This document is the transcript of a videotape recording of a roundtable discussion that was produced with four panelists and a moderator and was intended to provide educators and professionals who work with African-American males an opportunity to explore the background of educational initiatives for black males. These gender- and race-specific…

This review of the literature summarizes findings on instructional grouping issues and academic achievement of gifted elementary students. The review addresses problems of using standardized tests to evaluate instructional effectiveness of grouping arrangements, distinctions between providing the same curriculum and a differentiated curriculum to…

This brief bulletin addresses seven "myths" of tracking or ability grouping with gifted students in response to what is seen as a current movement against both ability grouping and tracking, which are characterized by the "anti-tracking" movement as inflexible and unaccommodating of a varied schedule. The following myths are countered: (1)…

This essay, written from the point of view of a social researcher with a direct personal involvement in the cases studied, discusses how public schools, as universally accessible moral communities, engage in patterns of systematic exclusion. Through three case studies of public secondary schools in which groups of students have been situated…

Articles in these proceedings of a conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication represent the views of professional communicators and academicians who share a concern for providing breadth and quality of preparation for present and future technical communicators. The 11 papers discuss the following topics: (1)…

It is proposed that, whenever feasible, foreign college students be grouped for English-as-a-Second-Language instruction according to their personal oral communication needs and academic objectives rather than mainstreamed into courses with a predominance of native-English-speaking students. These students' needs, it is argued, can be met more…

The use of ability variables for grouping students is pervasive in elementary schools. Teachers form these groups judgmentally, taking into account formal (e.g., test) and informal (e.g., personal observation) sources of information. Their judgments of students' abilities are reasonably accurate. Such grouping can be explained as functional on…

THE MOST FREQUENT METHOD OF GROUP FORMATION FOR INTENSIVE FARM MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS IN NEW YORK STATE HAS BEEN TO COMBINE ALL INTERESTED FARMERS IN LARGE GROUPS AT THE COUNTY EXTENSION HEADQUARTERS. THIS EXPERIMENT WAS SET UP TO STUDY THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TWO METHODS OF FORMING SMALL GROUPS--BY SOCIOMETRIC CHOICE OR SIMILAR CHARACTERISTICS. ALL…

The reading progress of 96 disadvantaged children from kindergarten through grade 3 was analyzed to determine rate and consistency of reading growth as estimated from several reading measures. Although steady growth was observed on all measures, rate and consistency varied with the type of reading measure used, as well as with the specific test…

Assuming that the intellectual level of the classroom affects learning environment quality and student achievement, separating students into homogeneous groupings enriches the environment for high-resource students and impoverishes it for low-resource students. The converse occurs under heterogenous mixing. This argument is supported by data from…

This guidebook provides a rationale and guidelines for implementing a student-driven learning approach using enrichment clusters. Enrichment clusters allow students who share a common interest to meet each week to produce a product, performance, or targeted service based on that common interest. Chapter 1 discusses different models of learning.…

Examines a literature and reading research project involving an English education professor, a middle-school teacher, and her gifted seventh-grade students. Suggests that the class's homogeneity was a deterrent in the learning process and that students need more opportunities for independent and group research that requires extensive problem…

Discusses problems with student tracking. Although supporters consider tracking the best way for teachers to handle classroom diversity, many minorities say that it condemns their children to an inferior education. Studies show that heterogeneous classes benefit all students if the teachers adopt flexible instructional methods to handle the…

This article reviews the literature on grouping and argues for flexible grouping of students according to ability and achievement levels and maintains that grouping gifted students heterogeneously and providing cooperative learning leads to lowered achievement and motivation and poorer attitudes toward school for gifted students. (DB)

To teach culturally and linguistically diverse learners with language-learning disabilities, teachers should ensure that students understand assigned tasks, seat students from similar linguistic backgrounds together, start lessons with lead statements, use varied questioning strategies, ask for summaries, use multimodal approaches, and relate…