I am still on the fence with this one. There are clearly pros and cons with the methods one uses to select and assign students to a given ability group. At Amber Hill it appears far to much emphasis was placed on factors which are far less relevant to creating a group which will function properly and at Pheonix Park I feel that the pedagogy was the main factor in the results and not a lot had to do with groupng per say.
As I mentioned in my posting to the discussion forum I only have classes of about 25 in intermediate math so my grouping opportunities are limited to once or twice per week. However having a limited number of pupils does give me an advantage in that I do know them a lot better as individuals since we all live in the same communities and have opportunities to meet in social settings as well as in the classroom.
Depending upon the topics being studied I can choose my groups carefully, not necessarily always based solely upon abilities, but rather on real life experiences which I know they can bring to the group. More of a social experiences grouping strategy as it were. It does seem to work well for the most part. This is not to say that I do not consider ability, it just plays less of a role in my grouping strategy.
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