Broader Strokes: The Curricular and Pedagogical Possibilities of Multiage Educational Settings

Multiage classrooms seem to be an idea of the past, as students in most schools across the country are grouped by age. However, research by Goldman (1981), Rhoades (1966), and Eisner (2003) argue that multiage grouping has significant social, behavioral, and intellectual advantages for students. Using educational criticism and connoisseurship as a methodology, this article examines the accounts of a professor who taught in a multiage school environment within the United States, as well as observations of a multiage school in the Masaka district of Uganda. This study aims to understand how curriculum and pedagogy interact within multiage system, as well as whether those interactions help or hinder students. Through interviews observations, and classroom artifacts, it was found as Perez, Breault, and White (2014) argue curriculum functions as a space, not only a given content trajectory. Additionally, it was found that in creating a space where community was encouraged, the school was able to move toward pedagogy of love.

Exploring Issues of Disability in Children's Literature Discussions

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">In this qualitative study, the author uses the theoretical lens of disability studies to examine how children in two multiage classrooms examine issues of disability through conversations during read-aloud and literature circle discussions. In this study, the author looks at how children build positive understandings of disability from children&rsquo;s literature but also how societal attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes might play into their interpretations of literature. Student&rsquo;s talk before, during, and after literature discussions was audio- and videorecorded. Several themes emerged from a discourse analysis of the transcriptions, including: defining disabilities, questioning and critiquing notions of normalcy; idealizing disabilities; identifying with characters; developing an advocacy stance; and using imagination to open up perspectives towards people in the real world. Through exploring characters in books, children not only learned about various disabilities, but they came to understand characters with disabilities as full and complex beings, similar in many ways to themselves.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">Keywords:&nbsp;children's literature, literature discussions, disability studies, elementary education, qualitative research</span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>

Early Childhood Corner: Multiage Mathematics: Scaffolding Young Children's Mathematical Learning

Exploration, inquiry, manipulation, discussion, and discovery all come to mind when we envision young children involved in mathematical activities. Early childhood education engages students in an exploratory journey from birth through age 9 in empirical mathematical concepts. The focus of early mathematics is to develop a strong foundation of the requisite skills and concepts throughout NCTM's five Content Standard strands (NCTM 2000). The wide ranges of abilities and understandings of mathematical concepts in early childhood classrooms challenge teachers to meet all students' intellectual needs. In this article, teachers of primary-grade multiage classrooms describe how they used scaffolding to capitalize on the wide ranges of abilities and met their students' needs by providing opportunities for their young learners to work together to understand mathematical concepts.

Effects of Anxiety on Communication Tasks for Children in Traditional and Individualized-Multiage Classrooms

The effects of anxiety on concept acquisition were evaluated for first and second grade children enrolled in either a traditional or in an individualized or multiage learning program, the latter specifically designed to reduce anxiety during the learning process. Regardless of their learning environment, first graders who scored high on trait anxiety, measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, performed more poorly than those with low trait anxiety. Individualized-multiage second grade children scored lower on state anxiety than children in the traditional group. The largest reduction in anxiety occurred at the second grade, suggesting that anxiety reduction was cumulative for the individualized-multiage program children during the first two years of their primary grade education. However, the individualized-multiage environment was detrimental to performance of second graders on the easier concrete concept acquisition test, suggesting that some anxiety is needed during learning to enhance attention and facilitate performance.