The role of play in a differentiated curriculum for the young gifted child

Play should be an integral part of a curriculum designed for young gifted children.     

REAL: A philosophy of gifted/talented education to live by

Universal considerations should be included in every program for the gifted, using the special needs of the students as the basics for the program. In striving to ascertain the needs of these students, the author isolates responsibility, expectation, acceptance, and love of learning as necessary components.     

EDITORIAL

No abstract available for this article.     

What bilingual poets can do: Re‐visioning English education for biliteracy

This paper describes a bilingual‐bidialectal poetry writing programme set up in a community library in the southeastern United States for multi‐age learners. The authors explore the use of poetry as a vehicle for biliteracy development. The analysis draws on observations of the students’ engagement with poetry both in terms of their writing and the teachers’ responses. The paper discusses how poetry can inform a critical, multicultural approach to developing biliteracy in students of all ages and degrees of competence in written English. The authors theorise the role that poetry can play in creating positive learning environments for such students.     

Teacher evaluation standards in practice: A standards‐based assessment tool for diversity‐responsive teaching

Abstract

Although there is no question about the need for preservice and inservice teachers to have the skills to meet the diverse needs of students in todays classrooms, the issue of how to assess those same skills has proved to be problematic. This article reports on a joint effort by faculty from an urban university and a large public school district to create an observation tool that will assess and mentor preservice and inservice teachers’ abilities to address issues of diversity in their classrooms meaningfully. The authors will first report on missions and background information representing both the university and the school district and then on the development of a standards‐based assessment tool. Lastly, suggestions that compliment a comprehensive body of evidence of teacher evaluation will be discussed.