Our school district is undertaking a study of the middle school-level gifted programs in an effort to improve them. They are telling the task force to "dream big" as to what we would like to see. What do you like / dislike about your gifted programs at the middle school level? If you could have anything, what would it be?

Currently the school district offers gifted classes for math (one-year and two-year acceleration), science (enrichment) and language arts (enrichment).

We are only looking at programs and NOT how gifted children are identified.

Starting last school year, the district my DD is in sent qualifying middle school kids (mostly 8th graders) to the high school to take math, science, and/or world language (you had to sign up to do at least two of the three). The parents would drop the kids off at the high school for first period and a bus would take them to middle school to finish out their day.
I thought it worked quite well.
--S.F.

Our districts MS have 3 classes of Math for each grades:


6th grade 7th grade 8th grade
Regular 6 7 8
Accelerated mid 6-7 late 7 and 8 Algebra
TAG mid 7-8 Algebra Geometry

http://www.roundrockisd.org/Departm...ed_round_rock_curriculum/math__gr__6-8_/

LA has 2 different classes: Regular and TAG. TAG is more rigorous but there is no clear grade level acceleration. Still, TAG LA will be on track on get AP English III and IV credits. Science and social studies are more vigorous/ enrichment than regular class.

Then again, those acceleration are sort of cookie cutter and it may not fit for everyone. Some kids (especially PG) still need skipping those classes. But the district is pretty good at accomodating (as long as the kiddo can pass the test).

My DD's middle grade experiences were mostly non-enriched, but the one bright spot was/is the use of a language arts enrichment ELECTIVE based upon the inquiry-based Great Books program.

It was truly transformative in the hands of a masterful teacher who understands gifted students well.


The math was just acceleration into high school topics. Science and social studies were not really differentiated.


My own middle school GT program, back in the golden era (1970's) was amazing.

- differentiated (tracked) sections in the core subjects (science, math, English, Social Studies-- though the latter, I have my doubts)

- electives, electives, electives for EVERYONE, not just GT, and they were COOL-- cartography, legal process and laws re: juveniles in the state, anthropology, accounting, psychology, etc.

- special electives (of choice) JUST for GT, which is how I learned Mendelian genetics well enough to help my friends through that class in, er, college...analyzed dramatic works saw plays at a professional and internationally renowned theater, and studied ornithology, French cuisine and ASL.

Honestly, I have no idea HOW my junior high managed it. But it was sure amazing.

At a SECOND junior high school, the options were good, (tracking again, but no real math acceleration... though I do know how to hand crank a square root, old school-- and hey, is THAT ever a skill I've never used since...) but more limited in scope. This school year was set up on a 3-1-3 school year, and the "mini-term" was in January. The mini-term is where ALL electives happened, and this included the GT offerings, which weren't specifically limited enrollment, but clearly some things are not going to draw heavily on anyone else. Things like "Speed Reading" and "Game theory." I liked certain things about that immersion environment (you took 3 "electives" during the miniterm, but only one the rest of the year, and the classes were taught in longer blocks), but the level of the undifferentiated coursework was not very good, tracking or no.

If I could choose a system, I'd pick the one that my first junior high school offered. This was NOT a huge district, nor a huge school-- the total enrollment of the school was perhaps 250 students. But teachers were encouraged to develop courses for electives in their areas of interest. There were NO grade differentiations in terms of electives, either-- so electives were more fluid in terms of placement, and this worked very well for the gifted students, who could take the "hardest" electives from 7th grade on.

When I was in middle school, we had a self-contained gifted class that worked on a lot of different theme-based projects. Those I remember are: individual science fair projects, Amnesty International (social awareness, letter writing, global concerns), card playing (math, risk-taking, odds of winning, gambling even), paleontology, architecture (designing our dream house, scale, modeling), etc.

Our public sd no longer has anything for gifted middle schoolers, but a couple of years ago they offered robotics or online foreign language classes.

