Keeping Class Size Constant, But Manipulating Organization

substantive interaction between students and an instructor is associated with higher levels of student engagement. Substantive interaction be-tween teachers and students consisted of presentation of information on academic con-tent, monitoring of work, and feedback about performance. Most student-teacher interaction took place in a group setting, with only a small part of such interaction occurring during seat-work as one-to-one "tutoring. " Students who spent more time in a group setting had higher rates of engagement.... Engagement rates were especially low when students spent two-thirds or more of their time in seatwork and had little interaction with the instructor. (Fisher et aI., 1980, pp. 21-22) Tracking refers most often to grouping by ability in sep-arate classrooms; this option is frequently found at the sec