You read about grouping practices in Module 21. The following clip shows a WELL KNOWN example of a group of very different kinds of people coming together in a shared experience, in which they obviously learn SOMETHING. I'm sure you can think of other movies or pop culture references which depict similar groups. Thinking of such examples, would Piaget or Vygotsky recommend extreme diverse (by age, past experience, development, culture, etc) grouping for students? Why (be specific, please)? Are certain kinds of diversity more beneficial than others for learning?
I think Piaget would recommend extreme diversity for grouping students, though Vygotsky could also recommend it, because in his theory he talks about developing schemas, equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation. Everyone has to adjust their schemas as they learn more knowledge and when the learn new things by being with diverse people, their schemas will slowly change. Equilibrium is a balance between the current knowledge someone has and new experiences, so when a student is around a group of diverse people their equilibrium is being disrupted but they are learning new material from those new people. Students would have to assimilate their ways when they are grouped into group with diverse students, and this would make students put these new experiences into a cognitive structure which they have already developed. A student would have to accommodate their existing schemas when put into groups with a diverse population.
I can see where Vygotsky might also recommend something like this, but my main reason as to why I do not think that Vygotsky would recommend it more than Piaget is because the Zone of Proximal Development. The ZPD is when skills are on the verge of developing, an older student can help the younger student complete tasks that have to do with the skills that are about to develop, but when someone is put into a very diverse group of people, they are not necessarily at all on the verge to develop the skills that these people might teach them, and therefore I believe Piaget would recommend diverse groups when grouping students.
I love your way of describing why Piaget would recommend extreme diversity. It is very true that the more disequilibrium that is introduced, the more learning that could occur.
ReplyDeleteI think I understand your point about Vygotsky, but within a classroom, you would have a lot more control in specifying the task, activity, or concept, that ALL the students would be attending to. Even within a classroom of students that are ABOUT the same age, there is still some diversity in cognitive development, especially for particular tasks or ways of thinking. If you specify that you're all going to learn about proportional reasoning (in a math class) then grouping may help, because the tasks that EVERYONE is doing at the time is communicating and representing proportional reasoning.... not anatomy or rhythm (unless that happens in side conversations!) Was your concern something different?