was saying about choosing her "track"...it takes the responsibility of tracking off the school system and puts it on the student. This might help the student to choose classes that they actually have an interest in, that they can actually use in their future career or life skills. Theirs something about a school system forcing you to take classes just to graduate. I think that a student will learn more efficiently if they are choosing what they want to learn. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to choose to take art my entire high school career..however, there are many classes I had to take, even in college, that I feel weren't as relevant to my life as other classes would have been...but yet I had to take AND PAY for them regardless. Of course, that might only work in high school. Everyone needs their basic skills when it comes to math, science, and english and students might not choose to pick those. Although I did choose a couple of science classes and social studies classes. Those classes also stuck with me because I was very interested in the topic.
Basically, most of the research is saying that detracking is what needs to happen in schools and that tracking is bad. Tracking is just another way of causing segregation in our schools because it ends up being minority races and lower income children who end up in the lower tracks. Also, kids in the lower tracks are cheated of a more challenging higher education. The article also talked a lot about strategies that need to be taken to make detracking successful.
As for what I thought about the main article, I thought that it was very predictable. It said exactly what I expected that it was going to say. It goes along with a lot of what we have learned this semester about disadvantages, believing that all students can achieve at high levels, and knowing how to teach all different types of students.
As for what I think about tracking and detracking, I have mixed feelings. I believe that detracking is a good thing, but only if the teacher knows how to deal with it and effectively teach all of the students in their classroom, not leaving any behind or letting kids get bored while others "catch-up" on what they already know.
To answer CJ's question, I don't think that it hurt your sister to help others out when she was already done with her assignment. If anything it probably made her understand the concept even more. But I'm with you on the point where it might have not have been the best decision for her. She could have been taking that original concept to a higher level by having a different assignment.
There are many different types of tracking. We have all discussed how the effects of tracking can negatively influence our students. Differentiation is the key to undoing tracking and is something that the art class demands of its teachers sometimes with out them even knowing. For the longest time I could not get what all of the excitement was about surrounding differentiation and then last semester we were asked to add a differentiated version of one of our lesson plans into live text. It then all of a sudden hit me that this was something that I was already unknowingly practicing. I think that the example we have been discussing about CJ's sister's education is an interesting. I would have to agree with Erin's point about her missing out by having to go back to help others. I think exploring the material at different levels and creating different points of entry to the material are both methods that require higher level thought. We should try to incorporate both of these methods and not feel inhibited by feeling like we have to make a choice.
I don't think she was missing out completely. Learning how to effectively teach something helps you with many different communication skills. I heard it said before that if any student is lost, have a student who knows what they're doing teach it to them because it helps that student learn how to affectively teach. It's a wonderful cultural capital skill. But, if she's teaching all the time I can see where it would become problem.
I agree with Katey in the point that the article was a little predictable. Most of these ideas we've talk about in some way, but that doesn't mean the topic doesn't warrant attention. I also agree with Claire's point. I've used differentiation in my classroom settings according to skill and knowledge level with out even knowing what I was doing as well. It just made sense to do it at the time. But, I do think that me studying it and creating it with more purpose helped me to conduct more affective learning environments and lesson plans.
Miss Vickery has a good point concerning vocational courses and their subtler ways of instituting tracking. My school publicizes sets of successive and narrowed vocational electives called "pathways" that I believe may well be the sneakiest way of getting kids out of fine arts electives that I have ever seen. The kids that really could use a little more remediation or study skills (a class reserved for those with IEP's from the evidence that I have seen) are instead taking courses about foodservice and fashion marketing. "Fine arts" is the umbrella for the college-bound set, and the rest (including my classes of repeat 9th graders) get the narrow pathways.
All remedial classes are "tracked" already, and those students' only hope would be to have, for example, two Englishes in one year. I cannot see where I would advise that at all; why press onward to 10th lit when 9th lit remains a mystery?
