The Matthew Effect and Ability Grouping

Whether we're talking about education for the gifted & talented (whatever one means by that), special education, or best practices in a general education classroom, differentiation is the ideal.  Time, money, school politics, etc., all limit the degree to which a teacher can effectively differentiate, but highly skilled educators can find ways to create, within their classroom, a general atmosphere of differentiation.  Along these lines, there are a number of issues I'd like to discuss briefly in the next few posts, including formative assessment, forensic assessment (a term that I use frequently in my interactions with my peers, but one you won't find in print), reconsidering Bloom's Taxonomy, etc.  These issues are, at least implicitly (but in most cases, explicitly), relevant to educators of all stripes.

I suppose that many educators, like myself, find some attraction in the idea that high performing students - i.e., academically gifted and talented - raise the academic bar in the classroom, enabling lower performing student to achieve at a higher level.  Perhaps if the better angels of our nature were at play (if "free riding" didn't exist among lower performing students, if self-preoccupation didn't exit among higher performing students, and if teachers consistently maintained a highly differentiated learning environment), this might, indeed, be the case.  Because we, as teachers, want higher performing students to leaven the classroom, and because we don't want to stigmatize anyone, the idea of ability grouping seems to have fallen into a general disfavor.

Certainly, we wouldn't want to stigmatize anyone.  Indeed, we want students to benefit from the strengths of other students - this is all part of the process of inculcating a sense of citizenship and community.  Nevertheless, the Matthew Effect would suggest that a preoccupation with diversity - grouping students without regard to gifts, talents, strengths, weaknesses, or level of background knowledge - could have a detrimental effect on learning. Some researchers have demonstrated that the various differences students possess are adversely compounded by the Matthew Effect (Hirsch, 2006; Hirsch, 2009; Stanovich, 1986).  In diverse classrooms, students who already possess a wide frame of reference will be able use background knowledge and context clues to grasp newly presented concepts.  Students who don’t, however, will acquire neither the missing context clues necessary to learn the new concept, nor the new concept itself.  They, essentially, fall further behind with each passing lesson (Stanovich, 1986).  Thus, as Matthew 13:12 explains, “for whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”  As it turns out, the Matthew Effect not only accounts for, at least in part, differences of academic aptitude among students (e.g., the student who leads the pack in mathematics but falls far behind in reading), but also the achievement gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students (Payne, 2005; Stanovich, 1986).

What are the practical implications of this for educators?  First, precisely identifying students' areas of giftedness or talent, and grouping them accordingly, can help them from falling victim to the Matthew Effect.  Secondly, while classroom diversity might have any number of positive benefits for students, making it the guiding principle in classroom instruction runs the risk of creating, rather than circumventing, stigmatization.  In diverse classrooms, where student abilities are ignored, the differences between high performing and low performing students are more pronounced.  Third, the Matthew Effect is, for many students, a case study in diversity.  While some would undoubtedly dismiss the idea of grouping students according to ability level (and certainly, there are ineffective ways of doing this that might prejudice educators against it), isn't ability grouping a form of differentiation....and isn't differentiation the ideal?

I'm not advocating that educators use the strengths and weaknesses as the only consideration when differentiating.  I'm simply arguing that diversity isn't the only consideration.  Educators, particularly those in leadership roles, should give balanced consideration to student diversity and to student similarity.

References

Hirsch, E.D. (2006). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap for American children. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Hirsch, E.D. (2009). The making of Americans: Democracy and our schools. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Payne, R.K. (2005). A framework for understanding poverty (4^th ed.). Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc.

Stanovich, K. (1986, Fall). Matthew Effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360-407.

If Teachers Have to Differentiate, Everyone Has to Differentiate!!!

To follow up on my previous comments regarding Piirto's (2007) gifted construct, it would be a mistake to reason that, because all students have certain gifts and talents, there is no place for gifted and talented programs in public schools.  In modern public education, the notion of differentiation is perhaps the most dominant instructional emphasis.  Beyond being a mere trend, many researchers assert that differentiation is the clearest past to making classroom instruction consistent with the needs and the nature of learners (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2010).  If anything, Piirto's (2007) arguments support an extrapolation of differentiated education across an entire school building (or, perhaps, a school district).

Accordingly, here are a few recommendations/observations for gifted and talented programs in public schools:

(1) Be accurate in identifying the program.  If a gifted and talented program serves academically gifted or High IQ students, clearly articulate that in the program's mission statement, eligibility criteria, and name.  Rather than calling it a Gifted Program, for example, one might call it "HighQ," "Renaissance" (for students who are academically talented in multiple content domains), "Math Counts" (for those specifically talented in math), etc.

