As an elementary teacher, it is imperative that differentiation occurs in the classroom to meet the needs of all learners. In my fourth grade classroom this school year, 8 of my 26 students had an identification as gifted in math. In previous years, these students participated in a math enrichment pull-out group with the math specialist in our building. Due to the loss of Title 1 assistants, gifted students were required to participate in the general education math classroom, even if they demonstrated mastery prior to a topic being introduced. This removal of enrichment coursework detrimentally affected that ability of gifted students to study advanced content. Without the challenging work students grew accustomed to in their enrichment groups, gifted students would not have continued practice with higher-order thinking skills. Lack of practice may have impacted their trajectory on standardized assessments, as well as their ability to apply critical thinking skills to challenging math skills in the future.
In order to differentiate to meet the needs of the most advanced students in fourth grade, gifted students in my class participated in a flipped classroom model to receive daily math instruction. I created a website that students interacted with while I taught the whole-group lesson to the rest of the class. After completing pre-assessments, students completed the flipped classroom lessons, accessed on a public website (growyourmathbrain.weebly.com/) that I created that included instructional videos and guided practice. The students submitted artifacts such as exit tickets, work samples, etc. throughout their learning to demonstrate that they completed the online learning module. Students met with the teacher in small enrichment and remediation groups to practice the content at or above a fourth grade level. They then completed a post-assessment at the end of the unit. Pre and post assessment scores will be compared to analyze student growth.