Departmentalized instruction vs self-contained? - Gifted Issues Discussion Forum

The Federal Register, Department of Education has posted this item dated Jan 08, 2018 and open for public comment for 61 days (03/09/2018):

Originally Posted by Federal Register

One potential strategy that has recently become more popular in upper elementary school grades is to departmentalize instruction, where each teacher specializes in teaching one subject to multiple classes of students instead of teaching all subjects to a single class of students (self-contained instruction). However, virtually no evidence exists on its effectiveness relative to the more traditional self-contained approach. This evaluation will help to fill the gap by examining whether departmentalizing fourth and fifth grade teachers improves teacher and student outcomes. The evaluation will focus on math and reading, with an emphasis on low-performing schools that serve a high percentage of disadvantaged students.

One could hope that a departmentalized approach might lead to teachers developing in-depth expertise in their niche subject(s) and that this might be conducive to grouping students by readiness and ability, and providing appropriately challenging curriculum for gifted pupils?

The phrase "student outcomes" may refer to student scores on standardized tests. "Teacher outcomes" may refer to analysis of collected data showing higher student scores overall... or might refer to analysis of collected data indicating closing achievement gaps and excellence gaps.

Related posts -
1. Data Collection - Student Longitudinal Data Systems (Oct 2014)
2. Federal Register - Education Department, Daily Journal (Apr 2014)

In my kids' school, this "departmentalizing" happens in fifth grade, but not for the purpose of improving the quality of instruction in the "departments." It happens to give the kids some familiarity with the idea that different subjects will be taught by different teachers, and they will move from room to room for school, in preparation for middle school. The whole class moves together, and the kids get a lot of scaffolding on staying organized and remembering to go to their "lockers" (cubbies) to get the materials that they need for their next class.

Interestingly, the only subject for which students are grouped by ability is math, which is taught at the same time by all of the fifth grade teachers.

In NZ it doesn't happen until high school although intermediates have specialist teachers for woodwork, cooking etc and I think often music.

My DD's school did this in 5th grade. The "science" teacher was the same one DD had all day in a previous grade, who confused evaporation and condensation.

Locally, courses such as woodwork, cooking, music, etc are known as "electives." At a past point in time, a robust offering of electives was a sign of a strong school system: one in which the students were performing well academically, therefore could engage in classes which were not purely academic in nature but which contributed to being well-rounded persons capable of independent living... college and career ready.

There may currently be a trend to eliminate electives, freeing time for further academics, job internships, and assessments: increased data collection.

Here cooking/woodwork etc used to be known as manual and were compulsory in the last 2 years before high school (equ. Grades 6 and 7) with kids being bussed to a facility at one school in each area if not attending an intermediate. It is the same now but less sexist and i think called something else. Music/Drama are compulsory in skome form up to about 9th grade but how it is covered varies wildly. On the other hand except for sone exposure at primary foreign language is optional.