What is the difference in compacting, differentiation, and old-fashioned (evil) ability grouping? I have not seen differentiation work, but how did teachers ability group back in the day.
So, compacting involves learning more material in a shorter period of time (such as pre-algebra & algebra in 1 year instead of 2). It's a faster pace than usual with the same or similar amounts of material. It can be used as a form of acceleration.
Differentiation involves different assignments (more in depth or more in breadth). For example, when children are learning fractions, a worksheet exploring Farey sequences using fractions might be used for advanced children to learn more about fractions and their applications in number theory. A child might be the only one in the class working on that assignment.
Ability grouping is similar to differentiation, except that there are groups of students with the same assignments (the top 20% of the class may have that Farey sequence worksheet, while the middle 60% have the regular assignment and the bottom 20% have a remedial worksheet).
Compacting worked well for DC20 (pg, 2E) when he was younger, as did differentiation. However, ability grouping didn't always work, as his strengths and weaknesses weren't always shared by the students in that group.
In my own experience, ability grouping didn't work well, as no one in my classes was as far ahead as I was before accelerating. Differentiation let me work at my own level in different subjects, while compacting allowed me to accelerate through material until I hit a better level of placement.
