Examines the advantages of teaching in a multiage elementary classroom and discusses specific techniques that work well with children of different ages and abilities. Suggests that teachers need to integrate material as much as possible, balance large- and small-group activities, and utilize cooperative teams made up of students from each age…

Describes characteristics of a high-quality school-age care program: resourceful, caring staff; recognition of the importance of peers; opportunities for mixed- and same-age grouping; children's selection of activities and experiences; guidance for children's social and emotional development; and environments that encourage a wide variety of…

Examines research findings of the multiage classroom concept and delineates the advantages (higher progress in areas of academia, self-esteem, and socialization skills, as well as development of the teacher/parent relationship) and disadvantages (additional planning/preparation time and difficulties with parents, scheduling, and budget…

Describes an experiment with class meetings, designed to offer students practice in the democratic process, in a mixed-age, upper elementary, Montessori classroom. Finds that the group setting allowed students to address goals for classroom conduct and to learn ethics by example. Notes problems with tolerance for minority positions within the…

The process of implementing the successful Continuous Progress Program at Concrete Elementary School (Washington) included gathering information on multiage grouping, formulating a template for change, parent and community involvement, acceptance of diverse teaching styles and philosophies, and continuous reassessment. The basic strategies driving…

Describes the San Carlos Charter Learning Center, a K-8 school chartered by the San Carlos, California, school district to be a research and development site. It has successfully shared practices in multi-age groupings, interdisciplinary instruction, parents as teachers, and staff evaluation. The article expands on the school's challenges and…

A survey of 92 elementary school teachers in northern British Columbia revealed that rural teachers were more positive than urban teachers toward the use of multiage classrooms and that teachers disagreed about their needs for effectively managing such classrooms. Suggests providing teachers of multiage classrooms with inservice opportunities,…

Four dissimilar schools each respond to a learning challenge by questioning set-in-stone thinking and taking risks. A K-8 school in Toronto bypasses the traditional--and problematic--long summer vacation to follow a balanced calendar model. Students attend school year-round with two-week breaks scattered throughout the year; both remedial and…

Assessment of student progress is a challenge for educators who use developmentally appropriate practices such as multiage grouping. Interest in alternative types of assessment has become widespread. These performance-based, or authentic, assessments are explored in this document, which presents assessment strategies that work effectively with…

Multiage education involves placing children of different ages, abilities, and emotional maturity in the same classroom. Research indicates that heterogeneous grouping promotes cognitive and social growth, reduces antisocial behavior, and facilitates the use of research-based, developmentally appropriate instructional practices. Because multiage…

Multiage education is the placement of children of varying ages, grades, and ability levels in the same classroom with the aim of improving learning for all of them. Teaching a multiage class requires very different knowledge and skills than teaching traditional single-grade classes. Interest in multiage education has grown in recent years, and…

A confusing variety of terms is used in discussions of age grouping practices. This digest examines terms that have important implications for teaching and the curriculum. The terms "nongraded" and "ungraded" typically refer to grouping children in classes without grade-level designations and with more than a 1-year age span.…

This article describes the types of nongraded elementary schools that were prevalent from the 1950s through the 1970s, reviews research on the academic achievement effects of nongraded schools, and draws inferences from this research for application of nongraded systems in today's schools. Research in which an objective measure of achievement was…

Noting the fragile relationship between parent participation and school reform, this book tells the story of the Charquin Program, an alternative public school program in Hayward, California, dedicated to parent participation and notable for its open classroom structure and intensely democratic practice. The introduction relates the history and…

In this paper, we address mathematics education in rural contexts from a critical pedagogical perspective. We imagine our audience to be mathematics educators and rural educators who may not have background knowledge of critical pedagogy. We also confess that we are mathematics educators first, with interests in critical pedagogy and rural…