Personally I love the idea of all these enrichment opportunities to explore more nontraditional subjects, but if I had to choose between that and accelerated/enriched core subjects, I would have to choose the acceleration. As my DD has said, no one gifted class could make up for sitting through mind-numbing core classes below her ability level.

Thank you for all these great suggestions. It is extremely helpful. The idea of having electives where they can explore more in-depth is something which they haven't touched on yet. I know they offer some electives, but I am unsure what they are. My children are still in grade school, but I feel serving on this task force is a great investment in my child's education as they will be there soon.

I'm not sure why they don't offer accelerated science and LA like they do with math. I suspect it might be because once they hit high school those in the accelerated math programs continue on a different math path than the general students. They don't have this for LA and science as all freshmen take the same freshman level classes for LA and science.

My 8th grade ds isn't home to answer at the moment, but if I asked for his input, I suspect his pie-in-the-sky dream would be classes that truly moved at an accelerated pace. Our school district offers "honors" classes and a HG track, subject acceleration in math and honors classes in LA / Science that can lead to subject-acceleration in high school, but none of those classes are truly accelerated in terms of the actual pace of the classes - they are basically just the same-pace classes offered a year or two ahead of schedule.

I'd add don't confuse gifted programming with an "opportunity to require higher levels of demanding homework". Kids still need a chance to be kids, take part in sports, hang-outs, etc after school rather than being swamped with huge levels of homework.

polarbear

My son is in a gifted middle school program where each grade level has ONE group of 23 kids. In this group of kids all the gifted kids are placed in the group and then they fill in up to 23 with additional non-identified kid who they think can hack it (but don't have the testing). Those kids have to apply to the program with an essay, recommendations, and application. At one point this was a middle school IB program but at some point they dropped that and made it this program.

This group of kids travels together from class to class as does a cart of Mac laptops. In this particular school it has been a godsend for my rule follower, quiet kid to be in class period after period with students who are high achieving and highly capable and deep thinkers. When put out into the wild mix of kids for electives, those classes been very stressful on him. Not that his academy kids don't ever act up but when you say do something and stop talking...they stop talking and do it. Or if you say talk about some particular thing, they do what you asked and only have to be minimally redirected from talking about hair or One Direction and they are not rude at all.

And I know for certain because I worked at the school last year and subbed for his class and tons of other classes.

Not all of the kids were globally advanced but they all had the ability to keep up, some having to work harder in one area than in others.

They do the regular curriculum at an honors level but a bit faster on the regular stuff because they learn faster which gives them time for additional projects, individual and group. They do tons of extended learning and projects.

Their electives are all different but their core classes LA, Math, Science and Social Studies are together. The school also has a Reading class that is mandatory and 6th and 7th grade they had that also...but it was officially labeled as an elective (a no choice elective). This year if you have a 5 on the NCLB testing (scale 1-5) in 8th grade you didn't have to have reading. His entire academy class had a 5 and so they made them up a creative writing class so they all have that elective together (it was supposed to be a mythology class but at the last minute that was changed to creative writing).

Long way of saying they have self-contained all the gifted kids and then filled in to make it a full class. They move quickly through the background learning which allows for lots of discussion, projects and extended learning. All of the teachers are gifted endorsed OR are making progress on being gifted endorsed (I think it is either 3 or 5 classes you take and then add it to your certificate in addition to your content certificate). Math is Algebra I in 8th grade with high school credit and Science is Physical Science in 8th grade with high school credit. There are a few other sections of both of those classes that aren't a part of the academy but the majority of the school is taking pre-algebra in 8th and 8th grade science.

To me, it makes sense that the gifted children are pulled into classes together that can move at the speed and/or depth needed to make sure they are challenged. However there are parents of the children not in the gifted classes complaining because they say it means their children are grouped with more of the children who need a slower pace than normal, so their child is not being educated at the appropriate level.

Has anyone had experience where their gifted children are in a mixed-ability classroom and still get an challenging, appropriate level instruction? How the teacher make this work?

So, do these parents think that their kids benefitted from being with the gifted kids? does it seem more like resentment that their kids weren't identified as gifted? Do they want ability tracking for their kids too?

