Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion gifted teaching others.

You really learn something when you teach it. It never hurts students to review what they have learned.

This belief has led to the practices of using gifted students as tutors for slower students in the classroom and having them do more work at the same level. Such activities have been used to fill the time of the student who finishes assigned work quickly, relieving the teacher of additional planning for such a student and simultaneously providing help to students who require extra support. This situation has been especially noticeable since Cooperative Learning groups have become an integral part of classroom organization. Too often, in an effort to maintain the standards they require of themselves, gifted students who are placed in a heterogeneous Cooperative Learning group will take on the major part of the research, writing, and presentation tasks, while also trying to tutor other members of the group, so that the group result will not be unacceptably low to these gifted students. Although sharing with classmates is an important social experience for gifted students, the overuse of group projects and the use of such students as tutors will prevent them from engaging in their own educational challenges. The increasing number of gifted students writing articles on their frustration with experiences in inappropriately constituted Cooperative Learning groups adequately validates the idea that there is a limit to the educational value of repeatedly reviewing materials and concepts that have already been mastered. On the other hand, Cooperative Learning groups of gifted learners can be stimulating and provide important interaction among intellectual peers.