This study is quite old but it does make you wonder. Two sigma status really catches educators attention and promotes the teaching of pre-requisite skills to all students since even the students who didn't need them did better than if they would not have reviewed the prerequisite skills. If a teacher teaches all students the pre-requisite skills before starting the new knowledge would they have better results than pre-testing and grouping students. I am trying to find more updated research.
In my class this weekend, we talked about what is working and what is not working. Most teachers are not in the practice of pre-testing or inappropriately pre-test the students cold - without activating their prior knowledge by working on key concepts for a few days in a problem solving way perhaps.
A good instructional strategy is only as good as when it is actually used. This has me thinking. I wish someone would replicate this research study with teaching all student pre-requisite skills in one group while another group uses an effective pre-testing and differentiation teaching approach. The results would be fascinating.
Two Sigma is a high standard for high performance. The percentage of students who achieve at that percentage. 2 sigma is rare for sure with 95% of students successful.
1 sigma - 66.7% 2 sigma - 95% 3 sigma - 99%
Check out the study.
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