Educators can provide sound interventions for gifted students if they carefully consider their special needs, based on their characteristics. The learning needs of gifted students are delineated, based on their characteristics, and curriculum implications are derived. (TE)

Gifted students come from all socioeconomic backgrounds. A broader definition of giftedness and improved assessment methods will help remove barriers that keep poor and minority students out of programs for the gifted. (TE)

Research and experience tell us the benefits of integration for students with mental handicaps, but we have yet to put this knowledge into widespread practice. Appropriate educational policies and administrative support are needed to ensure successful integration of the mentally handicapped into schools. (TE)

A special education teacher describes a successful class activity in songwriting for developmentally disabled students that has resulted in an album entitled "Special Music by Special Kids." (TE)

Reviews a documentary videotape entitled "Regular Lives" that presents case studies of successful mainstreaming of the disabled. The video shows both the obstacles and benefits of placing children with physical and mental disabilities into regular classrooms with typical children. (TE)

A study conducted in Utah shows that ability grouping is harmful to remedial students. Findings from a comparison of mathematics gains for three groups--remedial, average, and accelerated--showed that remedial students learn more in advanced mathematics programs than in those designed for them. (TE)

The Special Education Learning Center in Hartford, Connecticut, successfully teaches students with serious behavioral disorders. The program features a behavioral curriculum, built around rewards, punishments, a fully supervised setting, collegial support, and physical intervention. (TE)

Drama in the classroom means honing thinking skills, increasing comprehension, bringing the written word to life, and fun. And it's effective with general, gifted, and at-risk students from K-12. (Author/TE)

The Arts Partners program in New York City enriches the quality of education for public school children by bringing local artists into their classrooms. Gifted and special education classes are brought together in mixed groups, led by artists, to work on puppetry and participatory dramatics. (TE)

Through lively discussions of specially selected texts, students of diverse abilities often discover that they can learn a lot from one another. The Touchstones Project in a Baltimore (Maryland) middle school features group discussion of classical texts. (Author/TE)

A review of the literature and a survey of practitioners' views show that the educational reform movement has done little to promote educational equity or to close the gender achievement gap. (Author/TE)

"Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics" conferences in Berkeley, California, are designed to nurture girls' interest in science and math courses and encourage them to consider nontraditional career options. (TE)

A number of studies conducted during the last decade have found that students' achievement increases when teaching methods match their learning styles--biological and developmental characteristics that affect how they learn. Correlational studies and experimental research studies are reviewed on instructional environments, perceptual preferences,…

A teacher reports on helpful advice she received from a colleague when she started teaching: to teach students in the cognitive mode in which they learn best (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or tactile). (TE)

A university-school collaboration can effect change if teachers are given supportive environments and opportunities for frequent reflection and sharing of ideas on the teaching and learning of reading and writing. (Author/TE)