Obsticles to Collaboration

Tomlinson, C.A., Coleman, M.R., Allan, S., Udall, A., Landrum, M. (1996). Interface between gifted education and general education:Toward communication, cooperation, and collaboration. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40(3), 165-171

Change begins with the recognition of what impedes the desired change. Obstacles associated with the collaboration of regular and gifted education includes: mutual negative attitudes; educational philosophies associated with what is best for teaching all children; the belief that all children are gifted and should be treated equally; differences in opinions about how to provide gifted education; isolationism within the classroom environment; and the allocation and scarcity of resources.

Why Gifted Children Fail

Tomlinson, C.A., Coleman, M.R., Allan, S., Udall, A., Landrum, M. (1996). Interface between gifted education and general education:Toward communication, cooperation, and collaboration. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40(3), 165-171

According to Tomlinson (1996), gifted learners struggle with being bored in regular education classrooms. Four areas identified as reasons for this boredom include skill and drill; teacher- centered instruction; test driven curriculum; and text based instruction.

Educational Leaders in Gifted Instruction

Gallegher, James:

Hollingworth, Leta: Pioneer in gifted education, started one of the first gifted schools in 1937, in New York City. Was one of the first to identify that gifted students can learn the curriculum in half the time of other students who are not considered to be gifted.

Kaplan, Sandra:

Passow, Harry:

Terman, Lewis: Researcher who created the term intelligence quotient (IQ). Conducted extensive longitudinal studies that defined the perimeters of what level on intelligence constitutes giftedness. He studies 1,500 students progress over forty years.

Reis, Sally:

Renzulli, Joseph:

Tannerbaum, Abraham:

Tomlinson, Carol:

VanTassel-Bask, Joyce:

Ward, Virgil:

Histories and credentials forthcoming.

General Education : Gifted Education

Tomlinson, C.A. (2004). Differentiated for gifted and talented students. Crown Prince and the National Association for Gifted Children, Thousand Oaks, CA. xxiii

While general education and gifted education share some of the same goals, "they do not share the same mission of message."

Ability Grouping

Feldhusen, J.F. & Moon, S.D. (1992). Grouping Gifted Students: Issues and Concerns. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36(2), 63-67.

"Grouping gifted learners together for instruction can lead to substantial gains in academic performance."

According to Feldhusen and Moon (1992) the drive to eliminate homogeneous groupings in favor of heterogeneous groupings is driven by researchers such as Slavin and Oakes who hold that we must "equalize" the educational process for all socioeconomic and culturally diverse groups. This is a political agenda not a best practices agenda.

Research conducted by Gamoran (1990) concluded that the achievement of high-ability students declined when they were grouped heterogeneously.