Learning and Teaching
Grouping for instruction: Small groups
This section outlines the advantages and disadvantages of working with gifted children in smaller subject-specific groups, pull-out programs and working groups.
Pull-out program
A pull-out program is when a small number of students are removed from the regular school program. They are usually removed from the classroom to work together, with a specialist teacher, for a specified number of periods or sessions per week. This may be as much as a one-to-two day activity. This is also known as a withdrawal group or an enrichment group.
Ideally, the purpose of a pull-out program should be to extend the work being undertaken in the regular classroom so that the level of complexity and critical thinking is increased for this group of able students. Often, pull-out programs lack this curriculum focus and may offer instead a discreet area of study in a non-content specific area of study. An example would be a workshop on forensic science to primary school students.
The pull-out approach is most appropriate for a student who is a capable student and who may have a high level of knowledge of the area on which the pull-out program will focus. The student should also be motivated to learn, although a pull-out activity may re-engage a disengaged or de-motivated student, at least for the period of the activity. The student should enjoy working in a small group and be capable of working at a faster pace than is usually required in the regular classroom.
Key elements in the research
A pull-out program must be linked to the content-specific areas of the curriculum and the regular curriculum ‘systematically extended’. However, sometimes:
‘the pullout program becomes a potpourri, doing critical thinking for a few weeks, followed by a study of mythology, followed by a little creative problem solving. It is highly unlikely that any substantial academic effects will be found in this form of pull-out grouping as it is ordinarily practiced’. (Rogers 2002, p 221)
Substantial academic gains have been noted when a pull-out program extended the curriculum in a systematic and progressive way.
A pull-out program of one or two sessions a week is not the school's gifted program, but rather a form of enrichment which may be implemented in combination with other differentiated educational offerings. (Rogers 2002)
Teachers and specialist educators who are designing a pull-out group activity should consider the scope and sequence charts of a particular discipline and build an extension activity which truly differentiates the material being covered in the student's usual class.
Working groups
A working group consists of a small group of ideally five (but no more than eight) students who have been identified as requiring a differentiated learning program. These students are placed with a classroom teacher (in a primary environment) or a subject teacher (in a secondary environment) who will differentiate the level and pace of the curriculum to this small group while teaching the remainder of the regular group.
In a primary environment the working group may operate in some domains such as maths, English and integrated studies, but will form with the entire class for other subjects. In a secondary environment a working group may exist only for a particular domain and another working group formed for a different domain.
The purpose of working groups is to bring like-minded or similar-ability students together with the opportunity to compact the curriculum or offer enrichment to the small group. The distinction is made between like-minded, meaning a ‘gifted working group’ (using Gagné's term), or ‘similar-ability’, meaning a talent working group of high-achieving students in a particular area. These are likely to be two distinct working groups in a classroom, although some students could be placed in either group.
This approach is most appropriate for a student who is moderately gifted or who is working above year level. The student should enjoy working in a small group with more flexible timelines and extension activities which may be more open-ended and self-directed.
More information about Gagne’s Model of giftedness
Key elements in the research
Working groups are a form of ability grouping.
Gentry (1999) found clear benefits for those students (and their schools) that were grouped:
- working groups may positively influence the achievement of all students
- a well developed working group program can offer gifted education services to all high achieving students, while helping teachers better meet the needs of all students
- placing high achievers in one classroom can increase the chance that their needs will be met while offering the opportunity for talent among other students to emerge in other classrooms
- the elimination of grouping may not be beneficial to students and teachers
- the use of gifted education ‘know how’ has the potential to improve general education practices.
Other benefits included:
- students are grouped with both intellectual and chronological age peers
- it is more efficient for a single teacher to plan a program of study for five students than five teachers to plan for one student
- services for gifted students can be provided at no extra cost in the regular classroom
- when high-achieving students are clustered in one classroom the range of achievement levels to be addressed by teachers within the other classrooms is reduced
- high-achieving students can be placed with a teacher who may be the most experienced, well-trained and willing to work with them
- consistently strong, positive academic gains to be found in working groups, with students achieving approximately 60 per cent more grade-equivalent knowledge and skills than equally gifted children who had not been grouped.
Working groups (and more broadly ability grouping) have been labelled as elitist by some educators, yet Kulik (2003) refutes this saying, ‘students usually emerge from [ability groups] with a little more modesty about their abilities, but they also emerge with a healthy sense of their own self-worth’.
By allowing a small group of gifted and high potential students to work together, working groups provide the opportunity for the students to work with intellectual peers, but also to maintain their involvement in the regular classroom with chronological age peers.
This is not a permanent arrangement and working groups can be flexible especially those focusing on talent areas, where high achievement may vary across domains.
Working groups can be used at all year levels and in all subject areas and are highly effective at meeting the needs of high potential students.
Regrouping for specific subject instruction
In regrouping, students who are gifted and high achieving in a particular subject are grouped together with other students who are performing at this level, regardless of year level. Students are then placed with a teacher who is responsible for this level during that subject time. Unlike within-class groups, re-grouping brings students together to form an entire class at a particular level. As an example, in terms of operation, when the bell rings for maths all Year 7 students, stand and go to their particular group according to their performance or achievement. Students stay in their ‘group’ for the term or semester or until the next across-year-level test.
The purpose for regrouping for specific subject instruction is that it allows students to work with others of comparable achievement levels and for the curriculum to be matched to those achievement levels.
This approach is most appropriate for students:
- with high academic achievement in the particular area being regrouped
- who enjoy working with similar-ability students
- who are motivated to learn.
Key elements in the research
At secondary school where ability-grouped classes were changed to mixed-ability classes, it was found that the quality of classroom interactions declined for both high ability and low-ability students.
Gifted and high potential students in regrouped classes, in reading and in some areas of maths, social studies and science, showed significant academic gains when compared to other gifted and high potential students in pull-out programs, in within-class groups, or in no program at all.
Academic self-concept was highest for those gifted and high potential students in no program at all, followed by those in pull-out programs and lowest for those in working groups and regrouped classes. As Rogers (2002) noted, a possible reason is that when bright students are placed with others of similar ability and similar performance levels, they may feel less like an academic ‘star’, but they may be developing a much more realistic picture of their capabilities. (p 233)
Regrouping of students based on their achievement levels seems to have academic benefits for high-ability students and high-achieving students (who may or may not be gifted) with an opportunity to work in a like-performing group, producing significant academic gains.
An issue with this type of grouping is that flexibility of student movement between groups may be more difficult.