Vygotsky would recommend extreme diverse (by age, past experience, development, culture, etc) grouping for students. Vygotsky believes that “the zone (of Proximal Development) includes all possible skills that children are on the verge of developing and can perform only with help from someone more cognitively advanced.” (Page 124). Piaget believes that “the exchange of ideas with others should occur between peers instead of between adults and children, because peers are more likely to cooperate as equal, can more easily see each other’s point of view, and can more easily challenge each other.” (Page 120). All kinds of diversity are beneficial, but achievement diversity seems to be more beneficial than others for learning, but it really depends on the type of grouping is being used. Some of the types of diversity that we learned about in this module are: ability, achievement, economic, gender, class, grade, interest, motivation level, and random assignment. Sometimes random assignment might not work because not everyone works well together. I think this question could really be answered by a few of the options.
I agree, random assignment is never a good idea. Groups should be carefully chosen based on the types of diversity you have listed. Peers do challenge each other more to learn and grow than if they were grouped with older students or getting help from an adult, because of the competition aspect. They would know they have already lost the competition when working with older and more advanced students.
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