Menu of Options for Grouping Gifted Students

From grouping by ability, to grouping by interest, to grouping by learning style, the use of grouping in the gifted and regular education classroom has proven to be a successful method of instruction for students. Grouping provides teachers with an effective means of providing gifted students with challenging coursework and access to advanced content, and gives students an avenue to create a peer group of other gifted students.

Karen B. Rogers, a leader in the field of gifted education, provides teachers with practical advice for choosing a grouping option that best fits their students and information on how to assess their grouping choices.

Karen B. Rogers is currently director of research for GERRIC (Gifted Education Research and Resource Information Centre) and professor of education in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. In 1991 she wrote The Relationship of Grouping Practices to the Education of Gifted and Talented Learners for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. This monograph represents an update of extant research since that report. She is coeditor of Talent in Context: Historical and Social Perspectives and author of Reforming Gifted Education: Matching the Program to the Child, published in 2002. She has written more than 90 articles for scholarly journals and magazines, 14 chapters for books, and has conducted more than 60 evaluations of programs in which grouping has or has not been an option for gifted children. She is past-president of The Association for the Gifted (TAG) and is on the editorial boards of Gifted Child Quarterly, Roeper Review, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, and Gifted and Talented International.

Frances A. Karnes is professor of curriculum, instruction, and special education at The University of Southern Mississippi. She is widely known for her teaching, research, publications, innovative program developments, and service activities in gifted education and leadership training.