第1段

Picture this scene. It’s an English literature lesson in a UK school, and the teacher has just read an extract from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with a class of 15-year-olds. He’s given some of the students copies of No Fear Shakespeare, a kid-friendly translation of the original. For three students, even these literacy demands are beyond them. Another girl simply can’t focus and he gives her pens and paper to draw with. The teacher can ask the No Fear group to identify the key characters and maybe provide a tentative plot summary. He can ask most of the class about character development, and five of them might be able to support their statements with textual evidence. Now two curious students are wondering whether Shakespeare advocates living a life of moderation or one of passionate engagement.

第2段

As a teacher myself, I’d think my lesson would be going rather well if the discussion went as described above. But wouldn’t this kind of class work better if there weren’t such a huge gap between the top and the bottom? If we put all the kids who needed literacy support into one class, and all the students who want to discuss the virtue of moderation into another?

第3段

The practice of ‘streaming’, or ‘tracking’, involves separating students into classes depending on their diagnosed levels of attainment. At a macro level, it requires the establishment of academically selective schools for the brightest students, and comprehensive schools for the rest. Within schools, it means selecting students into a ‘stream’ of general ability, or ‘sets’ of subject-specific ability. The practice is intuitively appealing to almost every stakeholder.

第4段

I have heard the mixed-ability model attacked by way of analogy: a group hike. The fittest in the group take the lead and set a brisk pace, only to have to stop and wait every 20 minutes. This is frustrating, and their enthusiasm wanes. Meanwhile, the slowest ones are not only embarrassed but physically struggling to keep up. What’s worse, they never get a long enough break. They honestly just want to quit. Hiking, they feel, is not for them.

第5段

Mixed-ability classes bore students, frustrate parents and burn out teachers. The brightest ones will never summit Mount Qomolangma, and the stragglers won’t enjoy the lovely stroll in the park they are perhaps more suited to. Individuals suffer at the demands of the collective, mediocrity prevails. So: is learning like hiking?

第6段

The current pedagogical paradigm is arguably that of constructivism, which emerged out of the work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1930s, Vygotsky emphasised the importance of targeting a student’s specific ‘zone of proximal development'(ZPD). This is the gap between what they can achieve only with support – teachers, textbooks, worked examples, parents and so on – and what they can achieve independently. The purpose of teaching is to provide and then gradually remove this ‘scaffolding’ until they are autonomous. If we accept this model, it follows that streaming students with similar ZPDs would be an efficient and effective solution. And that forcing everyone on the same hike – regardless of aptitude – would be madness.

第7段

Despite all this, there is limited empirical evidence to suggest that streaming results in better outcomes for students. Professor John Hattie, director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute, notes that ‘tracking has minimal effects on learning outcomes’. What is more, streaming appears to significantly – and negatively – affect those students assigned to the lowest sets. These students tend to have much higher representation of low socioeconomic class. Less significant is the small benefit for those lucky clever students in the higher sets. The overall result is that the smart stay smart and the dumb get dumber, further entrenching the social divide.

第8段

In the latest update of Hattie’s influential meta-analysis of factors influencing student achievement, one of the most significant factors is the teachers’ estimate of achievement. Streaming students by diagnosed achievement automatically limits what the teacher feels the student is capable of. Meanwhile, in a mixed environment, teachers’ estimates need to be more diverse and flexible.

第9段

While streaming might seem to help teachers effectively target a student’s ZPD, it can underestimate the importance of peer-to-peer learning. A crucial aspect of constructivist theory is the role of the MKO-‘more-knowledgeable other’- in knowledge construction. While teachers are traditionally the MKOs in classrooms, the value of knowledgeable student peers must not go unrecognised either.

第10段

I find it amazing to watch students get over an idea to their peers in ways that I would never think of. They operate with different language tools and different social tools from teachers and, having just learnt it themselves, they possess similar cognitive structures to their struggling classmates. There is also something exciting about passing on skills and knowledge that you yourself have just mastered – a certain pride and zeal, a certain freshness to the interaction between ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’ that is often lost by the expert for whom the steps are obvious and the joy of discovery forgotten.

第11段

Having a variety of different abilities in a collaborative learning environment provides valuable resources for helping students meet their learning needs, not to mention improving their communication and social skills. And today, more than ever, we need the many to flourish-not suffer at the expense of a few bright stars. Once a year, I go on a hike with my class, a mixed bunch of students. It is challenging. The fittest students realise they need to encourage the reluctant. There are lookouts who report back, and extra items to carry for others. We make it – together.

