Interdisciplinary Team Teaching (ITT) in the ACS Athens American Studies Combo

The “Combo,” as it is popularly known at ACS Athens, is a team-taught American Studies interdisciplinary English and Social Studies course in which students are heterogeneously grouped in a unique blended learning environment. With differentiated instruction, teachers use a wide range of strategies to engage students of all abilities and backgrounds. Over two decades in the making, the integrated team-taught course instructors apply a constructivist approach, inquiry-based learning, collaborative structures, the latest technology, and creative approaches to engage students in the development of 21st century skills. This chapter traces the philosophy behind interdisciplinary team-teaching (ITT) at ACS Athens and its theoretical and research-based underpinnings to provide unique insights into its benefits and challenges. Three units of study are presented to illustrate organic differentiation, innovated blended teaching strategies, and formative and summative assessments in blended and virtual learning environments.

SPARK-ing innovation: a model for elementary classrooms as COVID-19 unfolds

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe SPARK, an innovative elementary school that highlights the possibilities for elementary education as COVID-19 continues to unfold.Design/methodology/approachThe authors’ analysis is based on a research synthesis of the main features of the SPARK model, as it was operating when schools in Arizona closed because of the coronavirus pandemic: project-based learning, a teaming model, heterogeneously grouped multi-age classes, blended learning, supporting students' development as self-directed learners, mindfulness and looping.FindingsThis paper outlines the empirical grounding for the main features of the model and suggests how they might address elementary students' learning and social emotional needs when schools in Arizona reopen for in-person instruction either as full-service schools or on a staggered or hybrid schedule.Originality/valueEducators from other districts can use this model as a springboard for reimagining their own educational spaces and practices in this new and still uncertain period when schools and school districts consider how to move forward. While many of these practices are not novel, the authors’ research synthesis highlights how SPARK combines them in a way that is unique and particularly relevant for the present moment.

Effective Reading Instruction for Gifted Readers

Assigned as a sixth grade Language Arts teacher in both a homogenously grouped class of gifted students and a heterogeneously grouped class of gifted and high-achieving students, I have struggled to design a program of reading instruction that provides substantially different learning opportunities than what might be offered to gifted readers in a traditional, mixed-ability classroom. A cursory review of published curriculum for gifted readers yields little useful information due to the dated nature of the materials offered. It seems that limited progress has been made in the design or study of reading programs for the gifted since the early 1990's. In our current high-stakes testing world, the needs of gifted readers are rarely considered worthy of reading research efforts, and yet, these students deserve instruction that meets their unique demands.

Exploring Patterns in Nonroutine Problems

For the past several years, we have been examining ways to introduce notions of algebra to our heterogeneously grouped middle school students. Through our experiences of designing instructional activities that integrate nonroutine, nontraditional problems. we found a meaningful way to involve students in exploring and formalizing patterns, conjecturing about the patterns they identify, verbalizing relationships between and among elements in patterns, and eventually generalizing and symbolizing the relationships—all essential components of algebraic thinking (Silver, in press).

Individualized Arithmetic Instruction for Fifth and Sixth Grades

The problem of how to meet the needs of individual learners in heterogeneously grouped classes has been a matter of educational concern for many years. The phrase “individualized instruction” embodies our present efforts to make learning more effective for all learners.

Slow or learning disabled—is there a difference?

Elementary teachers are fully aware that in every heterogeneously grouped classroom there are a few children who have an extremely difficult time with mathematics. Teachers struggle through the entire year, and yet feel that little progress was made by this group. These children are the ones who always seem to have messy papers with wrong answers. Even though teachers want to help these children overcome their deficiency in mathematics, all too often their attempts produce little measurable success. Frequently, past attempts at diagnosing children who experience difficulty in mathematics have tended to categorize them as slow learners. A careful examination of the group having difficulty shows that not all meet the technical definition of a slow learner, i.e., with an IQ in the 80-90 range. Many of these children have average or better intelligence scores. There is an encouraging movement presently underway to provide a somewhat different thrust from that used in the past to meet the needs of children who chronically experience difficulty with mathematics.

Using research in teaching: Is grouping for mathematics instruction practicable in departmentalized mathematics classes?

The problem of how to meet the individual needs of learners in heterogeneously grouped classes has plagued educators for generations. Literature is rife with possible administrative solutions to the problem (for example, interclass ability grouping, streaming, the nongraded system, team teaching, and so on); however, action research aimed at providing practical help for the classroom teacher who faces daily classes of pupils whose achievement levels and ability potentials are literally gradelevels apart is not nearly so plenteous.