GROUPING STRATEGIES

By Mary Dominic Eleanor C. Lorena


Grouping gifted children is one of the fundamentals of ideal gifted education practice. I strongly believe that one of the basic learning and teaching principles is that each learner is unique. Each learner has his own learning style and preferences. Each one has their strengths and limitations as well as interests and needs. Thus grouping is crucial to address all the learning concerns mentioned above. It is therefore, paramount to meet these urgent needs of the gifted child to help him fully express and utilize his giftedness.
The NAGC’s position paper approved in March 2009, offers strategies that teachers, administrators, and staff can use in deciding how to group students, namely: Full-time gifted program, Self-contained gifted classroom, Special or magnet school for the gifted, Cluster grouping, Pull-out/send-out/withdrawal/resource room enrichment groups , Like-ability cooperative groups within classrooms, Cluster performance grouping, Regrouping for specific instruction, Within-class/flexible grouping, Like-performing cooperative learning ,Performance-based pull-out/send-out/withdrawal/resource room enrichment classes. I believe, these strategies could provide teachers and administrators with a bag of options and alternatives, as well as tricks to choose from to address their unique school situation. For every unique school situation, there is an appropriate grouping scheme that can be employed as long as they have the will to uphold what is best for the gifted and talented students as shown by prior empirical researches about grouping of students.
I think the issue on homogeneous versus heterogeneous grouping can be approached in three perspectives: (1) That of the side of the gifted students, themselves, and (2) That of the non-gifted or the rest of the student body, and (3) that of the teachers, administrators and staff.
From the perspective of the gifted students, homogeneous grouping offers a lot of positive effects.
1. Birds of the same feather flock together. Gifted students share similar context with each other, intellectually, emotionally, socially. They learn fast, and think deep, and hunger for challenge. By grouping them together, their teacher can address their common issues much efficiently and effectively.
2. Time. One factor that set gifted children apart from regular students is the speed by which gifted students process information. By grouping “faster” students together, idle time is minimized.
3. Quality of Work. Aside from breadth of lesson coverage, gifted students are capable of in-depth treatment of a topic or concept. Depth is attained by appropriate challenge and key, provoking questions. Most of the time, the source of this challenges or insights are not just from the teachers but their peers, as well. Gifted students need other gifted students to provide them with a mirror, a sounding board, an ally, who share common brainwaves together. One time, my math enthusiast friend ( I also consider him gifted ) solved a math problem which he thought was hard enough and he proudly announced to his friends what he did. To his disappointment, none but one of our friends have an idea about how hard the problem was. Their approval was not as meaningful as the approval he received from that friend who he knows understands how hard the problem was. As the saying goes, even the most priced diamond is useless to a swine.
4. Emotional Stability.. Emotional stability of the gifted child is one crucial issue that needs to be addressed for the child to be holistically successful. This affective aspect of the child could be a reason for the child to either regress or succeed. This is where parental support as well as teachers’ and peers’ affirmation is needed. This reminds me of my friend who shared with me her experience of taking the Myer’s-Briggs Type Profile where she found out that she is an INTP (Introverted-Intuitive-Thinker-Perceiver). Prior to taking the MBTP, she can not understand herself. Why she prefers to stay home, read, experiment, write poems, solve puzzles while most of her friends enjoy going out, chatting with friends, socializing – activities that make her feel tired. Why are her peers different? However, she met one friend who shares most of her preferences. They both prefer to be alone. They both like to read. They both like to solve puzzles. They both are silent persons. When they meet, they talk about their discoveries. They share their ideas about the speed of light, about the 10 unsolved math problems, about how to optimize a database program, so on and so forth. She was glad to have found one who understands what is going on in her head. This made her feel more secure being around with the other person and strived more so when they meet and talk, she has a lot of new ideas to share and interact with her friend.
On the other hand, from the perspective of the non-gifted learners, homogeneous grouping offer some positive and negative effects. Among the positive effects are: They are given a space and a place to bloom. They don’t have to compete against more superior intellectually gifted and talented children. They grow at their own pace, and develop their self-esteem in the process. They have opportunities to excel and be recognized. For the negative effects, they lose opportunities to learn from and work with their best peers. Their class will not benefit from the insights and ideas of other gifted and talented students.
From the perspective of teachers and administrators, their prior experiences as well as political and pedagogical and practical opinions shape their views. Their views are often not from the perspective of what is good for the gifted and talented students, but more often from teachers survival especially in an educational system where teachers’ success are measured against how well the students perform in state exams. To meet the Average Yearly Progress, a significant number of administrators and teachers are too focused on helping the non-performing students reach the average levels; while they are happy to see their gifted students stay average and help the school improve their passing rate. If you accelerate gifted students, they will not be able to be counted for the school passing rate in a particular grade level. If you accelerate a student, they can not help the non-performing students increase their test scores. Administrators, teachers and staff are affected by the political as well as economic aspect of education. More often, these realities are biased in favor of the non-performing, and not as supportive to the gifted and talented students.
Finally, grouping indeed is the key to successful and meaningful learning. It should be made available and evident in all the stages of learning of not just the gifted learner but the regular students as well. (That is, if the teacher is really committed to achieving quality and meaningful learning, and not just to raise the AYP.) Yes, it may require a lot of work from the teacher, but the effort would be worth it when you see the students experience the joy of learning as well as quench their thirst for challenging and meaningful tasks. This is the essence of teaching the gifted - differentiation. It is the key to meet their actual needs and provide them with challenging but safe learning environment.