January/February 1998

Multi-age Classrooms: An Age-Old Grouping Method Is Still Evolving

Despite mounting challenges, the multi-age classroom continues to be an attractive option for educators
By Nancy Walser

Seven years ago, when Connie Chene took over as principal of the Puesta Del Sol Elementary School in Rio Rancho, NM, she issued this challenge to her teachers: If they had any ideas about how to do things differently to benefit kids, all they had to do was talk to her.

Located just outside Albuquerque in one of the state's fastest growing cities, Puesta Del Sol had a not-so-progressive classroom arrangement. All special education students were taught outside the school in portable buildings; all regular education students were taught inside the main building. Chene was immediately besieged by proposals from regular and special education teachers who wanted to combine their students. Teachers knocked down walls between rooms, more proposals came in, and Chene now presides over a smorgasbord of classrooms: both single grades and mixed ages in both regular and inclusion classrooms, including one inclusion class that spans kindergarten through the 3rd grade.

"Teachers began to see the power of kids with different abilities and different points of view working together in the classroom," says Chene. "They began to buy into the idea that society is multi-age, families are multi-age, and we wanted the classrooms to reflect real life."

On the other side of the country, at the Graham and Parks Alternative School in Cambridge, MA, students have been combined in multi-age classrooms for 25 years. However, Graham and Parks is also home to the district's only Haitian-Creole transitional bilingual education program, and with bilingual Haitians now making up more than 30 percent of the school population, principal Len Solo is reassessing their system of combining two grades per classrooms in 1st through 8th grades. Especially in the higher grades, he contends, there are simply too many ability levels in each room for teachers to handle.

"You can have an eight- or nine-year spread in terms of levels," Solo says. "I've got a staff that kills themselves to meet kids' needs, and it's beginning to get really difficult to do that."

A Long History

Since the days of the one-room schoolhouse, multi-age grouping in this country has been buffeted by changing times and shifting priorities. Largely abandoned for single grades beginning in the mid-19th century, the practice was revived in the 1960s and 1970s with the growing interest in developmentally based education. Today most multi-age classrooms mix two, or more rarely three, grade levels containing a minimum of four chronological ages, according to Jim Grant, executive director of the Society for Developmental Education of Peterborough, NH.

Supporters say the practice of mixing different ages in the same classroom still holds much promise, arguing that it improves learning by emphasizing project-based curricula, continuous progress (as opposed to an annual pass-fail system), cooperation, and the sharing of knowledge. In theory, teachers in multi-age classrooms focus on individuals rather than on grade-level expectations. They also have more time to address individual needs because children spend more than one year in their class.

Detractors focus on the difficulties of managing multi-age classrooms and some practitioners report a new threat to the viability of multi-age education: the emergence of tests tied to grade-specific curriculum frameworks, which adds to the difficulty of teaching more than one grade level at a time.

Types of Grouping

Multi-age classrooms have been used in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. One type, multi-grade classrooms, are forced upon teachers as a way to manage low enrollments and shrinking budgets (see box). Because of this variety, simply counting the number of districts with mixed-age classrooms has proved illusive and made it difficult to judge their effectiveness.

When comparing achievement and other kinds of success in multi-age and single-grade classrooms, research is decidedly mixed. In a study published in 1995, Simon Veenman of the University of Nijmegen of Norway examined 56 studies, including 33 in the U.S., which compared standardized test results for single-grade classrooms with multi-grade and multi-age classrooms. While he concluded that multi-age classrooms "appear to be generally equivalent" to single-graded in terms of achievement, he found that tests measuring self-concept and attitudes toward school registered "a small positive effect for students in multi-age classes." Veenman excluded studies of non-graded classrooms-a more deliberate and rarer form of multi-age classroom that rejects all things labeled by grade -since non-grading is "a philosophy that permeates the entire school organization and program." In an attempt to look at only the effects of different grouping methods, he excluded studies in which teachers had received training in multi-grades or multi-ages.

In a 1992 study comparing non-graded with single-grade classrooms, however, Temple University professor Barbara Nelson Pavan reviewed 64 studies in the U.S. and Canada and found that the majority (58 percent) of non-graded classrooms performed better on achievement tests, as well as on tests for mental health and school attitude (52 percent). All seven studies that compared students who spent their entire elementary years in a non-graded school with single-graded counterparts found "superior performance by non-graded students." According to Pavan's definition, a non-graded school "does not use grade-level designations for students or classes" and progress is reported "in terms of tasks completed and the manner of learning, not by grades or rating systems."

Given the range of types of multi-age classrooms that exist, according to these studies, duplicating these positive results is a tricky business. In Kentucky, confusion over how to set up non-graded primary classrooms resulted in changes to the state's six-year-old education reform act mandating <%2>"multi-age/multi-ability" classrooms.<%0> Now school-based councils decide how primary-grade classrooms will be structured within general goals outlined by law. At least some of Kentucky's elementary schools now use multi-age grouping for only a portion of the day, with basic skills and drills often reserved for single-age grouping, according to Pam Williams, a consultant for the Kentucky Department of Education.

