ERIC Number: ED459042
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1995
Pages: 74
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: ISBN-0-90250-058-9
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Multi-Grade Teaching: A Review of Research and Practice. Education Research Paper.
Little, Angela
The single-grade model of education, based on the division of labor in industry, has come to dominate the school, class, and curriculum organization used by central authorities. Although the multi-grade model is common in developing countries and in rural areas of industrialized countries, the knowledge required for effective multi-grade teaching is ignored and rendered illegitimate by those responsible for training and supporting teachers. This review presents five innovations in multi-grade teaching in developing countries. The Zambian experience is less than 10 years old and relatively small-scale. The Colombian experience with Escuela Nueva spans 3 decades and is large-scale. Both involve external agencies and support from the government mainstream. The Peruvian experience describes the multi-grade reality found among indigenous communities and the recent involvement of nongovernmental organizations in multi-grade teacher education programs. The fourth example, from Sri Lanka, illustrates how some problems faced by multi-grade teachers can be solved by recognizing that even mono-grade classes contain very wide differences in achievement and that a single grade may be conceived as a multi-grade context. The final experience describes Project Impact, which began as a radical reform of primary education in Indonesia and the Philippines and expanded to Liberia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Jamaica. Research on the outcomes and costs of multi-grade teaching is reviewed, and implications for the practice of multi-grade teaching are presented. (Contains 61 references and an annotated bibliography with 52 entries.) (TD)
Descriptors: American Indian Education, Case Studies, Developing Nations, Educational Policy, Educational Research, Elementary Education, Foreign Countries, Multigraded Classes, Nongovernmental Organizations, One Teacher Schools, Outcomes of Education, Rural Education, Teacher Education, Teaching Methods
Department for International Development, Education Department, 94 Victoria St., London, SW1E 5JL, UK.
Publication Type: Information Analyses
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Department for International Development, London (England).
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: John Lowe prepared the annotated bibliography.