As for the articles, the complaint concerning the familiarity with the info applies here, too. However, while helping those who need the remediation is, of course, beneficial, I wonder if CJ's sister's experience was beneficial because of the trust placed in her to help her classmates. In this case, detracking is indeed the operative choice. But what part of the benefit came as a result of the helping not being a normalized part of the classroom environment. This seems like a special arrangement, rather than a formalized strategy. In the inclusion high school classroom, though, when image is everything, would this arrangement of having one student about the room helping others create that same divide between the haves and have-nots?
English, however, needs de-tracking, for the ideas and personal relations to literature are what makes the lit world go 'round. I can spout formalism and narrative perspective all day, but no literature makes sense until it hits the reader where it counts: his own life. We need diversity of lives in lit to make all these necessary conclusions come about.
The research we read seems to hinge on three major points: tracking is detrimental to minority and low income students, detracking, with built in support in classrooms, schools, and communities can help formerly tracked students succeed in a detracked academic setting, and higher achieving, formerly tracked, students are not challeneged enough in detracked classrooms and lose learning opportunities. I find all of the aforementioned points compelling. I do believe that tracking manufactures failing students. There appears to be a long held assumption in education that some kids "just can't get it", and somehow, it's our job, as teachers, to accept that idea and "do the best we can with them." From the first minute I sat in an Early College classroom, I knew that idea was preposterous. It's an illusion that educators have bought into to make their jobs easier and console their consciences. It's wrong to pigeonhole children from Kindergarten, sometimes Pre-K, into a group based on how smart one or two teachers thinks they are! It's almost impossible to escape that kind of judgement. Tracking is just wrong.
ReplyDeleteHowever, students continue to be tracked and I am faced with teaching students who've been so beaten up by the system that they have so little confidence in their own abilities that they are afraid to answer any question on their own because they are terrified of being wrong. (I've seen dozens of kids like this.) How can I offset the effects of tracking on my students, who will enter my classroom after being tracked for 9 or 10 years? Especially in an English classroom, where kids make it to 11th grade and CANNOT READ and have no support! I have read a lot of interesting ideas, but I still don't have a concrete answer.
I think we are dealing with a couple different issues here. The first is whether tracking is fair. In the setting of a public school, it absolutely is not. All parents pay about an equal amount of taxes, especially within a certain district, and to have one child receive a higher quality of education than another (as research has shown the lower tracked kids receive) is undemocratic.
ReplyDeleteThe second issue is whether it works. This one seems to be a mixed bag. If you are in the lower track, you will be befitted tremendously by de-tracking. If you are in the high track, it will not affect you as much. Some research has shown that high track students benefit through life lesson from working with lower tracked students and maybe slightly better grades, but the main beneficiary is those who were low tracks.
I am in favor of de-tracking, especially in the public setting, but I have some concerns. I question whether it is truly possible to de-track a school -especially a high school. Though each individual classroom may be de-tracked, the school as a whole will not be so long as AP and college credit courses are offered. My senior year of high school there were two maths, Calculus and Algebra III. Because I had less than an A average in Algebra II, I was unable to choose Calc (not that I would have!)
Is this not a form of tracking? Putting all the kids who are bad at the subject in the same class together? It would not have mattered how smart the person I was paired with was, the class was full of people who hated math and were ready to be done with it just like me! I guess my answer would be that tracking should definitely not exist during lower and middle school, and then it might have to (in the form of different AP and non-AP classes) in high school.
I had a similar thought, Lee, while reading these articles. Is is not tracking the way some systems pigeon hole students into vocational, college, or remedial course work? I understand tracking in the way it is described in the articles- students being grouped together based on perceived intellectual abilities. It is easy to spot students and there specific tracks- in this county, anyway. I also think, as some research shows, these students are very aware of the situation. All of the evidence leads me to believe that tracking ultimately is not a good practice. But as Christy pointed out, the research that shows that de-tracked classes aren't challenging some students and that they are losing out on education is also compelling.
ReplyDeleteArt Classes, like Social Studies Classes are also unique learning environments. As I was creating the list of ideas I had for infusing cultural capital lessons in to art lessons it all clicked. Art is all about interaction of ideas and human interactions. It is a content that lends it self well to the practice of de-tracking.
There are many issues at play in all of the research and findings. The reality of de-tracking schools systems involves a major shift in ideological belief of entire communities at all levels. This will take time. I think if it is forced it could at some points, and as research shows could be met with much resistance. It has to begin in our classrooms and I think that as our students catch one they will begin to take it home with them, hopefully.
Students are stuck in tracks and sometimes that can raise a negative impact on their learning. It's basically saying that if you are on a career tech track that you are not as prepared or able to go to college as a college prep student. As to whether tracking is fair or not, I don't think that everyone benefits from tracking, but I must recognize that I was a product of tracking. I was in all honors and AP classes my senior year of high school. I know that I did well, but at the same time, I was the one that had to recognize that I was on a higher track than I should be, not the teachers. I decided not to take the AP English course and remained on the honors route. Looking back, I could fall into what Christy mentioned third. I was formerly tracked and was not challenged nearly enough. Placing students in a class that have not done well historically is not the best way to advance their learning. They need assistance and ideas from the students that are more advanced. I agree with what Lee mentioned about the students maybe needing tracking early on, and then use it in later schooling, but at the same time, the younger years are developmental years that influence later learning. It would be interesting to see this put into action.
ReplyDelete-Tracking to me seems like a terrible idea. First off you are profiling students, and usually students never lose this profile that has been assigned to them at a young age. Tracking hurts all students learning, especially those in the lower track. When placed in the track, they are seen as not as smart and these are the students who are not encouraged to succeed in life. The those in the higher track do seem to benefit more from tracking but not much more. One thing that caught my attention was that when students in the higher track are de-tracked they suffer, because they are not challenged; so how can we challenge these students without leaving those who were in lower track behind once they have been de-tracked? How do we make de-tracking fair for everyone, that was once tracked? I know that my high school tracked in a way that you could graduate with honors, college prep or a general diploma, you also could choose from a fine arts track or vocational. Now I realize that fine art and vocational courses are a way of tracking but I do not completely disagree with this type. I like this personally, we had a choice if we wanted to take vocational courses in which I dislike, but many of the students at my high school choose this track due to the fact they wanted to go into those particular fields, agriculture was a big part of the vocational program. I went the fine art track, I took art classes all of high school, but the fine arts track did not necessarily focus on art it also included drama, journalism, chorus, band, etc. I liked this it gave me the opportunity to choose what I was interested in.
ReplyDeleteSo am I in favor of tracking well NO, not went it places students in either a lower or higher track, but yes I am if it gives students the opportunity to choose based on interest.
Tracking seems to be a hard thing to figure out; their are a lot of things to wade through and consider. It seems unfair to place students into certain classes based on their academic performance. Tracking is basically modern day segregation, seperating lower and higher achieving students into seperate classes.
ReplyDeleteAs a social studies teacher, I am 100% against tracking. As the article pointed out, social studies classes NEED a mixture of students from different backgrounds, races, religions, and so on. The world is made up of different people and in order to study different regions, political issues, governments, etc it is important to have a wide range of viewpoints in the classroom. It can be nearly impossible to gain these different views if everyone in the classroom is relatively the same. No matter what their achievment level, when a student cant see different peoples views about different issues, then they lose something. Social studies is about learning to appreciate different cultures, and by segregating students into specific groups we are killing the general concept of the subject in general.
I dont know if we will ever completly stop tracking in schools, but it is vital to the subject of social studies that classrooms be de-tracked. Areas like English and Social studies thrive on different viewpoints and they may be the best place to start fighting against tracking.
Tracking is a system used in schools where the placement of students in the classroom is based on academic performance. By doing this students will be grouped from top students all the way down tp the lowest preforming students.
ReplyDeleteI believe that CJ hit the nail on the head with the concern about tracking in a social studies classroom. The entire class is spent learning about different cultures, religions, races, governments and so on. If the entire class is made up of students that are all the same the class will then lose something. It is interesting and exciting to see students of different backgrounds converse about topics. It is almost like you can see some of them have an epiphany when they realize they might agree more with someone else's view instead of their own. Although the main subject being disgussed is history, I also believe that tracking in any classroom setting is unfair. I use the term "unfair" because when we use this system everyone loses out particularly the students.
