The Advantages of the Multi-Grade Classroom Setting
and Smaller Class Sizes
The multi-grade classroom becomes a positive, nurturing, and safe environment for its students. When this type of environment is provided, the result is happy children. Multi-grade education emphasizes building upon strengths which builds self-esteem. It also focuses on the whole child, not just his academic skills; a child's gift for social interaction or artistic expression is valued as well. When students are happier in their school environment, they learn better and are less likely to cause discipline problems.
Along with multi-grade classroom settings, smaller class sizes result in significant gains in student achievement which endure to graduation and beyond. Because brain development occurs at a much faster rate early in life, investing in small class sizes in elementary school has shown the greatest benefits for children. These benefits are not merely in terms of academic benefits measured on achievement tests. But they also include social benefits including better verbal skills, better social skills and better coping skills for overcome challenges and problems as well as improved self esteem. However, smaller class sizes have also been shown to benefit middle school and high school students by increasing both test scores and graduation rates.
One comprehensive report, done for the United States Department of Education, analyzed the achievement levels of students in 2,561 schools across the country. After controlling for student background, the only objective factor found to be positively correlated with student performance was smaller classes, not school size or teacher qualifications, nor any other variable that the researchers could identify.
Along with multi-grade classroom settings, smaller class sizes result in significant gains in student achievement which endure to graduation and beyond. Because brain development occurs at a much faster rate early in life, investing in small class sizes in elementary school has shown the greatest benefits for children. These benefits are not merely in terms of academic benefits measured on achievement tests. But they also include social benefits including better verbal skills, better social skills and better coping skills for overcome challenges and problems as well as improved self esteem. However, smaller class sizes have also been shown to benefit middle school and high school students by increasing both test scores and graduation rates.
One comprehensive report, done for the United States Department of Education, analyzed the achievement levels of students in 2,561 schools across the country. After controlling for student background, the only objective factor found to be positively correlated with student performance was smaller classes, not school size or teacher qualifications, nor any other variable that the researchers could identify.
Modeling
One major advantage is the modeling that takes place. Younger students will imitate academic and social behaviors demonstrated by older children. In addition to this unintended, natural modeling, older students can also provide direct instruction to younger students. When older children 'teach' newly learned skills to younger classmates, they strengthen their own understanding of these skills.
Environment
Students in an environment with increased similarity of the real world. Certainly, grouping students strictly by age does not reflect a naturalistic life-like setting in which people of different ages learn from each other.
Leadership
Every year or two, depending on the length of the program, students become the experienced students in the room. This phenomenon leads to the natural assumption of leadership roles in play and classroom activities. Children who would be reluctant to take charge in a graded classroom have a greater sense of responsibility because they are the oldest in the class, and try various leadership roles. The assumption of these responsibilities increases the confidence of the older students as well. Since older students develop their leadership skills, younger students are given opportunities to engage in more complex activities than they could initiate on their own.
Character
Multi-grade classrooms and smaller class sizes provide older students with the valuable experience of developing their nurturing skills. These skills, crucial to parenting, manifest themselves naturally in a mixed-age setting. Mixed-age grouping can provide older children with the opportunity to be helpful, patient, and tolerant of younger peers' competencies, and thus give them some of the desirable early experiences of being nurturing that underlie parenting and helping others who are different from oneself. The presence of younger children also helps antisocial older children. Younger children are particularly helpful in reducing the isolation of socially withdrawn older children. Also, helping others can help older students' sense of self-confidence. Being needed and admired by less able students improves a student's self-concept.
Community
In a group of children of different ages, competition is reduced and the atmosphere is generally collaborative. The group becomes a supportive family. Competition among students is replaced by a growing sense of community. There is less bullying, more taking turns, and greater social responsibility. Work in cooperative groups also improves because of the varying ages. The children in a multi-grade classroom form a cohesive group and learn to support each other rather than to compete.
Pace
In a graded classroom, students are expected to be at approximately the same level academically and to learn at the same rate simply because their chronological ages are the same. Since multi-grade classrooms include students of different ages, they are expected to be at different levels. Students in multi-grade classrooms are not ostracized for being in a lower group as they might be in graded classrooms. They also benefit from extra time to master necessary material without the stigma of having failed.
Relationship
Students also benefit from having more than one year with the same teacher or team of teachers. Because students in multi-grade classrooms have the same teacher for more than one year, their learning is more continuous. Students will start the year off with lack of anxiety since they know they will be returning to the same teacher and many of the same classmates. For students without a significant adult at home, having a teacher for more than one year can make a world of difference. Parents whose child is in a multi-grade program have an opportunity to establish a strong relationship with the child's teacher over a period of several years.
One major advantage is the modeling that takes place. Younger students will imitate academic and social behaviors demonstrated by older children. In addition to this unintended, natural modeling, older students can also provide direct instruction to younger students. When older children 'teach' newly learned skills to younger classmates, they strengthen their own understanding of these skills.
Environment
Students in an environment with increased similarity of the real world. Certainly, grouping students strictly by age does not reflect a naturalistic life-like setting in which people of different ages learn from each other.
Leadership
Every year or two, depending on the length of the program, students become the experienced students in the room. This phenomenon leads to the natural assumption of leadership roles in play and classroom activities. Children who would be reluctant to take charge in a graded classroom have a greater sense of responsibility because they are the oldest in the class, and try various leadership roles. The assumption of these responsibilities increases the confidence of the older students as well. Since older students develop their leadership skills, younger students are given opportunities to engage in more complex activities than they could initiate on their own.
Character
Multi-grade classrooms and smaller class sizes provide older students with the valuable experience of developing their nurturing skills. These skills, crucial to parenting, manifest themselves naturally in a mixed-age setting. Mixed-age grouping can provide older children with the opportunity to be helpful, patient, and tolerant of younger peers' competencies, and thus give them some of the desirable early experiences of being nurturing that underlie parenting and helping others who are different from oneself. The presence of younger children also helps antisocial older children. Younger children are particularly helpful in reducing the isolation of socially withdrawn older children. Also, helping others can help older students' sense of self-confidence. Being needed and admired by less able students improves a student's self-concept.
Community
In a group of children of different ages, competition is reduced and the atmosphere is generally collaborative. The group becomes a supportive family. Competition among students is replaced by a growing sense of community. There is less bullying, more taking turns, and greater social responsibility. Work in cooperative groups also improves because of the varying ages. The children in a multi-grade classroom form a cohesive group and learn to support each other rather than to compete.
Pace
In a graded classroom, students are expected to be at approximately the same level academically and to learn at the same rate simply because their chronological ages are the same. Since multi-grade classrooms include students of different ages, they are expected to be at different levels. Students in multi-grade classrooms are not ostracized for being in a lower group as they might be in graded classrooms. They also benefit from extra time to master necessary material without the stigma of having failed.
Relationship
Students also benefit from having more than one year with the same teacher or team of teachers. Because students in multi-grade classrooms have the same teacher for more than one year, their learning is more continuous. Students will start the year off with lack of anxiety since they know they will be returning to the same teacher and many of the same classmates. For students without a significant adult at home, having a teacher for more than one year can make a world of difference. Parents whose child is in a multi-grade program have an opportunity to establish a strong relationship with the child's teacher over a period of several years.