I haven't heard this complaint in my personal experience. I've heard other parents complain that the gt program is elitist but a lot of them are relieved that their kids don't have to compete against my kid. DD13 is in a gifted middle school program. She has all of her core classes with the gt kids and is mixed with the traditional population for electives/specials. This set up has worked very well for her. The program is big enough that she doesn't have exactly the same people in all of her core classes. The sentiment that the gt kids tend to get from the traditional kids is pity, i.e. oh, you poor gt kids, you have to do more work or I'm so glad that I'm not in that program with all of those people. Whether this reflects their true feelings or their need to the gt program down, it's unclear, probably a little of both. None of them seem to be clamoring to have the gt kids in their classes.


DD has friends who were in her gt elementary program who chose to go the traditional route for middle school. The middle school offers an honors program in a heterogeneous classroom. The honors kids get different work while being in a classroom with all of the other kids. It has worked "ok" for the one self-motivated, introverted kid who doesn't care what other kids think and prefers working on her own or with one or two other kids. For the less self-driven and/or more extroverted kids, it hasn't worked as well.

The biggest problem with this model seems to be the social dynamics of middle school itself. The kids don't want to appear different and they want to be part of a group. For example, one mom said that her son sees no reason why he should have to do anything more difficult than his friend across the aisle. He is much happier coasting and sees the differentiated curriculum as a punishment. She also said that he has been subjected to verbal bullying for being one of the smart kids. Another mom complained that her daughter felt isolated from her friends in language arts because they weren't reading the same material at the same time. The girl had read the book that they were discussing a couple years ago but her comments were not welcome at the lunch table. The girl also missed having a bigger group to discuss her book.

My DD9's 1st grade teacher was the only one who made it work. (in our experience) She did reading and Math test for all the kids in the class and she put them 4 to 5 groups (some in different Math group and reading groups) and gave them appropriate instruction and class work. I was so impressed because my DD was coming home with 4th grade level reading books and 3rd grade level Math homework. And I found that other kids got different homework as well. I couldn't imagine how she found time to do all those differentiation. Well, it lasted for all of 3 months. Some parents complained that their kids did not get the attention that they need (the teacher spent same amount of time for advance kids who is doing >2nd grade work). She took maternity leave as well and that was it.

Same room differentiation is quite hard especially with large student/teacher ratio.

I suspect what is happening here is that while the gifted kids at the upper levels of ability in the class are pulled out, the group of kids left in the mixed-ability class is taught at a pace/level that the lower ability kids are able to keep up with. There is a continuum of abilities in any one given mixed-ability classroom, and while we're here parenting kids at the upper upper end, there are also a lot of kids (at least in my district) who are in-between low average and not-quite-across-the-borderline-gifted who are also sitting in mixed-ability classrooms not being taught to their ability level. As a parent, I want my children to be able to work at an appropriate level of challenge, whether or not my child is PG, HG, MG or not-at-all-G but still quite capable of learning more than is being taught.


This has sorta-kinda worked for my ds - and it's dependent (imo) on the teachers. He's had great teachers in his current school who push all of the students to think deeper. I am not quite sure how to explain what happens, but I can see the results in his thought processes, in his writing, and in the effort he wants to put into his work. It's not ideal (and he will tell you he wants more than anything to be in class with "the smart students") but he has been challenged and he has learned quite a bit and he's been much happier with these teachers than he was in his previous school where it felt to him like the majority of classroom time was spent either managing (in a reactive rather than proactive way) kids who were always goofing off or simply having mind-numbingly boring discussions.

I feel like *I* had some positive in-class differentiation back when I was in elementary and middle school, but I think it was partly due to living in a less pc-time when people weren't as quick to complain about ability-grouping. Part of it is also personality and social situation. I liked knowing I was in the top groups - it gave me a sense of accomplishment (we had to work to stay there - if we goofed off and didn't do our work we would end up moving down, even if we were uber-smart and knew everything - so it wasn't entirely 100% about ability, it had a piece of achievement and work ethic tied to it). I also liked that I had friends in my top group - usually the same consistent set of friends, 2 girls that I lived near enough to that we could be playmates outside of school.

