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1 Elizabeth L Wood Cindy Burchett Human Relations Independent Study 5 March 2013 Teaming and Multiage Grouping: An Ethnographic Study Consistency and friendship are two crucial elements for middle school aged, even for immigrants and refugees. In her article, I Feel Like Im safe Again: A Discussion of Middle Grades Organizational Structures from the Perspective of Immigrant Youth and Their Teacher, Kathleen Brinegar examines how effective teaming and multiage grouping are in terms of organizational structures for immigrant and refugee students. The article, which was published in the online journal RMLE Online: Research in Middle Level Education, outlines many positives and negatives of Brinegars ethnographic study. The positives from teaming and multiage grouping were abundant. The most voiced advantage between both students and teachers was that students felt like they belonged. Students were quoted as saying, I think its like a community, and another said I like that we all get to work together to decide on the rules, how everythings going to be, the schedule (Brinegar 1-14). I think that all students enjoy feeling like they belong and tend to perform better academically, so it makes sense that this would also apply to immigrants and refugees. The desire to belong to a community is trans-societal and can apply to the educational system as well. While students werent really able to voice why they liked being a part of the community, teachers stated they thought students liked being a part of the community because everything was all sort of taken care of so they can focus more on the content and learning (Brinegar 1-14). Students werent worried about having to switch classroom, have multiple sets of classroom rules, or about having a friend once they get there. Students feeling like they were part of a community led to other advantages in school. Those advantages include academic growth and more intense friendships. As students are in the same classroom with children of all ages, the students saw material repeated. Each year their knowledge of that material deepened. The study found that students expressed pride in their academic growth over the course of multiple years and largely attributed this to having

 Wood 2 stayed with the same teachers over an extended period of time (Brinegar 1-14). By repeating content year after year, the students gained a better understanding of the material each year. The other positive to teaming and multiage education was the friendships that were made in the teams. In fact, the importance and focus on relationships inside the school could not be underestimated. Students were quoted as saying, On teams people try harder to help each other and not be strangers and Yeah, like, I feel like Im safe again (Brinegar 1-14). Relationships with teachers and peers were both important. Students found that as they became more comfortable with their teachers that their grades improved. This lack of shyness transposed to their peers as well. Students started the team in 6th grade, not knowing anyone but by the time they reached 8th grade they knew many other students. By the time the student went to high school, their peers from when they were in 6th grade were already there. While there were many positive outcomes from teaming and multiage leveling, there were still some negatives to the organizational structures. Most of these problems seem to stem from the group the student was placed in. The article openly states, some teams were better equipped to work with immigrant and refugee students than others (Brinegar 1-14). Considering this fact, the teams that were better equipped for immigrants and refugees and more students of this nature, while a few remaining students were spread to the teams that werent as able. The students who werent with the core of immigrants and refugees were often excluded and had a harder time making friends because they were often pulled out of classes for ESL work. Also, depending on the teachers comfort level, parent involvement and contact levels fluctuated. In theory, parent involvement should have been better than average because parents would have gotten accustomed to the teacher their child had. However, the study found that, there is a wide range of understanding, level of acceptance, fear (Brinegar 1-14) when it came to dealing with parents and students. I truly believe after reading this article that teaming and multiage grouping is a positive environment that helps many students including immigrants and refugees. The research says that students in effective teaching teams thought the experience was good, that they made a lot of friends, and that their knowledge of content continued to improve. What I think needs to happen to make this kind of experience happen for all young people is to work on helping our

 Wood 3 educators feel comfortable with this kind of class load. Once educators receive multicultural education training, I think all students will find such an experience positive like this study found.

 Wood 4 Works Cited Brinegar, Kathleen. ""I Feel Like I'm Safe Again:" A Discussion of Middle Grades Organizational Structures from the Perspective of Immigrant Youth and Their Teachers." RMLE Online: Research in Middle Level Education. 33.9 (2010): 1-14. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.