Catherine M. Brighton

Differentiating Instruction in Response to Student Readiness, Interest, and Learning Profile in Academically Diverse Classrooms: A Review of Literature.

Both the current school reform and standards movements call for enhanced quality of instruction for all learners. Recent emphases on heterogeneity, special education inclusion, and reduction in out-of-class services for gifted learners, combined with escalations in cultural diversity in classrooms, make the challenge of serving academically diverse learners in regular classrooms seem an inevitable part of a teachers role. Nonetheless, indications are that most teachers make few proactive modifications based on learner variance. This review of literature examines a need for “differentiated” or academically responsive instruction. It provides support in theory and research for differentiating instruction based on a model of addressing student readiness, interest, and learning profile for a broad range of learners in mixed-ability classroom settings.

State Standardized Testing Programs: Friend or Foe of Gifted Education?.

This study investigates the effects of state testing programs on the instructional practices of elementary teachers and the effects of such practices on their gifted students’ attitudes toward school and motivation. Results obtained from a national survey of elementary teachers, representing a variety of metropolitan areas and school poverty levels, as well as qualitative case studies from teachers in three states suggest that the perceptions teachers have of standards, tests, and students shape their classroom actions. These findings indicate that teachers are not likely to engage in effective classroom practices but instead engage in one‐size‐fits‐all practices. Implications of these perceptions on professional development and talent development are discussed.

Support and Sabotage: Principals' Influence on Middle School Teachers' Responses to Differentiation

In order to respond to the growing academic diversity in classrooms, teachers must recognize that their students have different needs and commit to differentiating instruction accordingly; however, the relationship between teachers’ willingness and ability to differentiate instruction and principals’ attitudes toward differentiation is unknown. In this qualitative study, the principals and faculty at three schools were interviewed and observed over the course of 3 years. The results suggested that principals played a key role in teachers’ willingness and ability to differentiate instruction. Principals successful in encouraging teachers to differentiate exhibited the critical support, desire for change, belief that change was possible, and long-term vision of implementation that teachers required in order to effectively differentiate in their classrooms.

Development of Authentic Assessments for the Middle School Classroom

This article discusses the rationale for, and explicates the process used in, developing differentiated authentic assessments for middle school classrooms (many of which contain gifted students) that are aligned with state academic standards. The assessments were developed based on learner-centered psychological principles and revised based on a content validation study involving a panel of 46 experts representing a variety of educational professionals. In addition to the content validation study of the assessments, interrater reliability estimates based on Kappa were calculated using student responses to the assessments in classrooms in two states. Results provide evidence that these types of assessments can provide quantifiable information about student learning, as well as inform the instructional process.

The Effects of Middle School Teachers' Beliefs on Classroom Practices

The students in 21st-century public middle schools axe increasingly diverse in terms of language proficiency, cultural and ethnic representation, and varied levels of poverty; and, yet, they are being educated in a political climate that encourages mainstreaming special education and gifted services in the regular classroom. Given this context, this study sought to examine 48 middle school content-area teachers’ beliefs about teaching in diverse classrooms to determine how these beliefs affected their willingness and capacity to differentiate their instruction and assessment. A qualitative study design incorporating grounded theory methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) was employed. Four teacher beliefs emerged from interview, observation, and document data that conflict with the philosophy undergirding differentiation. Each belief is presented with supporting evidence from the data and discussed in terms of its relationship to effective differentiated classroom practices.

Characteristics of Students’ Mathematical Promise When Engaging With Problem-Based Learning Units in Primary Classrooms

The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide empirical evidence of the extent to which the types of tasks recommended by Sheffield for eliciting characteristics of mathematical promise allowed for the manifestation of these characteristics in primary-grade students within a problem-based learning (PBL) context. Data included student work collected from two mathematics PBL units, teacher interviews, surveys used by teachers to identify mathematically promising students and video-recorded classroom observations. Data analysis followed Miles and Huberman’s data reduction method with findings reported as themes. Results indicate that students, including those from underserved populations, exhibit characteristics aligned with attributes signifying mathematical promise as proposed by Sheffield within a PBL context.

