To serve different instructional purposes, teachers could group students in different ways:
- According to academic abilities
– Homogeneous grouping gives students of similar ability an opportunity to explore unknown concepts together and to obtain emotional support from each other.
– Heterogeneous grouping enables more able students to provide cognitive support for the less able peers and deepens their own understanding.
- Not according to academic abilities
– Other types of grouping could be applied to facilitate student learning.
In addition, cooperative learning could be promoted among students of varied abilities.