Definition: Heterogeneous Groups are groups that include students with a wide variety of instructional levels. Heterogeneous Groups stem from the education precept that a positive interdependence can arise from students with varied learning levels working together and helping each other to reach an instructional goal.
Heterogeneous Groups can be contrasted directly with Homogeneous Groups.
Examples: When organizing reading groups, the teacher deliberately has low, medium, and high readers (as measured by reading level assessments) work together in a Heterogeneous Group to comprehend and analyze a given text together.
