This research project investigates teachers’ adaptive literacy instruction practices for high achieving pupils. Particular attention is payed to teachers’ sensitivity towards giftedness among high achieving pupils and teachers’ approaches to supporting learning engagement among gifted pupils.
The backdrop of the project is recent student surveys showing that high achieving pupils in Norway want and need more challenging instruction in order to learn more and to maintain or increase engagement. International research shows that the learning engagement of pupils who start out as high achieving might be as vulnerable as the learning engagement of all other pupils. Research also shows that engagement is important to learning, that once lost, engagement is difficult to reestablish, and that a lack of engagement may lead to underachievement or drop-out.
The Norwegian Education Act ensures all pupils the right to individually adapted instruction, yet the high achieving and gifted pupils have traditionally been given less attention in the classroom than those who struggle at school. Governmental white papers and official reports point to schools’ lack of focus towards assisting high achieving and gifted pupils in reaching their learning potential. The Norwegian government thus calls for more research into the learning needs of these pupils so that the situation might be addressed.
The research project is embedded in the Two Teachers Research Project, which, amongst other issues, investigates how having two teachers in the classroom influences teachers’ differentiation practices.
Trine Mathiesen Gilje: Adapted Literacy Instruction for Pupils with Higher Learning Potential in the Norwegian Lower Primary Co-Teaching Classroom
Project period: 2017-2020
Supervisor: Erin McTigue
Co-supervisor: Åse Kari H. Wagner