Why identify
gifted and talented
students?
The Marland Report (1972)
states, "Gifted and talented children...require differentiated
educational programs and
services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program
in order to realize their contribution to self and society."
Why do these children
need differentiation?
According to Joyce
VanTassel-Baska (1998), G/T students requires fundamental adaptations
in:
- LEVEL: The curriculum needs to be advanced to interest
and challenge them.
- PACE: The curriculum needs to be paced depending on the
level of challenge.
- COMPLEXITY: The curriculum should reflect the G/T
student's capacity to engage in simultaneous rather than linear
processing of ideas.
- DEPTH: The curriculum should allow individual exploration
of areas of interest in order to develop expertise.
What will happen if
these students do not receive differentiated instruction?
Many people, including
teachers, feel that you can't really hurt gifted kids; they'll be
fine no matter what. This
is not always true.
- Most general (or homogeneous)
classrooms do not differentiate for G/T students' needs
(Archambault et al., 1993).
- G/T students in general
classrooms report less frequently than those in pull-out programs
that their classwork presented them with new content or
challenging work. Their parents concur, although their teachers
and administrators do not (Delcourt & McIntire, 1993).
- G/T students in homogeneous
classrooms have better social adjustment than G/T students in
heterogeneous classrooms (Silverman).
- G/T students in homogeneous
classrooms perform better on standardized tests than those in
heterogeneous classrooms (even when both classes had the same
curriculum) (Shore & Delcourt, 1997).
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