| Acceleration |
Allowing students to advance by grade or by subject |
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| Advanced Placement (AP) |
College level courses taught at the high school. Students who choose may take a standardized test in May. Depending on their scores and the colleges to which they apply, they may earn college credit. |
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| Cluster Grouping |
Identifying and placing the top students (5-8) in the same classroom to allow them to work together occasionally and to be with a teacher who likes gifted kids and has received special training in meeting their needs. |
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| Concurrent Enrollment |
Allowing students to attend classes in more than one building such as an 8th grader taking geometry at the high school or a high school student taking a course for both high school and college credit. |
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| Curriculum Compacting |
Pretesting students to find out what they already know and then allowing them to “buy time” to do more appropriate work. |
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Differentiated Education
Plan (DEP) |
A DEP is written for a student when his or her needs cannot be met in the regular classroom. |
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| Differentiating Instruction |
Strategies used by teachers to adapt the content, process, or product based on student readiness, learning profile, and interest. Examples include tiered assignments and curriculum compacting. |
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| Early Entrance |
A form of acceleration which allows students to enter kindergarten or any other level earlier than their age peers. |
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| Enrichment |
Activities that provide “horizontal” breadth and depth as opposed to vertically advancing a child. |
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| Extension Menus |
Activity choices for students who finish their work or have compacted out of a lesson. |
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| Flexible Skills Grouping |
Varying the composition of groups based on student readiness, interest, and learning profile. |
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Higher Order Thinking
Skills |
Questioning in discussion or other activities based on processes of analysis, synthesis, evaluation, or other critical thinking skills. |
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| Independent Study |
Structured projects agreed upon by the teacher and student to allow the student to individually investigate an area of great interest to her or him. |
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| Interest Development Centers |
Display set up around a theme to enable students to learn and do activities that can lead to greater in-depth learning based on their interest. |
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| Learning Contracts |
Student and teacher jointly develop a contract for time “bought” through compacting. The contract usually includes the desired learning outcomes, proposed product, and working conditions. |
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| Learning Centers |
Areas in the room set up with learning activities around a theme, subject, or by preferred learning style. Typically designed to provide additional skills practice. |
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| Like-Ability Cooperative Learning |
Organizing learning groups at least occasionally by like ability. |
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| Mentoring |
A one-to-one relationship between a student and an adult with whom the student shares a passionate interest. The purpose may be career exploration, acquisition of knowledge, or the development of social skills. |
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| Midwest Academic Talent Search (MATS) |
Students in grades 5-8 who score in the 95th percentile or above in reading or math on standardized tests are invited to take an out-of-level test such as the ACT, SAT, or Explore. Students who participate receive academic planning information and may be invited to participate in courses offered by Northwestern University and the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY). |
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| Open-ended Assignments |
Providing students with tasks and work that do not have just one right answer or outcome in order to encourage divergent thinking. |
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| Subject Acceleration |
Allowing students to advance in one or more subjects. |
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| Telescoping |
Allowing students to move through the material in less time such as compressing two years of math into one year. |
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| Tiered Assignments |
A differentiation strategy in which teachers identify the key concepts and skills students must acquire but then plan activities at varying levels of difficulty to appropriately challenge students of varying readiness. |
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