Disadvantages Of Acceleration's Debate In Education In The Classroom

In 2015, I wrote about my personal philosophy of the gifted learner. I stated in my paper that, “Giftedness is not a one, set definition. The definition of gifted must encompass intellect, ability, creative talent as well as emotional awareness. It cannot be micro-managed and be a “one size fits all” definition” (Dauber, 2015). People, who are gifted, need differentiation and opportunity to express, demonstrate and show their giftedness. Educators must be able to provide opportunities for the gifted learner to express his/her abilities and/or talents. Gifted students learn differently and require special educational experiences in order to grow academically and achieve their highest potential. Therefore, the education field must be able to understand not only the cognitive side of a gifted learner but the affective or social/emotional aspects too.

These advancements have had a dramatic influence on the quality of life and education for our students. Personalized learning has also taken on a new meaning. Students are able to pursue any topic and any area of interest at any time. If they are interested in a certain topic, the information is at their fingertips. They no longer have to physically go to a library to gather information. It also means that students that live in remote areas have access to the same online resources as students in metro areas. Students can also go back and revisit a concept as many times as necessary, or dig deeper on a subject they enjoyed. Also, students are able to virtually visit an area of the world that he/she may never be able to visit in real life. Another advantage is that if students are planning a trip to another part of the country or world, they are able to go online and find out what type of weather, supplies, clothing, etc. that is useful for that area. Another aspect of education that has drastically improved is teacher resources. Teachers have an endless supply of activities and lesson plans, even on the most specific topic. If a teacher is struggling on a type of activity or lesson plan to teach a certain standard, he/she can search activities that would help teach that exact standard. Not only do they include activities or lessons, but there are also numerous examples of assessments to evaluate student progress. Teachers can also go online to create lesson plans and include links, websites, attachments, etc. needed for their plans. An example of the online lesson planner is planbookedu.com/. Teachers are able to share their lesson plans with colleagues or teachers from other schools. This is an amazing asset, considering that a few years ago we had to purchase books and resources for each grade level and subject. The final aspect of education I will discuss is schools

Through these technological advances in the classroom, students will be able to engage more in the curriculum they are learning. Students will have what is known as an active form of education in which students can cooperate, and where combined intellect will become the centerpiece of instruction. (Jo, 2015)

Middle school is a period of transition for adolescents. Students are no longer the children were once were in elementary school; they are beginning to mature into the adults they will need to become. Gifted learners at the middle-school level face the same developmental and tasks tasks and challenges that their peers do. Yet, gifted learners also possess traits that are different from their peers, which often make them misunderstood or ignored. The need for teachers to identify these students and differentiate instruction in a way that addresses the needs of the gifted students in the classroom is becoming more crucial than ever.

gifted students within those states, and are not consistent across the United States. “Seven states

A Gifted and talented (G/T) student” is “one who . . . exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, or artistic area, possesses an unusual capacity for leadership, or excels in a specific academic field” (Aldine ISD Board Policy Manual, 2014). The Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides a state plan, which outlines the standards for Texas schools to be in compliance. It also offers the educational opportunities these students should receive. In fact, there are performance measures for five aspects of G/T programs including student assessment, service design, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and family and community involvement. The plan assists districts in delivering these comprehensive services to

I am a proponent of ability grouping. I believe that the best way to make progress is taking students and breaking them up into leveled sections so that they can achieve to their highest potential. To me, this is the only thing that truly makes sense. In an article from Newsweek.com entitled America Hates it's Gifted Kids (2014), by Chris Weller, while No Child Left Behind from 2001 did help to improve the scores of underachieving students across the nation, by some degree, we did terrible things for our gifted students. Many of these were left to fend for themselves. Gifted programs were often unfunded in order to handle the needs being created for underachieving students. When our gifted children may someday become our inventors, engineers, and doctors of the future, why on earth is their education and growth not as important as a student with special needs, or anyone else? We build individualized education plans for students who struggle, those with needs, yet we ignore other special abilities. Why can't we build a plan for them as well? Why don't we build a plan for each student, so that instead of a one-size-fits-all education, we provide a track for all students to run on based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, all can continue to grow. There is nothing that says a student who begins in one group cannot move up. There is nothing that says a student who struggles in math couldn't be a high achieving reader. In the Education Week (2004) article on tracking, the major concern against ability grouping has to do with labels. That the majority of students in low level ability groups are poor and minority, and that ability grouping sets a stigma on that particular population. Yet that is where they achieve! By giving specialized instruction at each individual level, all have a chance to grow, instead of lagging further behind, stagnating, or creating a greater challenge when their unique needs aren't met, and further

When many people think of elementary education, they think of reading small passages and learning the difference between addition and subtraction in easy, creative ways. Now, with the new Common Core State Standards implemented, today’s kids will have more things to worry about. They are asked more challenging questions and expected to have more rigorous answers. This does not set a steady learning pace for the average child.

For many grades and levels, the standards are too progressive. Performance stakes are being raised for students everywhere. Since the year 2007, the standards were introduced and developed

A fifth grader may come in at a “second-grade level” and graduate at a “fourth-grade level,” which is a tremendous achievement on the part of the educators; however, because standardized testing fails to account for such circumstances, the entire year would be seen as a failure from the perspective of the state (Berger). To put it crudely, “poor schools can’t win at standardized testing” because students in areas of poverty start school academically behind and are unable to catch up as there is the lack of resources and funding (Broussard). On the other extreme, gifted students are also hurt by attempts to standardize education, for instance, with the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that many say has “failed our adolescents” (Steinberg). Teachers say that the legislation has resulted in a “race to the middle” that means “talented students have their potential squandered” as schools “[don’t] foster growth” (Weller). In effect, standardization attempts to remove individuality from learning and ignores that students have different capacities for learning, that some students may need more help while others need to be challenged above their grade level - instead it averages it all out to a “standard” that harms both

Lee believes there is a disconnect in our current P-12 education system and actual college readiness and completion. We are not properly meeting the needs of students to be admitted to college and to graduate college. The study looks at national data sets of curriculum-based achievement test data from preschool, elementary, and secondary education students to recognize college level entree and attainment. He was also curious about the gap between our nation and state standards being high enough to meet college readiness and success.

The achievement gap is a term that has evolved over the past decades to describe

The topic of gifted and talented education is one that has always sparked debates among parents and teachers, and recent movements towards totally integrating classrooms have added to this debate. For many years now, "average" children, gifted and

Those that support ability grouping in schools argue that it is not just gifted and talented students that benefit from this practice. Although students benefit slightly from ability grouping even when course content is not altered, they could gain much more when the curriculum is adjusted to suit their academic needs, according to Mary Ann Swiatek (1997). Swiatek argues, students with mathematical talented are ready to learn statistics/probability, geometry, and pre-algebra long before those topics are introduced in school. If the advanced material is presented, gifted students will learn it, thereby boosting their academic achievement. (Swiatek, 1997)

The way in which a student is able to advance through the process of learning can be complicated by several aspects which characterize each student. Individual differences such as gender, motivation, socioeconomic status, personal beliefs, and disabilities all determine the ways in which a student will move through each stage of learning or how long it will take to master a skill. Furthermore, each student’s cognitive ability and performance can determine at which rate he or she will excel from the developmental stage of learning. Manning and Baruth (2009) suggest rather than assume that learners can succeed by trying hard or doing more homework; educators should understand that development and readiness, not effort alone, affect what students can learn.