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Changes to gifted program

605 views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  moominmamma 
#1 ·
Hi - I was hoping to get some insight and opinions about changes our school district is making to our gifted program for next year. Currently, the school offers gifted services starting in 4th grade and there is a separate gifted math and reading class. A student must receive a composite score of 135 or better on the CoGAT and also be in the 95th percentile in math and or reading to be in of those classes. Next year for 4th & 5th graders the school district has decided to create a 2 hour block of Language Arts and Social Studies for the children currently in either of the above mentioned gifted classes. Math is no longer a separate pull out class and will be taught in heterogeneous classes with clustering. Has anyone had experience with this type of program? I am trying to understand why the school no longer sees a need for a pull out math class and why it would see social studies as a more important component to their gifted services. The explanation they have given is that Language Arts and Social Studies work better together as one class as opposed to having the two separate math and reading classes. Fine, I get that part but I don't understand how putting the gifted students back into heterogeneous math classes will be beneficial to the students. I am concerned that they won't be challenged enough and will be frustrated and bored. Any insight?
 
#2 ·
I would ask how defined the clusters are. For example, my daughter is being pulled out of class for "advanced" math...but so is 1/3 of kids in her grade level. This doesn't meet her need for acceleration in math. But for some kids, that might be sufficient. Or perhaps your son could work independently on math, or do a subject acceleration for math and be in one of the higher fifth grade groups. Personally, I think acceleration subjects other than reading or math is great, but not at the expense of acceleration in those subjects too.
 
#3 ·
Theoretically I think either a congregated class or heterogenous clustering (in-class differentiation) could work really well for math but it depends on the people involved (students and teachers) and on how enthusiastically and creatively the teachers respond to their students' needs. Either approach could also be a disaster from a practical standpoint.

My kids have been in math classes that operate on the clustering/differentiation model for the past two years and it's been excellent for them. My 14yo is in a math class that covers applied and academic streams for 10th through 12th grades. By age she'd be in 9th here (8th in most places: November birthday) but she was accelerated by one year, and then within the cluster she is able to move beyond that. She and one other girl in the 10th-grade academic cluster found their course easy to finish up by spring break, so they're spending the last 3 months of the school year working with the 11th-graders on their geometry unit. The structure of the classroom allows for lots of self-pacing, extra challenge, acceleration as desired and a fluidity of levels and courses. My 16yo is in the same class, moving through preCalc and introductory calculus with a cluster of 12th graders.

Of course this is at the high school level and in a multi-grade classroom. Many kids are not capable of enough self-direction and self-pacing when younger, and it's possible that your child won't get nearly this amount of challenge. My newly-10-year-old is finishing 8th grade math and is being homeschooled because we haven't been convinced that an appropriate level of differentiation would be available to her in 4th grade at the same school.

Miranda
 
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