The classroom situations I remember liking a lot were ability grouping for reading in early elementary and math in particular in middle school. It's not the subjects that set them apart, just the way in which they worked and in how they felt. It felt good, not different. In each situation all the kids were working in groups, not just that one top group. I'd say there were usually 4-5 groups in a class or 20-30 kids. The teacher spent time with each group in most of these situations. In our math in middle school (this was the math class before Algebra) the teacher didn't spend really any time with our group and I was ok with that because math was my thing and I didn't need someone to teach it to me and neither did the other kids I was working with. We could ask questions if we had them, but I rarely had them. I really liked being able to work independently in that way where I was capable. Once we were in Algebra, we were no longer ability grouped.

I don't think we were ever ability grouped in science, which is ironically my passion and where I have spent my career. Once we were in middle school we were tracked into honors vs not-honors classes across the board, so even though we weren't ability grouped we were skipped ahead in science. Once we were in high school we had a wide array of classes in science to choose from, and we were allowed to take advanced courses when we were ready, not based on what grade we were in.

polarbear

I think that polarbear is partially right, at least from my observations locally.

There are the status-conscious parents who want the LABEL without the real challenge (which their kids can't actually meet). For that group, we probably need to have "Gifted" classrooms and "Gifted*" ones. That way the teachers have some idea what they should be offering. While this is a good idea, it would never work. Somebody would rat out the administrator who sensibly tried that.


Back to polarbear's observations-- I think it IS true that if you have the full spectrum of ability in a classroom, peeling off one tail or the other shifts the mean (where teaching is aimed in that classroom) downward or upward. This is naturally not good news for the (now) top/bottom of the remaining distribution, since teaching is shifted disproportionately toward the TAIL opposite where the bulk of the learners in that room lie. Teachers naturally aim at the middle of the classroom, or slightly under it. So yes, removing the top 10% has a pretty profound (and negative) impact on the students at the 75th-90th percentiles, who remain in the room. I'm less convinced that removing the top 2% does that, because there just aren't that many of those children. In four classrooms of 25 students each, after all, that's just 2 students. Not even one per class.

Peeling both top 5-10% AND bottom 5-10% away would probably work better-- and I strongly suspect that this is why historical data shows that tracking/grouping works and works WELL, while contemporary data is sometimes more mixed.

However, LRE and mainstreaming make it a legal imperative to not peel away the left side of the distribution-- only the right.

It's all about the statistics. Interesting to think about in the abstract, but a fairly knotty problem pragmatically when one considers inclusive practices for those with significant disability as the reason for being in that lower group.

We encountered success in a strongly mixed-ability 4th/5th class in a public school. The principal was strongly committed to "pushing in" so that to the extent possible, she put all her resources into the classrooms - no pull outs for anything. As a result, the class had 27 kids and two (talented) full time teachers, plus a student teacher, and various specialists coming and going, as well as 1-2 aides. Having 2 full time teachers plus help makes a huge difference in being able to differentiate. For example, our twins read The Hunger Games with their reading group as 4th graders in that class, but there were also kids with severe developmental disabilities.

This, with minor differences, is the plan our district follows. I agree, it can work out well, though I think it is essential to have excellent teaching and at least a few near-peers. (Great when both happen, not so much otherwise).

Also, obviously this model falls apart when kids get to later middle school and switch classes/teachers- this is where our school model falls apart, in 7th grade where everyone switches classes but there are no accel/honors classes yet. So no differentiation as each teacher has 90-100 students, yet all abilities are lumped together.

I'm also pretty confident that low student: teacher ratio is critical to success.

One of the reasons I have heard from the school district for having mixed-ability classes is that by exposing those students who are not identified as gifted to the same material as gifted children, it brings up their level of learning even if it is not to the level of gifted. They are examining gifted education programs not only as to how it affects the gifted child, but the non-gifted child as well.

