[Ohiogift] Grouping the gifted and talented learner
Art Snyder
artsnyder44 at cs.com
Sun Feb 21 16:27:57 EST 2016
Everyone:?
To group or not to group?
In the Roeper Review, gifted expert Karen B. Rogers presentsan extensive article on grouping giftedand talented students. At more than 5,000 words, the study is re-presented bythe Davidson Institute and discusses the topic and addresses an array ofquestions. These include:
??? What are possible groupingoptions to consider when grouping gifted learners?
? ? What are the academic effectsof these grouping options for gifted learners?
? ? What are potential social andpsychological effects of these grouping options?
? ? Are there some concerns weshould have about grouping gifted learners together?
? ? What might be the costs of notproviding grouping for gifted learners?
?
The introductory section of the article is pasted below, foryour convenience. To read the article in its entirety (a printer-friendlyversion is clickable), go here:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10173.aspx
?
Jean Kremer
(via Art Snyder)
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Grouping the gifted and talented: Questions and answers
Rogers, K. B.?
Roeper Review?
Vol. 16, No. 1?
September 1993?
This article by Karen B. Rogers offers a synthesis of the research on ability grouping. Rogers addresses five questions about the academic, psychological and socialization effects on gifted learners of grouping for enrichment, cooperative grouping for regular instruction and grouping for acceleration. She includes extensives answers for each.?
Five questions about the academic, psychological, and socialization effects on gifted and talented learners of grouping for enrichment, cooperative grouping for regular instruction, and grouping for acceleration are addressed. The conclusions drawn from 13 research syntheses on these practices, conducted in the past 9 years are described. In general, these conclusions support sustained periods of instruction in like-ability groups for students who are gifted and talented.
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Perhaps this title is presumptive: questions and answers. Certainly anyone can produce the questions educators have about the effects of grouping the gifted. But there must be some presumption in any one writer claiming to have the answers as well. Can one talk about differing group configurations without first clarifying the purposes for that grouping? For example, are we inquiring about grouping for enrichment?or?grouping for the acceleration of content,?or?grouping for effect? And when we ask about grouping the "gifted," in particular, are we referring to?highly-able students?(defined by some researchers as the top third of grade level performance) or are we talking about the?gifted, defined as performing or capable of performing at extraordinary levels in specific ability domains? Even a cursory survey of recent articles reveals that these questions have not always been asked before answers about the grouping issue have been given.
Why has ability grouping become such a big issue in the last 5 years? Why have so many well-intentioned educational researchers blamed ability grouping for the widespread ills currently plaguing American schools? As educational leaders have struggled to find the answer to our country's educational woes, we have seen the implementation of a plethora of whole group and cooperatively structured instructional strategies to be applied to heterogeneous groups of students, each guaranteed to solve our problems. Educators have learned how to implement Madeline Hunter's MP, Metra Companion Reading, group-based mastery learning, assertive discipline, and cooperative learning programs for what is believed to be the empirically supported betterment of all classroom learners, regardless of achievement or ability level.
Elimination of ability grouping has hit the gifted education movement very hard. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska (1991) has suggested that grouping and cooperative learning issues may be even more damaging to gifted education than just losing opportunities for intellectual peers to learn together. These issues may, in fact, be diverting us, as well as general educators, from focusing on the curricular and instructional needs of gifted learners. Gifted educators are now confronted with shoring up the erosion of years of effort: fighting the loss of high ability reading or math groups, the elimination of gifted pull-out or resource programs of enrichment, and the removal of Advanced Placement and enriched or honors classes. There is little time left over for constructing innovative differentiation for their gifted and talented charges.
The issue basically under debate-like-ability grouping versus mixed-ability grouping- has become a heated and emotional one. Both sides believe that whatever decisions they make are, of course, in the best interests of the majority of students. With the concern for "at risk" students of high priority nationally, educators continue to search for a method that will keep these students involved and successful in school. As Oakes (1990) and George (1988) have argued, all students, especially our "at risk" ones, must be given full access to the knowledge society considers "high status," if we are to ensure them choices for their futures. Unfortunately, this focus may have diverted needed attention from the majority of American students who have been well-served by our schools and from the minority who have been chronically underserved academically.
Knowing that we will not be able to answer the larger questions that accompany these priorities, we should probably concentrate on the problem at hand-understanding the general effects of grouping and not grouping gifted learners. There are five major questions about grouping to consider, each of which this article attempts to answer:
What are possible grouping options to consider when grouping gifted learners?
What are the academic effects of these grouping options for gifted learners?
What are potential social and psychological effects of these grouping options?
Are there some concerns we should have about grouping gifted learners together?
What might be the costs of not providing grouping for gifted learners?
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