[Maths-Education] Re: Research and teacher practices for 'working class' underachievement in secondary mathematics

[Alan Rogerson]

Dear Phillip,

Your original email was about social class, an enormous topic in itself, 
compounding that with two more huge and complex questions, class 
organisation (mixed ability) and teaching method (group teaching), makes 
any analysis difficult if not impossible, with so many independent and 
complex variables.

Also of course there are many different ways of organising mixed ability 
classes, and also group learning. Each is a complex question in itself.

May I suggest you have a look at the work of the DQME I and II projects 
who worked for 6 years (2004-10) with a large Comenius EU project  
grant, eventually with 11 European partner countries and in 8 different 
languages,... I was one of the "Polish" partners:-) !

The reason I mention this is because in both Germany and Poland for some 
years now there has been a great deal of teaching group work using the 
so-called "expert" or "jigsaw" method which we have found to be very 
effective for self-teaching and self learning WITHIN each group 
(co-operative learning), you might be interested in how it works from 
the documentation on the webpage http://www.dqme2.eu/. I can send you 
some specific papers dealing with this and related issues.

Even more interesting is the work over some 30 years in Brazil of 
Roberto Baldino (sadly neglected) which I saw in action on three visits 
to work with him some years ago. Roberto developed, refined and taught 
for many years the so called SAG method - Solidarity Assimilation 
Groups, the key to which was that the individuals in each small group 
were given the final mark in any individual test of the weakest member 
of their group!!!! Yes, horror, gasp etc.... but.....

Firstly students could opt into this method, it was optional and their 
own choice, and most of those who did it ended up preferring it. 
Secondly it was in my observation a success because it almost forced, in 
a natural way, all group members to work together - especially to help 
the weakest member(s)! If you or anyone else is interested I can send 
you a long paper by Roberto which explains in much more detail the 
rationale, the practice and his quite brilliant analysis of the whole 
construct and how individual students responded to it. It does help 
answer many of the questions that people have about the effective use of 
group work

Best wishes,
Alan



On 22/02/2011 17:12, Phillip Kent wrote:
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> Dear all, thanks for many generous responses, on and off-list. It will
> take me a little while to digest these and I will feedback a summary to
> the list.
>
> I guess there is nothing like a juicy topic to get people going on a
> Friday afternoon. But in fact it didn't cross my mind at time of writing
> that it was Friday afternoon (honest!). :-)
>
> Several people mentioned the importance of mixed ability classes, and
> the work of Jo Boaler on 'complex instruction'. That is exactly what I
> am doing research on in the REALMS Project at Sussex University, with Jo
> Boaler, Judy Sebba, Geoffrey Kent and Lori Altendorff
> [www.sussex.ac.uk/education/research/circlets/rprojects/realms]
>
> In observing mixed ability classrooms where group work is being used I
> have been trying to understand how student groups end up 'working' or
> not, and the effects of the teacher's interventions. There is a view
> that group work is generally a 'good thing' because it creates a space
> in which more students can participate in more ways, and I agree with
> that. But I have particularly observed cases of groups containing
> students from different social backgrounds (I'm wary of using class
> labels) where the group dynamic does not work positively but seems to be
> reinforcing 'gaps'. So I'm trying to understand more about social
> background and the mathematics classroom.
>
> Any further thoughts are welcome. We plan to present a session on this
> research at the BSRLM meeting in London on 12 March, so hope to carry on
> the discussion with some of you then.
>
> - Phillip
>
> ++++++++
> Dr Phillip Kent
> School of Education and Social Work
> University of Sussex
> Falmer BN1 9QQ
> 07950 952034   P.Kent at sussex.ac.uk
> www.sussex.ac.uk/education/research/circlets/rprojects/realms
> ++++++++
>
>
>
>
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