which schools use primarily to
benefit low-achieving students.
Like RTI, cluster grouping
enables teachers to diagnose a
student’s entry level in specific
content, prescribe an intervention that will advance the
student’s progress, and assess the
degree to which the intervention
worked.
For example, a gifted cluster teacher might determine
students’ challenge levels by
offering a pretest before teaching
a new concept. After providing a
few minutes of direct instruction
to the entire class on a new unit
of study, the teacher might give
students the opportunity to take
the end-of-the-unit test before
receiving the week’s instruction and completing the week’s
practice work. Students who
score at 90 percent or higher
have demonstrated that they
have mastered the content and
do not need to spend the week
learning that material. Instead, the
teacher would provide more challenging work in the same subject area to
those students and assess their progress
on that material.
for like-minded peers to work
together at advanced levels,
and support student-directed
learning.
Differentiating Instruction
When teachers have only one
or two students from a special
population, they may overlook them, especially when the
students appear to be doing
well. Teachers are more likely to
consistently differentiate curriculum and instruction for their
gifted students when they have a
group of gifted students in their
classrooms.
Likewise, gifted students more
readily take advantage of dif-
ferentiated learning opportuni-
ties when others are working at
advanced levels. They may take
more academic risks and chal-
lenge one another more—not
only because of their more com-
petitive natures but also because
they feel understood by their
teachers (Webb et al., 2005) and more
comfortable and confident learning
with peers with whom they can relate
(Delisle & Galbraith, 2002).
© STEFANIE FELIX
In gifted cluster classes, any student
may try to demonstrate that he or she
has already mastered the upcoming
standards and thus participate in the
various differentiated tasks planned for
gifted students. For advanced learners,
however, differentiation is only part of
what they need. Effective differentiation must be accompanied by
curriculum or lesson compacting, a process of
giving students credit for what they
already know. Compacting also occurs
when advanced students are allowed
to work more quickly through grade-level material. (See “A Lesson in Lesson
Compacting.”)
For an approach like this to be
successful, students must recognize
Advanced students
must recognize that
they are not doing
Training Teachers
Schools attempting to teach gifted
students in an inclusionary setting
need to help teachers learn about and
plan for gifted students’ academic and
affective needs. Although most teachers
have training in differentiating curriculum and instruction, few entering
the field have preservice exposure to
the characteristics and learning needs
of gifted students (National Association
for Gifted Children, 2009). All teachers
could benefit from this exposure and
from additional training in differentiated
instruction, which benefits all students,
not only the gifted.
more work than others,
just di;erent work.
Administrators can focus teacher
training more easily by having a designated gifted cluster teacher at every
grade level. This teacher-trainer would
show teachers how to pre-assess gifted
learners to gauge prior knowledge in
a given topic, provide instruction that
takes into account gifted students’
attributes and needs, encourage problem solving and divergent and critical thinking, provide classroom time
