I read an article by Carol Tomlinson titled "Deciding to Teach Them All." In her article, Tomlinson discussed a fellow teacher's attempt to teach a high level curriculum in a general education class. In doing so, this friend quickly realized the curriculum would need altered, but not dumbed down. Unlike many teachers caught in the idea of raising students to meet curriculum demands, this teacher recognized the importance of altering the curriculum to help students obtain the most important skill and understandings key in completing the curriculum.
    Recently, I have also been learning about collaborative learning in the classroom and its effect on learning. So I couldn't help but consider how the classroom discussed in Tomlinson's article, a class filled with higher-learners, special needs students, English language learners, and every student in between or lower, might benefit from the collaborative skills discussed in Chapter 3 of Classroom Instruction that Works (2nd ed.). (CIW) 
    The students, of course, would need to be organized into diverse groups, expecting lower level learners to strive harder to reach the expectations of higher learning students. The group work would also need to challenge students who already have fair understanding of the lesson, and should expect such students to apply their understanding to life situations while reorganizing the information in a manner their group mates might better learn and understand. In short, the collaborative learning would raise expectations for lower level learners, while raising higher learner expectations to the role of mini-teachers.
    As Dean, Hubble, Pitler, and Stone (2012) stated in CIW: 

"Studies show that well-organized cooperative learning opportunities positively affect academic as well as socioemotional achievement, self-esteem, motivation, and engagement with school, all while helping to minimize feelings of social isolation." (p.46)

Students are drawn to their peers and are often motivated by the desire to perform well according to the skills of fellow students. To provide opportunities where students share, encourage, and develop understandings and skills through collaboration is a golden ticket to learning. However cooperative learning must not be mistaken as the "Get Out of Jail Free" card in teaching.
    As one author implied in an article considering the use of technology in schools (I have provided a link to this article at the bottom of the article), the use of digital tools in teaching is "intended to be a compliment to, rather than a replacement of, traditional instruction." (Diette Casey, 2013) In this same manner, teachers should perceive group learning as a tool, not a replacement, of teaching in the class. Unless collaborative learning is well organized, monitored, and taught cooperative learning can easily cripple students and result in meaningless loitering.
   
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rural_education/2013/10/rural_schools_face_barriers_promise_by_moving_to_blended_learning.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS3