Essay Use of Ability Grouping

“Alright,” the teacher says to the students, “I’m going to number all of you off into groups. Each group will read a section from the textbook and become experts on that section. Then, each group will teach the rest of the class what they learned from their reading.” This is an instruction common to the classrooms in the United States. More and more is the pedagogy of public education leaning in favor of team-based activities, projects, and learning. Group work is generally seen as an ultimately beneficial way to teach students, but this may be somewhat of a fallacy. The emphasis on group-based learning in public schools causes a multitude of problems.

One of the difficulties in identifying the needs of low-income students is the profound cultural barriers which exist that prevent their strengths and deficits from being identified. Children from low-income homes frequently have poorer vocabularies and a weaker basis of the type of knowledge that is frequently considered 'intelligence' on most forms of assessment. A low-income child's IQ may be high, even though he lacks a framework of accepted middle-class knowledge. "In January 2003, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the seeming overrepresentation of minorities in special education and underrepresentation of those students in gifted education. The NRC reported that, nationwide, 7.47 percent of all white students and 9.9 percent of Asian students are placed in gifted programs. Meanwhile, 3.04 percent of African-American students, 3.57 percent of Hispanic students, and 4.86 percent of American Indian students are classified as gifted" (GT-minority identification, 2003, ERIC Clearinghouse). The discrepancy, the NAS believed, could not be solely explained by talent alone but was at least partially rooted in the methods of identifying students labeled as gifted. Biases in standardized and other tests identifying student strengths, combined with prejudices, however unintentional, amongst educators and administrators lead to under-identification of the gifted

I observed Julie Tolbert’s gifted third, fourth, and fifth grade classes. The kids in each class were mainly girls but only by a few numbers. Each child had a different learning style, and while they are all in a gifted class some were slower than others with each subject. A child that did really well in the science part of the day might struggle more in the social studies part of the day. Julie would accommodate each learning style to the best of her ability seeing as her ratio was normally

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

An intentional group takes more planning on the teacher, but the final result is more positive. The intentional group will have a teacher goal that will be arrived at and resolved. A social group is also used as an intentional grouping to allow for the shy student to be paired with the more outgoing student and they are given learning activities to increase the social interactions. This also allows for a model student to be placed with an underachiever and they, in turn can teach them to accept their learning situation. A number of small groups could address one topic, just four different subcategories, and pull back together to finalize their conclusions. Teachers are given a chance to utilize the personalities and skills levels to advance the group learning experience.

Gifted students should be provided advanced opportunities to be challenged, to experience both success and growth, to develop higher level study, creativity, and productivity. To develop their interests and talents their individual characteristics, needs, learning rates, motivations for learning, cognitive abilities, and interests must be taken into account. Differentiation can be included in the curriculum by incorporating acceleration, complexity, depth, challenge, and creativity. Students can also be given fewer tasks to master a standard, use multiple resources and higher-level skills, conduct research, develop products, make cross-disciplinary

59. Data about Brown Middle School shows that 99% of the students enrolled are African American. African American and poor children continue to achieve below grade level and drop out in much greater numbers (Nieto, 2004, p. 48). One example is that Black students are underrepresented in programs for the gifted and talented, being only half as likely to be placed in these programs as are White students, even though they may be equally gifted (Nieto, 2004, p. 59). Studies have linked participation in advanced placement, gifted and talented programs, and advanced math and sciences classes with better outcomes later in life. Brown Middle School’s enrollment rate for the gifted and talented is 14 percent. These factors can be another factor in the low-test scores at Brown Middle School. Many studies also show that rigid tracking is prominent in poor communities with large numbers of African American, Latino and American Indian students (Nieto, 2004, p.

This often occurs due to testing being warped and using a single mode of assessment, such as focusing only on IQ scores, Rather than using a single mode of assessment, testing should include both intelligence and achievement data in order to fully determine if a student is both gifted and achieving, gifted and underachieving, or gifted but weak when it comes to academic or social skills. This would help significantly when it comes to determining placement decisions for students as well as help those gifted underachievers become achievers by teaching them study and language skills that they may currently be lacking. Recruitment for gifted education programs need to develop a more well-rounded philosophy, significant changes in the deciding

