Psychology Essay

Week 6
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Week 6
Since time immemorial, students grouping have been considered as an effective teaching method in the field of education. Teachers believe that when students are grouped, it becomes easy to teach them. This is because grouping places people with the same abilities together (Slavin & Davis, 2006). In turn, it becomes easy for teachers to design an effective lesson plan which when adopted results in high grades. Reportedly, student’s grouping has both positive and negative impacts. While it enables teachers to teach effectively, it creates a rift and therefore a feeling of inequality among students.
Inarguably, grouping students positively impact on student’s academic performance. The reason behind this is that teachers can attend and address the specific academic issues within the groups. They employ the best techniques which foster quick learning and easy comprehension of different concepts. This makes it easy and time-saving as teachers find it easy to administer knowledge (Slavin & Davis, 2006). On the same note, due to the reduction in the number of students and the establishment of students with similar abilities, healthy competition is fostered. Students put extra effort to taste their limits among their mates. In turn, this improves student’s performance substantially.
Conversely, students grouping lead to the division as well as alienation in classrooms. While some students feel intelligent than others, others feel inferior as they are grouped as ‘average students’ or ‘underperformers’ (Slavin & Davis, 2006).

Notably, those students who are classified as ‘above average’ view themselves as superior. This makes them despise students who are in other classifications. They overlook the ideas and opinions of the other students. The underperformers, on the other hand, view themselves as inferiors. This factor greatly demoralizes them. Most of them deteriorate in their performance and lose track in academics.
Reference
Slavin, R. E., & Davis, N. (2006). Educational psychology: Theory and practice.