Liz Malone's List: Multi -Age Clusters for GT Learners

• The design of a program that appropriately serves gifted students from poverty backgrounds must allow the teacher flexibility to meet these students' unique needs. The following program design options should be considered:
• Multiage Classrooms. Schools that provide multiage instruction can frequently accommodate children and their siblings in the same classroom. In poverty, it is not unusual for older siblings to take care of their younger brothers and sisters. The multiage option allows gifted students from poverty backgrounds, accustomed to being with older and younger brothers and sisters, to feel more secure and enables them to help one another with school-related work.
• For gifted students from poverty backgrounds, a self-contained classroom with a number of other gifted students sets the stage for meaningful relationships between teacher and students, as well as between students. It also affords the teacher the autonomy necessary to structure the curriculum according to the needs of the learners.

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• she found that gifted students in heterogeneous classes often had better self-esteem. She concluded that gifted students in homogeneous classes had lower self-esteem because they had to compete with students of equal or superior ability.
• Lloyd (1999), in his review of the research on multi-age classrooms, concludes that this grouping arrangement has positive and often significant effects on both the academic and the social-emotional learning of high-ability students. He observes that teachers in multi-age classrooms are more likely to focus on the individual characteristics of their students, whereas teachers in single-grade classes are more likely to approach students as members of a particular grade and to expect similarities rather than differences. He suggests that multi-age classes provide a positive alternative to self-contained classes or pullout programs for gifted students.

• Studies of both  cognitive and affective factors in multi-age contexts have consistently shown positive, sometimes significant, effect sizes.
• Multi-age classes  are discussed as an alternative to self-contained classes and pullout programs for high ability children.

• • Gifted students are more likely to socialize "normally" when they are with students who share their interests and learning style. This is most likely to occur with intellectual age mates, regardless of chronological age.

• intellectual peer group
• interdisciplinary
• conceptually advanced curriculum.
• Defining personal interests and individual goals and demonstrating a personal work ethic are important aspects of the classroom experience

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