In this case, some people refute that gifted students are practically children with adult minds who are capable of diving into the real-world while they have merely begun to test the waters. Others counter with the belief that pushing gifted youth to tackle subjects above the average student of their grade is socially damaging. However, K. Elijah (2011) explains that gifted students who are not being challenged can develop an extreme boredom in school which can lead to disruptive behaviors that will evolve into dropping out of school. In the same article, gifted students are credited with learning quicker, more deeply, and tend to practice material for memorization less (Elijah, 2011). Also, “Acceleration of Gifted Students” (2003) further clarifies that when gifted students are properly assisted in developing an educational program, they report to be satisfied emotionally and academically. Students also tended to have more self-confidence, and no negative effects of acceleration were reported in a survey of non-gifted and gifted students (“Acceleration,” 2003). Assisting gifted students is imperative whether it be through homogeneous grouping, heterogeneous grouping, and/or acceleration in order to provide proper instruction that will benefit these

Is grouping students by ability used in your school? How is that done? How do you see your cooperating teacher differentiating their instruction? Do students get any choices in the way they demonstrate what they have learned?

Typically gifted and talented programs are intended to challenge fast pace learners and recognize their special abilities, however the innocuous separation between peers can prevent other students’ talents from being acknowledged and advanced. While the gifted and talented students are applauded for their intellectual capabilities and natural talents, other students are labeled as average or less skilled. Placement into these programs are rooted from the results of standardized testing, which students and teachers spend a great amount of time preparing for. Preparation for these exams alter the curriculum and objective for learning all together. Some education systems seem to focus more on teaching to test rather than teaching to educate. In Cathy Davidson essay, “Project Classroom Makeover,” she explores how there should be more emphases on the relevance, relationship and rigor in the classroom and how this can teach students more efficiently and improve our school. Within the past 15 years, advancements in technology alone theoretically have created new prospective ways of learning, therefore standardized testing may be an inadequate method of testing students’ talents and abilities. Because each student’s future is so heavily weighted on their performance throughout grade school, education systems should have a well-rounded system in place that allows students to support and learn from each other rather than creating a divide between the strong versus the poor test

Ability grouping helps students to prepare for high school and or college, because when a student gets in high school they have to take so many different classes in school, and if they were in accelerated classes as a kid they would do a better job in high school. For example, if a student was in an accelerated class when they were in elementary school then they would of been challenged in that class and would make it to a higher level class in high school. Also, if a student excels in high school, then they would have a better

Pros: Supporters suggest gifted classes as a way of tracking to keep the talented students out of mixed ability classes that otherwise would restrict their learning and would place these students in boring classes. Duflo, Duppas, and Kremer (2011) state that the benefits of math ability tracking along with pedagogy that narrowly targets specifics may outweigh the affect of being in a classroom with classmates having lower math skill sets. Ansalone believes a more positive self-concept of students with low IQ when grouped homogeneously (2010). Vanfossen agrees that tracking improves self-concept and motivation (1987). Grouping is often seen as a way to maximize learning potential with the smallest financial investment. Teachers accept tracking because teaching is made easier by limiting the wide range of academic diversity in the individual classroom. Successful teachers often incorporate tracking within their classroom based on students’ ability now commonly called differentiation which stirs a moan within most teacher collaboratives. Ability tracking can be used as an aid to cover the most standards as quickly as possible. Gifted students in mixed ability classes get impatient with their peers who are struggling with the material and continue to ask questions when the majority of the class is ready to move on to newer concepts. Lower ability students may not ask questions they need answered because they are embarrassed to admit they do not understand the standard

Ward, 2005); President Obama’s defunding of the Javits Act, as part of the federal budget in 2012 (Equity) (Stephens, 2011), and the passing of the TALENT Act under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 (NAGC, n.d.). In short, the federal government’s support for gifted education has been inconsistent at best, and when compared to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which "guarantees all children between the ages of three and twenty-one with specifically identified disabilities a 'free appropriate public education' in the least restrictive environment in conformance with an Individualized Education Program” (Ward, 2005, p. 58) funding and support by federal government is severely lacking (Brown, 2008; Ward, 2005). Nevertheless, the TALENT Act (2015) is encouraging for gifted education as it promotes professional development to support high-ability students, seeks to recognize and respond to excellence gaps, makes student achievement data publicly available, and advocates for research and the distribution of research that supports best practices in gifted education (NAGC, n.d.). Likewise, the Javits Act continues to give hope to those who have been historically underrepresented in gifted education through the first of its two priorities, which is to support “Initiatives [that] develop and scale up models serving students who are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs” (USDOE, 2017).

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