Classroom Grouping

After reading the chapter in Susan Winebrenner's "Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom", many questions that I had about classroom grouping were answered. The text made me think of my own classroom and how my students are grouped. At the beginning of the year, I had my gifted students broken up into seperate groups. I, like many other teachers, had learned about cooperative grouping and thought the best spot for these children were as the "leaders" of the group. It didn't take long to realize that this placement was not in the best interest of my gifted students. Some prefer to work alone, others took over the group, and others could not handle being in a group where the others students did not have the same knowledge of the subject as their own. About a month ago, I put my 5 gifted students into their own group. There are a total of 5 groups in my classroom and the other 4 are made out of cooperative learning groups. I find having my gifted students in the same group makes it easier to organize differentiated instruction, makes it possible for these students to be working on different assignments, and allows them to work with other students that are similar to themselves. I have seen a decrease in behavior problems and off task behaviors from these students. After reading the Winebrenner text this week I felt cofident about my previous decision about where to seat my gifted students. They work well as a group and have the option of working alone if they choose. The students do move around the room and work with different students during the day, when appropriate. I think that this chapter should be read by all classroom teachers - I'm sure many have been taught about cooperative learning groups and do not realize that this can be detrimental to gifted students.