Glossary

Ability Grouping: Ability grouping is suggested as a way for schools to promote high levels of achievement and shrink excellence gaps among their populations. [5] When used properly, ability grouping allows for flexibility, letting students move—either up or down—during their educational careers. Ability grouping is not the same as tracking. 

 

Acceleration: Acceleration is an academic intervention that moves students through an educational program at a rate faster or at an age that is younger than typical. Acceleration helps match the level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum with the readiness and motivation of the student. It is about creating a better match between a student and the level and pace of instruction.

 

Achievement Tests: Tests designed to measure what students have already learned, mostly in specific content areas.

 

Cluster Grouping: A grouping assignment for students with similar needs, abilities, or interests are “clustered” in the same classroom, which allows the teacher to more efficiently differentiate assignments for a group of advanced learners rather than just one or two students.

 

Compacting: a technique for differentiating instruction that allows teachers to make adjustments to the curriculum for students who have already mastered the material to be learned, replacing content students know with new content, enrichment options, or other activities.

 

Curriculum - the learning standards in a content area that are expected to be mastered in any given grade-level

 

Enrichment: Activities that deepen and/or extend the learning and allow the student to go beyond the current curriculum.

 

Flexible Grouping: An instructional strategy where students are grouped together to receive appropriately challenging instruction. True flexible grouping permits students to move in and out of various grouping patterns, depending on the course content. Grouping can be determined by ability, size, and/or interest.

 

Gifted/Talented: Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. 

 

Instructional Level: specific learning goals and outcomes that are uniquely matched to a student’s readiness and ability

 

Perfectionism: It's not uncommon for high-ability children to also be perfectionists.   Whether they worry about getting a drawing exactly right, earning all A's in school, or feeling helpless in fixing society's downfalls, approximately 20% of gifted children suffer from perfectionism to the degree it causes problems.  

All perfectionism is not bad. Setting personal standards and pursuing excellence is important and healthy in many life situations.   However, perfectionism can become unhealthy when it causes stress, pain, illness, procrastination, and underachievement. While not inclusive, some causes of perfectionism include a desire to please others, early successes and no failures at a young age, and difficulty setting realistic goals. 

 

Self-Paced Instruction: In self-paced instruction, students proceed through learning and instructional activities at a self-selected pace. It is distinguishable from continuous progress in that the student has control over all pacing decisions. 

 

Subject-Matter Acceleration: Students who show mastery the grade level curriculum and needs an intervention that provides more advanced work in a specific subject area. 

 

Telescoping Curriculum: Telescoping curriculum is a process when a student, or a group of students, completes two years of material in one year,, or some similar rapid progression through material

 

Twice Exceptional: “A student is considered twice-exceptional when he or she is identified as gifted/talented in one or more areas while also possessing a learning, emotional, physical, sensory, and/or developmental disability” 

 

Underachievement: Underachievement is the unanticipated difference between accomplishment and ability.  Underachievement is a very complex situation with many possible interwoven causes. Among the areas to explore are:

• social issues such as peer pressure;
• psychological issues such as emotional sensitivities or perfectionism;
• undiagnosed learning disabilities;
• lack of interest in curriculum or curriculum is not challenging and engaging;
• low teacher expectations, especially with twice-exceptional, minority, and students from low-income backgrounds. 

 

Whole grade acceleration: Students are placed in a grade level ahead of chronological age peers. Decisions to grade-skip a student must be made by a team of professionals using a wide range of data.

*Add other Types of Acceleration

Citations ---  

1. National Association for Gifted Children
2. Columbus Group
3. Assouline, Foley Nicpon, & Huber, 2006
4. Acceleration Institute
5. Davidson Institute