Multi-Age Classrooms

Multi-Age Classrooms at Central

The 2014/15 school year will see some changes in how classrooms look at Central Elementary.  Traditionally students have been put in a grade level based on their age.  Central Elementary will be moving away from this practice and will be placing students in groups based on ability.  I would argue that nowhere else are people moved ahead or held back strictly because of their age.  As we prepare our students for our future work force, wouldn't moving them along based on ability make more sense?  One room school houses used to do this.  In those schools, students of all ages attended and worked at their appropriate learning levels.  Starting next year Central Elementary looks to do the same!  

How Multi-Age Will Look at Central

In the 2014/15 school year Central Elementary will have three classrooms each of K/1, 2/3, and 4/5.  This will give all of our students the chance to both be a mentor (upper level student) and men-tee (1st year student to the classroom).  Research states the highest level of learning occurs when students can actually teach the material.  With this concept of "looping", all students will get the chance to be taught by other students as well as teach other students.  These groups will be based on interests and abilities, not age.
Classrooms will also be evenly matched, meaning all classrooms will have a high, medium, and low students.  All students will also have the opportunity to work with students in the other two classes as we mix and match based on ability and interests.

Looping

Looping is another idea that will be implemented next school year.  Example, if your student will be in Kindergarten next year and is assigned to Mrs. Steffen, that same student would repeat with Mrs. Steffen in 1st grade.  This gives our teachers and students the advantage of knowing each other better, which allows more time to complete our learning targets together.  Each year in our grade-level public school system students are assigned to new teachers.  The new teacher has very little idea about the background of the student (what they have learned, their interests, their home-life, how they learn best, etc).  Re-learning these things about each student in a teacher's class takes away from the valuable learning time we have in a school year.  At Central, our teachers will walk into school the first day and know exactly where they left off with half their class.  Also, half the class will know the expectations of the teacher on the first day of school.  Imagine the power of that!

Grading

Central Elementary will move to competency based grading in the 2014/15 school year.  Students at Central Elementary will no longer receive a traditional letter grade.  Instead we will focus on whether or not they have mastered the learning target being graded.  Once they master they move on.  If they do not master the target, we re-teach and give the student the supports they need until they do master the target.  Imagine Michael Jordan in high school basketball when he got cut from the team.  On a traditional grading scale he would have received a failing grade, and the teacher and class (including Jordan) would have moved on.  How do you think that teacher would feel today?  What did that grade tell us about Michael Jordan's ability to play basketball?  Absolutely nothing.  What Jordan needed was more time and training.  Central students are no different.  Just because they do not "get it" today doesn't mean we give up and move on.  If we believe in something strongly enough to teach it, then we believe equally strong that every student needs to know it!

Financial

Declining enrollment has led to smaller class sizes.  Financially it just doesn't make sense anymore to have class sizes around 15 students.  Ask any teacher, and it also doesn't make sense to have class sizes of 30 plus.  By moving to multi-age, class sizes will be around 24 students.  Financially this number makes perfect sense for a district our size and will allow Central to be around for a long time.

I welcome any input as we work through the planning stages of multi-age groupings.