(2) Expand gifted and talented opportunities in the school.  Teachers are expected to differentiate in every class, which often means over thirty customized learning experiences per academic block.  If teachers are expected to do this on a daily basis at the individual class level, why shouldn't administrators be expected to do the same at the building level.  Sure, there are some logistics to work out, but there are classroom logistics to work out as well, and administrators make the big bucks.  A single school could have separate programs for the academically gifted, the relationally gifted, the physically gifted, the mechanically gifted, the creatively gifted, etc. - school-wide differentiation according to gifts and talents!

References


Piirto, J. (2007). Talented children and adults: Their development and education (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

Sousa, D.A., & Tomlinson, C.A. (2010). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Piirto's Gifted Construct

Reference


Piirto, J. (2007). Talented children and adults: Their development and education (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

They Are All Stars!!!

Why the name "jejune stars" for a blog about students?  Trust me...I am a very deliberate person, and this title selection came after nearly an hour of intense thought.  I just happened to have music playing in the background, and I heard the phrase, "we are jejune stars!"

That's it!!!  The word "jejune" can mean dull, insipid, uninformed, uninspired, or possibly, lacking nutrition.  There are schools that can be described as jejune, teachers that can be described as jejune, lessons that can be described as jejune and, consequently, students that can often become jejune.  

When I first began teaching in public schools nearly a decade ago (after a number of years in the military, followed by several years teaching in private school), I had two job offers:  one from a rather comfortable school in north Georgia, in the county that I grew up in and knew very well, in a fairly stable community; the other also in north Georgia, from a school in a low-income area, with nearly 90% of students on free or reduced lunch, in a district in which every school, with one exception, was designated a Title I school.  I was given tours of both schools, met teachers and students from both, and was even shown my classroom at both schools, assuming I accepted the jobs there.  However, from the moment I walked into the dilapidated building that housed the students, faculty, and staff of Rossville Middle School, my mind was made up.  These students - and I'm generalizing here - were incredibly savvy, tough, built to survive...but in desperate need.  They were unlike the students I remembered when I was in school, those I'd encountered during my student teaching, and certainly those at the boarding school I'd worked at for the previous three years (although there were more similarities there, at the boarding school, than in any of my other experiences).  This would be a challenge, but this place was a true mission field...the kind of mission field that was custom made for those who, wanting to change the world, answer the call to be educators in the first place.  These were the kind of students I wanted to serve.  Jejune stars!  Students who, though beaten down by poverty, dysfunctional home lives, the temptations of sex and drugs, and in many cases, educators who couldn't relate to them, were desperate to find a way to achieve, to find someone who would care, to shine!!!

This blog was initially going to be about my thoughts and impressions on education for the gifted and talented.  In some ways, it still is.  One of my doctoral professors at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Dr. Caryl Taylor, has encouraged me to think broader.  How can insights on gifted and talented education be applied in such a way that students, in general, might benefit?  After reflecting, I agree.  Who are the gifted, after all?  Can't an argument be made that, in some ways, practically all students are gifted or talented?  Aren't all students capable of shining in some way, regardless of how jejune they might be?  This is, essentially, the argument of Jane Piirto (2007).  One of the great difficulties in gifted and talented education is that the very notion of "gifted" or "talented" is lacking in uniformity.  Each state defines "gifted and talented" in their own way - a student could, theoretically, be identified as a gifted student, move to another state, and no longer qualify.  The designation "gifted and talented" has been variously construed to incorporate intelligence, interpersonal ability, athletic ability, motivation, a particular aptitude for music, art, writing, etc.  All too often, definitions of "gifted and talented" are autobiographical, reflecting what an educator or a school system values.  These definitions, ultimately, do a disservice to a large number of students whose talents and gifts go unnoticed and/or unserved.

Don't get me wrong.  I would not advocate abolishing gifted programs, honors academies, or the like.  They serve an important purpose for students with very distinct educational talents and needs.  I'm simply endorsing Piirto's (2007) argument that schools would benefit from a new gifted construct with accurate terminology: "All kinds of talent make up the giftedness construct.  When calling a person 'gifted,' we should be accurate in our language.  If we mean high IQ, we should say 'high IQ.' If we identify a child's talent potential by means of an academic achievement test, we should say 'academic talent'...If a child can relate with skill and grace to others, enhancing their lives with his or her presence, we should call that talent 'relationship talent'" (p. 45).

Piirto's giftedness construct, and Dr. Taylor's advice, are right on target!  The thoughts and impressions recorded in this blog might be of use or interest to teachers of the "gifted and talented," but I hope that they might be of some benefit to all educators.  When I watch students walking the halls of the school, going to their lockers, entering and leaving classrooms, I can't help but notice how jejune many of them have, for one reason or another, become.  I hope that what little I am able to say or do helps because, beneath the tough outer surface, they are, each of them, shining stars...

References

Piirto, J. (2007). Talented children and adults: Their development and education. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.