A few reasons I have heard from at least one parent whose child is NOT in the gifted programs is that 1) her DD has more classes with children who may have behavioral issues which disrupts the class and her learning 2) her child may not feel she can take the higher-level classes in high school because she is not in the gifted classes in middle school 3) the pace is slower because the level to which they are teaching is lower since the higher-ability children are not in the classroom.

"Can" it work? Yes, however, studies show that the majority of the time it has a much reduced affect as compared to pull-out programs for multiple reasons. First, few teachers understand how to be effective in a mixed-ability classroom and it usually takes specific training in order to do so. Second, it's far too easy for a GT teacher to simply become a second set of hands or "assistant" to the normal classroom teacher. Most schools are short on budget and short on teachers, it's convenient for them to use the GT teachers as substitutes when other teachers are gone, to "model" differentiation to class room teachers, or simply as support for an over crowded class room. Third, generally speaking, teachers are territorial and control freaks (I know, unfair stereo type but there is some truth to most stereo types) and they don't like other teachers intruding on their students, their classroom, and their teaching time. The truly important thing here are the TEACHERS and their ability. A good GT teacher will make any opportunity for GT kids to cluster a valuable experience, a less qualified GT teacher will do little in any cluster grouping to make the experience valuable.

As is typical, I see a great deal of discussion about the academic needs of a good gifted program and either nothing or almost nothing of the social / emotional aspect of gifted education and support. The best gifted programs I've experienced aren't just a list of classes available but also have a specific curriculum that is covered in a pull-out setting to educate gifted students on social / emotional issue, unique circumstances and issues those students are likely to experience BECAUSE they're gifted and how to deal / overcome them or where to seek help.

Often times, addressing the academic portion of a gifted child's life is the EASY part in comparison to the social / emotional aspect of a gifted child's life. If I had an ideal program I'd want someone well trained in this who isn't just a teacher but a gifted counselor as well.

I'm not sure that particular point is valid, because I've never seen or heard of a class going faster because a small segment of the class is higher-ability. What usually happens is that those students are held back while the rest catch up.

Well, the pace may be far from ideal for those at the top, but if you remove them, the mean has just undeniably shifted toward slower/lower readiness levels.

Even if the presentation speed of curriculum is unchanged, the other students lose the benefit of contributions to discussion by the top-level students if they are not there any more.

This presumes that the lower level students can understand what the top-level students are talking about.

It also engenders a sense of inherent superiority in the top-level students.

I suspect it engenders a sense of resentment among the kids who can't understand what the gifted kid is talking about. As in, "He's always showing off and thinks he's so big," whereas the gifted kid may have no idea why some kids get so annoyed with him.

Probably depends on the kid.

And the kid does sometimes think that they are big and enjoys the experience.

True...

but that always brings me back around to--

are those students there to SERVE other students' learning needs? Or are they there to get their OWN needs met?

I mean, I don't mind if both things can be accomplished. But I object pretty strenuously to my child's cognitive ability being used as an educational TOOL for the other children.

Hmph. If that makes me elitist, so be it.

There is that.

On the original question:
DD's district has an optional full time program for gifted kids in middle school. Once identified students are eligible to attend a designated middle school with gifted core classes (math, social studies, science and english) and general population electives (foreign language, PE, music, art, drama....). Students are tested and placed for math. Since the district has a high cut off ( about 2-4% of kids in this socio/econ advantaged group) the district increases student numbers by concentrating the kids in one school. Out of district students can also test in on a space available basis. They are expanding to a second middle school. This works well since the gifted kids make up about 15% of the school population and thus provides a solid peer group. I think this option works well for gifted kids; I'm not sure how well it works for mid to upper level kids. In high school there seems to be more differentiation available for every level.

Exactly! My gifted d has complained (rather bitterly) that she is there to learn also. She does not feel it is her responsibility to teach other kids and that being told that she can be a "leader" means that she gets to learn little while she is helping the other kids maximize their learning. She feels that she has the right to learn also and that she should not be forced to teach other kids.