On the other hand I understand the need for having a more challenging class for those students who do prefrom well academically. It wouldn't be right to not challenge them in the classroom. If they aren't challenged then they will get bored with the class and start preforming poorly, not because they don't understand it, but because they don't feel like doing the assignment is necessary.
I guess my question is, why do we have tacking in school systems when we are being taught to use differentiation. If we offer different assessments/assignments that challenge higher achieving students than we get rid of that chance of them losing interest, and we still have a variety of students in our classrooms.
Erin makes a great point about students of higher academic performance "getting bored" when classes are not challenging. It reminds me of my sister when she was in 3rd or 4th grade. She is very smart and was completing her assignments long before anyone else. The teacher maybe should have given her another assignment or used differentiation and made her assignments challenge her more. Instead, she let my sister help other students who were struggling in the class. My sister didnt mind, she actually enjoyed it but I dont know if that was the right move. Should they have placed her in different class? This is what the research means by more advanced students "losing out", but Im sure that it probably helped my sister understand the assignments even better by helping other students, I definatly dont think it "hurt" her. Any thoughts???
ReplyDeleteErin, I think the answer to your last question is that many teachers do not use differentiation in their classrooms because they don't know how to differentiate their assignments or lessons or they don't want to change their lesson plans to make those changes.
ReplyDeleteI thought the article about detracking in social studies classrooms was intriguing. I hadn't thought about the evident contradiction between tracked students and the content they are learning. I remember being detracked in my 8th grade Science and GA History classes. I had classes with kids I'd never seen before! We were all mixed together during our electives, but somehow, I always had classes with at least 5 or 6 people I knew, so I just sat with them. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, especially in my GA History class because it became clear, very quickly, that I was "smart". My friends and I got different assignments that the other students, assignments that were "challenging", while the kid next to me got a word search. It was strange. Maybe that was differentiation?
I think what you say is very true C.J., I often found myself done in classes much quicker than other students. I don't think it hurts to work with the students that are not finished with assignments because they often provide insight about things that I did not even think about at times. The teachers did not differentiate from what I could tell, and this led to a lot of down time to finish homework and assignments for other class or often discussions about social gossip.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember getting different assignments than my peers, but I was in the honors courses, so I guess the teachers thought that we were all on the same track and didn't need differentiation...? I don't think that was necessarily the case because each student was different. Does anyone think there is a need for differentiation in classes that are upper level courses such as honors and AP or is the tracking system enough differentiation?
You ask a very good question C.J. How do we help out the lower tracks without bringing down the upper tracks? This is especially difficult since most schools contain some form of tracking (AP is a form of tracking, I believe) Historically, more schools have had tracking than not. Even worse, Nature seems to favor tracking. We talked about the Matthew Effect, and it seems to come into play here as well. Those who are lower tracked get worse, while those on the top tracks get better.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what Christy is describing still seems like tracking to me. I feel like if I got an essay question and the kid next to me got a word search I would become frustrated and group with those who had "real" assignments. It almost seems more demeaning for lower achieving students to be in a class with students who 'get' it. I would have hated to be in a Calculus class (versus Algebra III) because everyone would have been much smarter than me! I may have learned more, but I also might have become frustrated and mentally shut down completely.
I think differentiation is key when it comes to classrooms that are "detracked", which to me should be all classrooms. I also think having a child choose their educational path is very important because it helps the student to take responsibility for their own education. Now, that might only be helpful in a household where a student is taught how education is important...but like Jenn was saying about choosing her "track"...it takes the responsibility of tracking off the school system and puts it on the student. This might help the student to choose classes that they actually have an interest in, that they can actually use in their future career or life skills. Theirs something about a school system forcing you to take classes just to graduate. I think that a student will learn more efficiently if they are choosing what they want to learn. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to choose to take art my entire high school career..however, there are many classes I had to take, even in college, that I feel weren't as relevant to my life as other classes would have been...but yet I had to take AND PAY for them regardless. Of course, that might only work in high school. Everyone needs their basic skills when it comes to math, science, and english and students might not choose to pick those. Although I did choose a couple of science classes and social studies classes. Those classes also stuck with me because I was very interested in the topic.
