PROS AND CONS OF HETEROGENEOUS AND HOMOGENEOUS GROUPING

SHERYL L. BRIONES

Heterogeneous groupings are ideal for helping struggling students. However, if you want your gifted/ talented students and at-grade level students to do well, homogeneous groupings tend to be more beneficial.

In heterogeneous groups, students will tend to defer to the natural leaders and smartest students to lead the group and even do most of the work. In homogeneous groupings, however, new leadership structures can form, and students who never had to participate before may be forced to take on more active roles within the group.

If given a choice, students will always choose to form groups with their friends and peers (homogeneous groups) but also benefit from getting to know and learn from other students in their class. If choosing to have heterogeneous groupings, try to divide them by having one gifted student, two average students, and one lower achieving student. This ratio of students will allow all students to benefit from the others, while not making one student take on too much of the burden of work or leadership.

Some teachers believe that students need to varied, so all learning levels are represented in each group (heterogeneous), while others believe that students should be grouped by ability level (homogeneous). There are advantages and disadvantages to both heterogeneous and homogeneous grouping. It depends on what type of activity you are running and what you want your students to do.

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The author is Teacher III at Sta. Cruz Elementary School, Porac East Di st r i ct