Action Research-by-Step: A Tool for Educators to Change Their Worlds:

Mr. Hartman is an honors-level and Advanced Placement (AP) science teacher in a diverse, urban high school where he has been teaching for the last 20 years. In recent years, Mr. Hartman has become increasingly more concerned with the lack of ethnic/cultural diversity in his advanced science classes. At the end of the fall semester, he raised the concern with his colleagues in the science department and found them to be equally puzzled about the situation and more than willing to help him investigate the problem more fully. Mr. Hartman and his team agreed to spend the spring semester in an action research inquiry seeking answers to the question: Why do students from minority cultures choose less advanced classes at Lake Hominy High School? Mrs. Rodriguez is a principal in a diverse elementary school in the suburban Smileytown School District. Smileytown’s superintendent mandated that by the fall semester, all elementary principals in the district would implement a formal reading program that would best meet the diverse needs of students in each school and raise the district’s reading scores. What formal reading program is the best fit for the students of Smileytown Elementary? Like Mr. Hartman, Ms. Rodriguez must first gather information before she can answer the question, thus implementing the best reading program.

Advanced Readers in Reading First Classrooms: Who Was Really "Left Behind"? Considerations for the Field of Gifted Education.

This study of advanced readers in Reading First (RF) classrooms was part of a larger evaluation of one state’s RF implementation. The study’s purposes were to (a) assess the longitudinal growth of advanced primary readers as compared with their non-advanced-reading peers over a 3-year timeframe and (b) determine the degree to which RF classrooms addressed the reading needs of advanced primary readers. Archival data sources included RF scaled scores, classroom observations, and interviews with teachers, coaches, and principals. Using multilevel growth modeling, results indicated that all readers grew; however, advanced readers grew the least, with the average of the group going from the 97th national percentile rank (NPR) in the spring of kindergarten to the 83rd NPR in the spring of their second-grade year. Qualitative findings revealed four themes: (a) Strict adherence to adopted basal readers defined program fidelity, (b) compromises in curriculum and instruction limited opportunities for advanced readers, (c) degree of fit between the core basal readers and advanced readers resulted in lack of challenge, and (d) varied understandings (and misunderstandings) surrounding differentiated instruction led to limited rigor for advanced readers. Recommendations are offered to help practitioners and researchers ensure that the needs of advanced readers in proposed federal and state education regulations and initiatives are considered rather than only focusing on struggling students.

School Characteristics Inventory: Investigation of a Quantitative Instrument for Measuring the Modifiability of School Contexts for Implementation of Educational Innovations

The purpose of this study was to collect reliability and validity data on the School Characteristics Inventory (SCI), a quantitative measure based on Sternbergs (2000) theory of contextual modifiability. Data were collected from a national sample of middle school teachers and from teachers participating in a 3-year study investigating teachers’ willingness to implement differentiated instruction or differentiated authentic assessments. Factor analysis indicated 6 factors (School Reputation, General School State, Staff Attitudes, Responsiveness to Change, General Perceptions of the School, and Administration Responsiveness), accounting for 42% of the variance. Reliability estimates of the factors ranged from a low of .76 (Responsiveness to Change) to a high of .94 (School Reputation and SCI Total Scale Score). Quantitative and qualitative data give credence to the reliability and validity of the SCI and tentatively support the organizational modifiability construct theorized by Sternberg.

A Teaching Makeover Improves Learning for Diverse Learners.

In many primary classrooms, the prospect of addressing standards threatens to rob young children of the joy of learning. Teachers who feel pressed to move students of all backgrounds toward mastery of increasingly complex standards may abandon rich curriculum and move toward isolated “skill drills.” This may be counterproductive. The authors chronicle how several teachers found that by raising the authenticity of curriculum and responsiveness of instruction they were better positioned to meet the needs of their diverse learners, addressing multiple standards in an integrative fashion in the process.