ReplyDeleteBasically, most of the research is saying that detracking is what needs to happen in schools and that tracking is bad. Tracking is just another way of causing segregation in our schools because it ends up being minority races and lower income children who end up in the lower tracks. Also, kids in the lower tracks are cheated of a more challenging higher education. The article also talked a lot about strategies that need to be taken to make detracking successful.
ReplyDeleteAs for what I thought about the main article, I thought that it was very predictable. It said exactly what I expected that it was going to say. It goes along with a lot of what we have learned this semester about disadvantages, believing that all students can achieve at high levels, and knowing how to teach all different types of students.
As for what I think about tracking and detracking, I have mixed feelings. I believe that detracking is a good thing, but only if the teacher knows how to deal with it and effectively teach all of the students in their classroom, not leaving any behind or letting kids get bored while others "catch-up" on what they already know.
To answer CJ's question, I don't think that it hurt your sister to help others out when she was already done with her assignment. If anything it probably made her understand the concept even more. But I'm with you on the point where it might have not have been the best decision for her. She could have been taking that original concept to a higher level by having a different assignment.
ReplyDeleteThere are many different types of tracking. We have all discussed how the effects of tracking can negatively influence our students. Differentiation is the key to undoing tracking and is something that the art class demands of its teachers sometimes with out them even knowing. For the longest time I could not get what all of the excitement was about surrounding differentiation and then last semester we were asked to add a differentiated version of one of our lesson plans into live text. It then all of a sudden hit me that this was something that I was already unknowingly practicing.
ReplyDeleteI think that the example we have been discussing about CJ's sister's education is an interesting. I would have to agree with Erin's point about her missing out by having to go back to help others. I think exploring the material at different levels and creating different points of entry to the material are both methods that require higher level thought. We should try to incorporate both of these methods and not feel inhibited by feeling like we have to make a choice.
I don't think she was missing out completely. Learning how to effectively teach something helps you with many different communication skills. I heard it said before that if any student is lost, have a student who knows what they're doing teach it to them because it helps that student learn how to affectively teach. It's a wonderful cultural capital skill. But, if she's teaching all the time I can see where it would become problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katey in the point that the article was a little predictable. Most of these ideas we've talk about in some way, but that doesn't mean the topic doesn't warrant attention. I also agree with Claire's point. I've used differentiation in my classroom settings according to skill and knowledge level with out even knowing what I was doing as well. It just made sense to do it at the time. But, I do think that me studying it and creating it with more purpose helped me to conduct more affective learning environments and lesson plans.
Miss Vickery has a good point concerning vocational courses and their subtler ways of instituting tracking. My school publicizes sets of successive and narrowed vocational electives called "pathways" that I believe may well be the sneakiest way of getting kids out of fine arts electives that I have ever seen. The kids that really could use a little more remediation or study skills (a class reserved for those with IEP's from the evidence that I have seen) are instead taking courses about foodservice and fashion marketing. "Fine arts" is the umbrella for the college-bound set, and the rest (including my classes of repeat 9th graders) get the narrow pathways.
ReplyDeleteAll remedial classes are "tracked" already, and those students' only hope would be to have, for example, two Englishes in one year. I cannot see where I would advise that at all; why press onward to 10th lit when 9th lit remains a mystery?
As for the articles, the complaint concerning the familiarity with the info applies here, too. However, while helping those who need the remediation is, of course, beneficial, I wonder if CJ's sister's experience was beneficial because of the trust placed in her to help her classmates. In this case, detracking is indeed the operative choice. But what part of the benefit came as a result of the helping not being a normalized part of the classroom environment. This seems like a special arrangement, rather than a formalized strategy. In the inclusion high school classroom, though, when image is everything, would this arrangement of having one student about the room helping others create that same divide between the haves and have-nots?
ReplyDeleteEnglish, however, needs de-tracking, for the ideas and personal relations to literature are what makes the lit world go 'round. I can spout formalism and narrative perspective all day, but no literature makes sense until it hits the reader where it counts: his own life. We need diversity of lives in lit to make all these necessary conclusions come about.