The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in ...

Potential weaknesses of learning centres.• Could result in ‘more of the same’ busy work if not carefully planned and managed (Riley, inpress c).• Learning centres require student self-direction and motivation, so could prove difficult forsome students.Recommendations for effective practice in the use of learning centres.• The activities must match the interests, abilities, and learning styles of the students. Therefore,the topics or focuses of the learning centres should be a balance of curricular-driven andstudent-driven ideas.• There must be clear instructions provided at the learning centre, or prior to students beginningwork at the learning centre.• Resources need to be organised and easily available.• There should be both long term and short term activities.• Because an aim is to encourage independence, there must be procedures for students to makechoices and decisions and to record their own progress. Students also need to be heldaccountable for the time they spend at learning centres.• Ensure that procedures are in place for assessment and evaluation (Heacox, 2002; Riley, inpress c; Tomlinson, 2001; Winebrenner, 2001).Integrated CurriculumSeveral different terms are used to make reference to curriculum integration: interdisciplinary;multidisciplinary; thematic; integrative; correlated; unified; synergetic; fused; and holistic teaching(Lake, 1994; Vars & Rakow, 1993). The Ministry of Education (2000) defines this strategy as theintegration of multiple disciplines, adding that for gifted and talented students the different disciplinesor content areas are pulled together by an overarching broad-based, conceptual theme. It “involves theintegration of multiple disciplines, allowing learning across wide issues as opposed to narrow topics.For example, the themes of discovery, survival, or exploration may be umbrellas under which manydisciplines and subtopics rest” (Ministry of Education, 2000, p. 43).“The flexibility of the New Zealand Curriculum Framework enables gifted and talented students to“work at a level appropriate to their ability alongside others in the classroom working at differentlevels” (Education Review Office, 1998a, p. 13). The Ministry of Education (2000) consider anintegrated curriculum approach to be appropriate for all students in a regular classroom, while alsoproviding gifted and talented students with the added freedom to “pursue topics of choice inaccordance with their individual needs” (p. 43). It enables all students to be part of the regularcurriculum while including skills and knowledge not explicitly taught as part of that curriculum(Conway, 2001).Fogarty (1991) suggests 10 models for designing curriculum that help students make valuableconnections while learning. Some of these models may be particularly appropriate for gifted andtalented students. The continuum begins with……an exploration within single disciplines (the fragmented connected and nested models),and continues with models that integrate across several disciplines (the sequenced, shared,webbed, threaded and integrated models); the continuum ends with models that operatewithin learners themselves (the immersed model) and finally across networks of learners(the networked model) (p. 61).85