1. Cluster Classroom Grouping Model

2. What is the Cluster Classroom Grouping Model?
It is a method for providing full-time gifted education services without major budget implications and with the potential to raise achievement for all students.
In this model, all students are purposely placed into classrooms based on their abilities, potential, or achievement.

3. Gifted Cluster Classrooms – Numbers of classes per grade level
2 - 3
4 - 5
6 - 8
Number of gifted
cluster classrooms needed 1
1 – 2
2 – 3

4. Example of Classroom Composition for Cluster Model School (source: The Cluster Grouping Handbook by, Susan Winebrenner, M.S. & Dina Brulles, Ph.D.)

5. Looking at FUSD’s TAG history & Pilot Implementation of the Cluster Classroom Model
Since my employment in this district (2004 to the end of the school year each elementary school provided a 1 hour/week pull out program for TAG students using teachers hired to teach this class)
Budgetary concerns necessitated the removal of TAG teacher positions at the end of the 2008 – 2009 school year
Starting district wide – In July 2009 representatives from each school were trained to be Differentiation Instruction trainers at each of their schools – this training took place throughout the district during the 2009 – 2010 school year

6. Looking at FUSD’s TAG history & Pilot Implementation of the Cluster Classroom Model (continued)
During the – 2010 school year, each school in the district scheduled time for the DI (Differentiation Instruction) trainers to review differentiation instruction strategies that can be used in their classrooms
Starting in the 2009 – 2010 school year and currently continuing – TAG services are administered at varying times and in varying ways based on individual elementary school sites:
RTI time (enrichment activities/studies)
Teachers establishing a routine enrichment time in their class or at their grade level
Programs such as Master Mind
Teachers using DI strategies more consistently in their classrooms

7. Differentiation Instruction
Student focused learning – developing independent learners
Student paced learning (challenging advanced learners --- ’buying time’ for struggling learners)
Use of collaborative flexible student grouping – interest, ability, teacher directed heterogeneous grouping
Compacting
Extension menus
Independent study projects

8. Looking at FUSD’s TAG history & Pilot Implementation of the Cluster Classroom Model (continued)
The Cluster Classroom was a model that I became interested in two years ago and I took the initial training with Dina Brulles Gifted Coordinator of the Paradise Valley School District
Visited the program in Phoenix
Looked for district principals and volunteer teachers to pilot this program- resulting in Marshall, DeMiguel, Cromer, and Knoles
Many teachers participating in this pilot received training on March 2, 2010, May 7, 2010, and May 12, In addition a few of the teachers went to a DI training institute over the summer

9. Support and additional training in the 2010 – 2011 school year:
Looking at FUSD’s TAG history & Pilot Implementation of the Cluster Classroom Model (continued)
School year 2010 – 2011 participating cluster classroom pilot schools, Cromer, DeMiguel, Knoles, Marshall
Support and additional training in the 2010 – 2011 school year:
9/24/10 – workshop on teaching skills that will assist in setting up a thinking- centered classroom for gifted learners (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration skills)
10/29/10 – workshop on Independent Project Based Learning
01/14/11– workshop on developing common assessments
To be arranged – book study/discussion on DI strategies
Day visit to a cluster classroom in the Phoenix area
SIOP coach support of teachers implementing this pilot

10. What it means to place students into cluster groups
A group of gifted identified students is clustered into a mixed ability classroom with a teacher who is trained to differentiate for gifted students

11. Cluster Grouping Classroom Model allows:
Critical elements of effective gifted programs
Flexible grouping
Differentiation
Continuous progress
Intellectual peer interactions
(Program elements identified by Barbara Clark)

12. Perception that cluster grouping is the same as tracking
NO – In tracking, students are grouped into classrooms with others of similar ability and these students remain together throughout their school years. Curriculum is based on the ability levels of the students in each track.
Clustering students – classes arranged this way have students with a range of abilities. Teachers modify or extend grade level standards according to student needs and abilities. The classroom composition changes each year.

13. ?: Why should gifted students be placed in a cluster group instead of being assigned to all classes?
Need to spend time learning with others of like ability to experience challenge and make academic progress
Better understand their learning differences when they are with learning peers
Teachers are more likely to differentiate curriculum when there is a group of gifted students

14. ?: Won’t the creation of a cluster group rob the other classes of academic leadership?
Looking at the earlier slide regarding the distribution chart of students there are either gifted or high achieving students in every class; therefore, all classes have academic leaders
Gifted students do not make the best academic leaders because they make intuitive leaps, and therefore do not always appear to have to work as hard as others
High average students have new opportunities to become academic leaders

15. ?: Can I create small groups of gifted students in all classes?
The desired outcomes of the Cluster Classroom Model become diminished because:
All teachers have the full range of abilities in their classrooms
There is less accountability for teachers to facilitate progress of their gifted learners
Providing teacher training becomes difficult

16. Example of Academic Effects of Cluster Grouping in the area of Math (source: The cluster Grouping Handbook by, Susan Winebrenner, M.S. & Dina Brulles, Ph.D.)