Scenario
You are the superintendent of a high school district engaged in a debat
Scenario
You are the superintendent of a high school district engaged in a debate over requiring all incoming freshmen to sit for an entrance exam. Students will be placed in college-preparatory courses (including several advanced placement courses) OR a standard track based on the entrance exam results. Thus, students who perform well on the entrance exam will be grouped with students of similar advanced academic abilities. Many parents and teachers have strong opinions about this proposed policy (both for and against). You have been asked to conduct a presentation for the upcoming school board meeting, at which many parents and teachers will be present.
Directions
First, read the following articles:
“The Pygmalion Effect in Distance Learning: A Case Study at the Hellenic Open University” (Niari et al., 2016).
“Positive Adult Education, Learned Helplessness and the Pygmalion Effect” (Cobos-Sanchiz, 2022).
You may also wish to read the following popular press articles:
“Another last-minute change could come to high school admissions process” (Elsen-Rooney, 2022a).
“’Gifted’ more diverse ; Black, Hispanic students double after test tossed” (Elsen-Rooney, 2022b).
“The Access Trap” (Heller, 2022).
Next, develop a 1-page handout (Microsoft Word) explaining the Pygmalion Effect and the practice of ability grouping. Your audience for this handout should be the school board meeting attendees. Imagine that you have to explain the Pygmalion Effect and ability grouping to them. You must be creative and use images and graphics to help illustrate the principles. You should indicate both the pros and cons of these practices. Please be sure to cite graphics/images properly in APA format as if you were going to publish them in a journal article (see Ch. 7 of the APA manual).
Finally, write a 1–2 -page paper to accompany your handout answering the following questions:
How have you experienced the effects of the Pygmalion effect in educational or organizational settings? What informal practices do educators engage in that illustrate the Pygmalion effect? What are the impacts of these informal practices on educational settings?
What has been your experience with the practice of ability grouping? Is this strategy ethical, or is it unethical? To support your conclusions, evaluate the impact of ability grouping policies on your educational setting using evidence from Niari et al. (2016) and Cobos-Sanchiz et al. (2022).
References
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