Emerging Consensus

After more than 30 years of dedicated study, some areas of consensus have emerged about mixing ages within classrooms. No one argues the fact that multi-age classrooms are harder to teach and require more preparation and training. And multi-grade classrooms-the kind forced on teachers for budgetary purposes-are particularly beset by "common problems and concerns," according to Veenman. These include "lack of time for teaching the required content, a greater work load, lack of time for individual attention and remediation, lack of adequate classroom management skills, lack of adequate preparation during teacher training, inadequate materials, and parental concerns about the academic achievement of their children."

Conversely, schools that use multi-age classrooms successfully are marked by several common traits, according to Bruce Miller, a researcher with the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, OR, who has written extensively about multi-age education in rural America. In a 1996 review of five schools in the Northwest that have used multi-age classrooms for more than four years, Miller found these commonalties: dedicated teachers, supportive principals and parents, and solidarity and teamwork among the staff. He also identified five requirements for implementing multi-age classrooms: review the research before beginning, don't settle on a single model, avoid "bottom up or top-down" mandates, recognize that a major conceptual change is required in terms of attitudes toward teaching and children, and get prepared for "evolving long-term change" through "strategic, incremental" steps. "Too many educators are implementing multi-age classrooms and schools with insufficient forethought, planning, and participation of key stakeholders," he concludes.

Threat of Tests

But even supporters say the best multi-age classrooms are threatened by the trend toward grade-specific curriculum requirements and tests. "Multi-age is a philosophy that is truly wonderful for learning, and in a perfect world where you do not have curricular barriers, it is doable," says Char Forsten, who leads seminars around the country for the Society for Developmental Education. Forsten, who taught mixed ages in New Hampshire for 18 years, says she learned these difficulties first-hand. "The minute you were asked to teach them as 4th and 5th graders instead of the blend, you were going against the multi-age philosophy to address them as one group of learners."

Other teachers, however, have gotten around these barriers by outlining district expectations for all the grade levels in their classroom and concentrating on the common areas; by teaching one curriculum one year and another the next; or by using sufficiently broad themes to cover all the bases. Looping-which groups a single or mixed-age class with the same teacher for more than one year-can also help bring teachers up to speed on combining curriculums, according to Forsten. "If I'd been a 3rd-grade teacher for 10 years before I took on a 3/4 class, I'd take the 3rd graders up to 4th grade so I would know what the 4th-grade curriculum is like before I taught both grades together in the same classroom," she says

It's exactly this kind of flexibility that practitioners point to as one of the most useful aspects of multi-aging: as a tool that can be used by teachers who want to use it and by schools that want to offer it to interested parents.

In Rio Rancho, principal Connie Chene has not formally compared test results of children before and after the introduction of inclusion and multi-age classrooms. But teachers have noticed a dramatic increase in writing skills and improvement on tests in areas they have identified as important. In a 1997 survey of all 200 parents whose children were in multi-age classrooms, all but two said they wanted their children to stay in the classrooms with mixed ages. Results like these prove the concept is working, says Chene. "There are many parents who still don't like it, and I make sure I have enough single-grade classrooms to accommodate them," she says. But even these classes have banded together to do mixed-age activities once a week-an arrangement that also gives one teacher some extra planning time each week, she says. "There's no one way of doing things around here," she emphasizes.

At Graham and Parks, principal Len Solo says he will be asking his school community to look into looping by single grades as a substitute for some or all multi-age classrooms to reap the benefits of having children stay with one teacher for more than one year, while at the same time reducing teacher work load and the need for tutoring after school and at home. "The measurable benefit [of multi-aging] comes from having a child for two years," he says. "The kids might have a good first year, but they have a much better second year; the achievement goes up by more than a year."

Despite the changes he is contemplating at his school, Solo still considers himself a staunch advocate of multi-age classrooms. "I just see so many benefits," he says. "They really contribute to the sense of community that we try to build here and we'll use them as long as we can."

For Further Information

M. A. Bozzone. "Straight Talk From Multi-age Classrooms: Why Teachers Favor Nongraded Classes and How They Make Them Work." Instructor 104, no. 6 (March 1995): 64-70.

P. Chase and J. Doan. Full Circle: A New Look at Multiage Education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.

B. A. Miller. "What Works in Multiage Instruction," Education Digest 61, no. 9 (May 1996): 4-8.

B. N. Pavan. "The Benefits of Nongraded Schools." Educational Leadership 50, no. 2 (October 1992): 22-25.

Society for Developmental Education. The Multiage Resource Book, 1993. PO Box 577, Peterborough, NH 03458; 800-462-1478.

S. Veenman. "Cognitive and Noncognitive Effects of Multigrade and Multi-Age Classes: A Best Evidence Synthesis." Review of Educational Research 65, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 319-381.

Nancy Walser is a freelance journalist and the author of Parent's Guide to Cambridge Schools. She lives in Cambridge, MA.