Self-Contained Classroom

History

Assigning gifted students with like abilities to the same classroom has been met with controversy throughout history. Abraham Tannenbaum stated, “No other specific grouping of children have been alternatively embraced and repelled by so much negativism by educators and laypersons alike” (p. 16). In an interview, A. H. Passow confirmed that if grouping gifted students was administered as a means to avoid assuming responsibility to attend to the issues of general education for all students, it was elitist. Across the eras, James Kulik identified educational, national, and social issues that have caused educators and communities to posit positive or negative reactions to grouping patterns. Issues noted by Kulik that have influenced the establishment or dissolution of self-contained classrooms over time can be defined to include the following: the development of sophisticated measurement instruments, technological and economic global competitiveness, and concerns for social justice denied by equity and access. Statements by Jeannie Oakes that juxtaposed ability grouping and tracking caused strong negative reactions among educators and laypersons and caused policymakers to reconsider providing [Page 793]self-contained classrooms. Robert Slavin's work that articulated the need for students to work cooperatively with peers, representing economic, cultural, linguistic, and academic diversity also created concern for the implementation of self-contained classrooms. The shifts in perspectives regarding the self-contained classroom consistently brought about national and local changes in curriculum, instruction, professionalism, class size, and allocation of resources for gifted students.

Curriculum and Instruction

The self-contained classroom has been legitimized by the concept that it provides the opportunity to respond to the needs, interests, and abilities of gifted students. The dual demands of the classroom wherein the teacher must respond to the specialized and general needs of students continues to affect decisions about grouping. Carol Ann Tomlinson described heterogeneous classes as a “one-size-fits-all” unless differentiation of instruction has taken place within the context of that classroom. Tomlinson stated that advanced learners were intellectually thwarted by work that they already had accomplished and were possibly “ignored” because they had achieved their designated proficiency levels. However, just grouping students of like ability is insufficient, according to Barbara Clark. Karen Rogers supported this idea by stating that one of the flaws in the studies regarding full-time grouping has been the emphasis placed on grouping rather than on analyzing teaching differences.

In his meta-analytic review of grouping programs, Kulik stipulated key distinctions among grouping programs that were related to curriculum adjustments. Whether the self-contained classroom was for purposes of acceleration or enrichment, the curricular adjustments within these classes were fundamental to their outcomes. Accelerated classrooms adjusted the pace of the presentation of the curriculum; the enrichment classrooms provided learning experiences that extended the basic or core curriculum. Kulik found that there was a relationship between the degree of curriculum adjustments in both the accelerated and enrichment self-contained classroom configurations and the gifted students' academic performance; the more the curriculum was modified, the greater and more positive the impact on gifted students' achievements. Marcia Delcourt, Brenda Loyd, Dewey Cornell, and Marc Goldberg also found that gifted students' academic performance was rated higher than that of gifted peers who were not enrolled in separate day classes. According to the Delcourt study, gifted students in separate classes achieved at a higher level than did their gifted peers assigned to any type of within class or other grouping pattern.

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