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School-to-School
Executive Summary
Project Host:
Project Host: School-to-School International
Fellows:
Francis Bigirimana, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Christopher Geary, Team Lead, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Laura Marsiaj Ribeiro, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Martin J. Tomasik, Research Fellow
Barbara Trudell, Research Fellow
Introduction
STS International’s Whole Child Model program in Tanzania includes the implementation of flexible ability grouping in Tanzanian schools.
The flexible ability grouping intervention aims to enable teachers to identify and support struggling learners in classrooms with a high number of students number classrooms, reduce assessment time and inform systematic next steps in guiding the student learning journey.
While STS has gathered evidence of positive feedback from teachers for the ability grouping approach in schools and created an initial toolkit for teachers to use, before scaling the program up to district levels or beyond, there remain challenges to the successful implementation and completion of ability grouping in its current form that STS seeks to understand and improve.
These challenges include but are not limited to effective grouping and decision making based on teachers’ analysis of data in the ability grouping process, as well as the consistent implementation of ability grouping using the recommended tools during lesson time.
Organisation’s role & strength
STS has two roles. First, STS/International (STS/I) assists governments in low- and middle-income countries to assess student learning, train teachers, and develop educational policies that support improved learning. Second, STS/Tanzania is a local initiative of STS/I, where STS is piloting the Whole Child Model (WCM), combining support for education, health, and parent and community engagement so that all children can succeed in primary school. One component of the WCM is flexible ability grouping (AG), in which teachers in STS-supported schools are trained to organize their students into learning groups, assess them while in their groups, then tally the results to determine which students are still struggling. STS is the originating designer of this form of AG and provides basic implementation protocols and tools to teachers to use in the practice.
While uptake of AG has been high, even in class sizes of 100 students or more, many teachers have struggled to understand the needs of individual students and provide appropriate remediation. STS thus sought the assistance of LEAP for two reasons: (1) to identify areas where the existing AG process can be streamlined to make it more feasible to execute faithfully for all teachers, and (2) to identify strategies that could help teachers assess the needs of students who are struggling most, even in large classes, so those teachers can provide appropriate support to those struggling students. The thought is that the AG approach already instituted by STS can be used as a “first pass” to assess all students, even in large classes, and that a second, more focused strategy can be found to address the needs of students found to be struggling most.
Need summary
In order to assist in improving the fidelity of implementation of flexible ability grouping, the LEAP fellows have taken the approach of identifying a relevant base of research through a literature review, identified the need to clarify the implementation steps within the ability grouping protocol, as well as understand from teachers applying their flexible ability grouping training, what the key resources that they require in their classrooms are to narrow the scope of execution for the most valuable tool or tool framework to be created.
| Problem Statement / Research Question | Approach (The "How") | Output / Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| 1) Is Ability Grouping (AG) an effective practice? In what contexts and with what processes in place does it work? What does the evidence tell us? | Fellows will review the theoretical framework in which AG stands, and review academic studies and evidence-based research on AG implementation in different contexts. | Create a Literature Review document delineating AG as a means to differentiated instruction and suggesting a theoretical model that includes settings in which AG has been seen to work well (and settings where it has not). |
| 2) How can teachers implement the complete process of flexible ability grouping and be provided successful strategies to guide struggling students forward in the Tanzanian classroom context? | Assess the impact of class size, language fluencies, and other practices on how teachers can improve the fidelity of flexible ability grouping implementation. | Develop easy-to-use protocols for teachers to implement flexible ability grouping in the most effective way for their context. |
| 3) Based on the findings of 1) and 2), what tools can be created to improve the quality of implementation of flexible ability grouping and ensure its positive outcomes for learners? | Fellows will, based on the findings of 1) and 2), work with STS educators to suggest appropriate tools or measures that can be created. | Develop teacher tools, guidance for tool creation, or next steps for quality assurance in the development of ability grouping. |
Solution summary & next steps
Literature Review
The literature review highlights the potential and challenges of ability grouping to address diverse learning needs in large classrooms, such as those in Tanzania. This approach to differentiated instruction includes homogeneous ability grouping, mixed-ability grouping and flexible ability grouping.
The flexible ability grouping approach organizes students into fluid, temporary groups based on specific learning objectives, allowing teachers to provide targeted support. Unlike the more “permanent” ability groups, flexible grouping mitigates issues of social comparison and fixed expectations by enabling students to move between groups as their understanding progresses.
Researchers and practitioners note that the effective implementation of flexible ability grouping requires frequent formative assessments to monitor student progress, enabling teachers to adjust instruction responsively. However, teachers face challenges in managing these groups, especially in large classes, without adequate training, planning time, and resources.
The literature review concludes that to maximize the benefits of flexible ability grouping, Tanzanian classrooms will need to adapt or introduce support structures for ongoing assessment, professional development to manage group dynamics, and resource allocation for planning and differentiation.
The insights of our literature review, with input and knowledge of the STS team formed the basis for our subsequent teacher discovery questionnaire to identify tool or framework creation priorities.
Protocols and Tools
Our initial discovery work into the steps and stages of the ability grouping process have identified a multi-stage process where particular stages can be a road-block or potentially confusing to an implementing teacher.
We have created detailed visual aids to assist in making next step decisions more intuitive and take less time for teachers, accompanied by a teacher guidebook to detail the process in a referenceable format during lessons.
We have identified that teachers struggle to have sufficient planning time and in particular to access content and differentiated activity and assessment resources. We have created an open content channel with free resources as well as constructed an installable apk suite from a recognised content package that has been tested with Tanzania students in Swahili.
Next Steps and Conclusions
STS’s model of ability grouping serves as a means to identify and provide an equitable opportunity to advance learning progression across the spectrum of students in the extraordinarily high student teacher ratio operating environment of a Tanzanian classroom. However, ultimately the model seeks not only to identify these students, but to take further steps for the most at-risk students to receive individualised support from empowered and enabled teachers.
We have identified and overviewed in our report that there are several initiatives successfully furthering progress in both supporting the ongoing learning, as well as the individual assessment of primary school students in Tanzania, both in-school and in an out of school time setting. These initiatives appear complementary to the work that STS is doing, however rely on student facing technology devices within classrooms. Until this can be made possible, access to these opportunities will continue to be limited.
We have concluded that the most important focus for the STS Ability Grouping program is to continue its focus on developing its fidelity of implementation, whereupon a greater consequent scale in the program’s execution will lead to the fundraising opportunities to catalyse technology access.