想象一下这样的场景。在一所英国学校的英语文学课上，一群15岁的学生听着老师朗读莎士比亚的《罗密欧与朱丽叶》。老师给了一部分学生《无畏莎士比亚》这本书，这是一本把原作翻译成儿童能理解的语言的版本。但是，还有三个学生连这样的书都读不懂。一个女孩对课程完全不感兴趣，老师只好给她纸和笔让她自己画画。老师让那些读《无畏莎士比亚》的学生说出故事中的主要人物，并总结一下情节的大概。他还向大部分学生提出了有关角色变化的问题，其中有五个人能用文本中的证据来支持他们的回答。此时，有两个对莎士比亚很感兴趣的学生想知道他是主张节制地生活还是放纵地生活。 

作为一名教师，如果我的课堂讨论如上所述，我会认为我的课堂效果还不错。但是，如果高低水平之间的差距不是如此之大，这样的课堂会不会更好呢？如果我们将所有需要提供读写支持的学生放在一个班级，将那些想要讨论节制与激情参与优点的学生放在另一个班级呢？

"分流"或"跟踪"的做法是将学生根据他们的学业水平分到不同的班级。从宏观上讲，这要求为最聪明的学生建立学术性的选拔学校，为其他学生建立综合性学校。在学校内部，这意味着将学生选入一种普通能力的"流"或科目特定能力的"组"。这种做法几乎符合每个利益相关者的直觉。

我听到过这种以类比的方式批评混合能力模式：一群人一起远足。身体最好的人领头并保持快速的步伐，但每隔20分钟就要停下来等待其他人。这很令人沮丧，他们的热情消退了。与此同时，行动最慢的人不仅感到尴尬，而且身体吃力地跟不上。更糟糕的是，他们从未得到足够长的休息时间。他们真的只是想退出。他们觉得远足不适合他们。

混合能力班对学生来说很无聊，令家长沮丧，也使教师精疲力尽。最聪明的学生永远无法登上珠穆朗玛峰，而那些落伍者又无法享受适合他们的轻松散步。个体在集体需求面前受苦，平庸传统。那么，学习像远足吗？

当前的教学范式可以说是建构主义，这是基于心理学家列夫·维果茨基的研究成果而形成的。在上世纪30年代，维果茨基强调了针对学生特定的"近发展区域"（ZPD）的重要性。这是学生只能在教师、教科书、示例、父母等的支持下实现的能力和他们能够独立实现的能力之间的差距。教学的目的是提供并逐渐消除这种"脚手架"，直到学生能够自主学习。如果我们接受这种模式，那么将具有相似ZPD的学生分组将是一种高效和有效的解决方案。而强迫所有人参加同一次远足-不考虑能力-是疯狂的。

尽管如此，有限的经验证据表明分流对学生的学习成果产生了改进。墨尔本教育研究所所长约翰·哈蒂教授指出，"跟踪对学习结果的影响较小"。此外，分流似乎对那些被分到最低组的学生产生了显著且负面的影响。这些学生通常来自低社会经济阶层。对于那些幸运的聪明学生来说，处在更高层次的班级中可能有一些小的好处，但并不明显。总体而言，聪明的人变得更聪明，愚笨的人变得更愚笨，进一步强化了社会分裂。

在哈蒂对影响学生学业的因素进行的最新元分析中，教师对学生成就的估计是最重要的因素之一。按照被诊断的成就水平将学生分组，会自动限制教师对学生能力的判断。与此同时，在混合环境中，教师的估计需要更多样化和灵活。

虽然分流似乎有助于教师有效地针对学生的ZPD进行教学，但它可能低估了同伴之间的学习的重要性。建构主义理论中一个关键的方面是知识构建过程中"更知识他人"（MKO）的角色。虽然教师传统上是课堂上的MKO，但不可忽视具有专业知识的学生同伴的价值。

我发现很惊讶地看到学生以我无法想象的方式向同伴传递观点。他们使用不同的语言工具和教师不同的社交工具，刚刚学会的知识结构与正在努力学习的同学非常相似。将刚刚掌握的技能和知识传授给自己还没有掌握的同学，引起某种自豪感和热情，"教师"和"学习者"之间的互动更加新鲜有趣，而对于那些已经达到专家水平的人来说，这些步骤变得显而易见，发现的乐趣却被遗忘了。

在合作学习环境中拥有各种不同能力的学生提供了有价值的资源，有助于满足学生的学习需求，更不用说提高他们的沟通和社交技巧了。今天，我们更需要让众多学生蓬勃发展，而不是以几个聪明学生为代价让其他学生受苦。每年，我都会和我的班级一起进行一次远足，这是一个能力各异的学生团体。这是一个具有挑战性的过程。最健壮的学生意识到他们需要鼓励那些不情愿参与的人。有人负责巡视并回报情况，还有额外的物品要帮助其他人携带。我们一起完成了这次远足。