[didibus]

> while academic classes (reading, math, science, geography, history, &c.) were by ability

My issue with this is that it just is selection bias, telling you nothing about how good the method is at teaching.

Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Or it's just that those who are good and bad already get divided up, and we know not why some are good and others are worse?

[michaelt]

> Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better?

Yes, you shunt all the disruptive/obstinate kids into class 2 and they can spend 4 hours of math lessons every week rehashing arguments about how they have a phone so they don't need to know what 7x12 is.

This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades.

Because of the way these things are done, it does have the unfortunate side effect that the kid who struggles with math because he's dyslexic gets put in a class with the kid who doesn't give a shit about math. But they'd be in the same even if the school didn't place by ability, so they're not that much worse off.

[didibus]

> This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades.

That's pure hypothetical, and some disruptive kids are also good and could make it to the top class and still be a class clown. Unless you propose more splitting kids up by "disruptiveness".

I don't think any of this tells us of the quality of the method for actually teaching. It's like schools that have really hard entrance exams, and than assert they are the best school, yes in terms that they only allowed the smartest to come in, off course they will see that the students at the school is good, but those students would be good regardless.

[diordiderot]

It isn't hypothetical, lower disruptive peer-behaviour in a class is associated with better outcomes for the class, across the world.

[em-bee]

and the montessori method is effective in lowering disruptive peer-behaviour. it's part of the point. it teaches children to not be disruptive by letting them focus on their activities.

[didibus]

That's not what was proposed though, what was proposed was to have kids move up as their ability develops.

It's pure hypothesis that this would coincide with less disruption in classes, even more that it would be causative.

I also find it purely hypothetical that it does anything to make kids better.

You said lack of disruptiveness is associated with better outcomes, have any research or data about it? Otherwise it too is pure hypothetical.

A hypothesis isn't bad, but since we're on the topic of ability, let's not devolve into cargo cults.

[diordiderot]

> Otherwise it too is pure hypothetical.

You could spend 2 minutes googling to see it's a well known / understood phenomenon. I would also argue it's common sense. Ask a teacher.

https://docs.iza.org/dp17539.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/33186/...

https://anjalipverma.github.io/files/Disruptive%20Interactio...

https://ideas.repec.org/r/wil/wilehe/52.html

[didibus]

These type of studies trot the line of cargo cult though. Incredibly small effects, weak causation, full of possible confounders.

I'm not going to say being in a class where you are trying to pay attention and others are being very disruptive, and interrupt the lesson is enjoyable, it's annoying, but if you take even the studies you link, say the second link, it finds a 2% correlated effect, that is peers had scores 0.02 times lower than the standard deviation.

So if we were to change and group kids based on disruptiveness, instead of a 80% test core, your kid would have a 79.7% test score...

Now before you respond to this, I want to reiterate the point of my argument, that none of these ideas focus on actual teaching method improvements. How do you take a child at any level, and more effectively teach them so they learn faster and improve their intelligence and knowledge.

These alternatives, grouped by disruptiveness, grouped by current abilities, etc. they don't really change the pedagogy, just the environment. It seems their known effects are really small, and the effect on the average are not known.

So I'm not against them, as just from a pure setup they seem more appropriate, but it seems unlilely to result in much improvement learning wise, the kind that I'd be interested in.

[aidenn0]

From my limited observations it must; at least in cumulative subjects like math.

Too many kids are just completely lost because they were moved up to the next math class despite not understanding the previous math class.