Basics of Dividing Students

[CaliforniaMark]

I have a single class of students that stays together for several activities during a day, but splits up twice.  Once, the division is based on native English speakers vs. speakers whose native language is other than English.  A second time the division is based on each student making a choice from one of three possibilities (Art or Computers or Sports).  All six combinations are possible.

What is the best way to organize the students?  Six groups and no categories, or two categories (one with two choices and another with three) and no groups?  Sub-groups?  Some combination of groups and categories together?  I am confused.   

TIA for any advice you can give,

Mark

[Liviu Lalescu]

Make year Y and divide by 2 categories: categ. 1, with 2 divisions (NE, NOE) and categ. 2, 3 divisions (A, C, S).

Or, if you have more classes with the same structure: Ia, Ib, Ic, Id, make year Y and divide by 3 categories: categ. 1: 4 divisions, a, b, c, d, categ. 2: NE, NOE, categ. 3: A, C, S.

Edited to add: as mbarsan told me, I can say this: you can use groups for your activities (and this is recommended, more specifically, it is cumbersome to use subgroups), like Y a (in second case), Y NE or Y C. If you add activities for Y NE and Y NOE, these are not forced to be simultaneous.

If you need activities for Y NE and Y NOE to be simultaneous, you have two solutions:

1) constraint activities same starting time.
2) consider only year Y (in second case, with groups Y a, Y b, Y c, Y d). For activities of teacher T1, with Y NE, and T2, with Y NOE, add a single activity: T1+T2, Y NE + Y NOE.

[CaliforniaMark]

I thought I understood perfectly, until your edited additional comment.  Does it propose to use some combination of both categories and groups, or ... what?

Let's solve the case for only a single class.  I do not need Ia, Ib, Ic, Id logic.  Worse, when explanations refer to options for handling this additional complexity, those explanations become (of necessity) much more difficult to comprehend for the beginner (me).

There is only one small single class, with the need to split on two different occasions during the day.  But, in one split, they break up into two parts, and in the other split, into three parts (unrelated to the way they divided into two parts during the other split).

For the two-way split, there is no need for the two activities to take place simultaneously (although it might end up that way, given that these are school children with 100% full schedules).  For the three-way split, the three activities should be simultaneous, but because of additional constraints (they are all options - what we call "electives" - for the end-of-day activity).

What is the recommended approach?

Alternatively (or, in addition), what are the general circumstances which would cause one to prefer groups over categories as a dividing strategy, and what are the reverse circumstances, that would cause one to prefer categories?

TIA,

Mark

[Liviu Lalescu]

Then, just divide by 2 categories, as:

Make year Y and divide by 2 categories: categ. 1, with 2 divisions (NE, NOE) and categ. 2, 3 divisions (A, C, S).

Division of years by categories will generate groups and subgroups for year Y. Please divide Y and check its groups and subgroups, to see the magic (this magic is explained in the FAQ, search for word "divide" by saving the FAQ as a text file or seeing the on-line FAQ). You could manually add groups and subgroups, but it is much difficult and error prone.

Division of a year is only an automated procedure to generate the needed groups and subgroups or a year.