| The research regarding differentiated curriculum for gifted learners does not explain fully how and why gifted students transfer the elements of a differentiated curriculum previously learned to new contexts and situations. Prior research indicated that factors such as students' self-assuredness, the instructional strategies utilized by the teacher, and the nature of the disciplines influenced how students learn and perform academically on school-related tasks. This study examined the specific relationship between these factors and gifted students' abilities to transfer the elements of a differentiated curriculum to both core content and real-world tasks across the disciplines. The elements of a differentiated curriculum for the gifted used in this study included: Universal Concepts, Big Ideas, the prompts of Depth and Complexity, and Thinking Like a Disciplinarian. This study examined how, why, when, and under what conditions gifted students transferred 31 elements of a differentiated curriculum to accomplish a series of tasks in English Language Arts, social studies, science, and mathematics. Forth-five fourth and fifth grade students from a public Title I school in urban Los Angeles participated in this study. An analysis of the data collected from Teacher Surveys, Student Surveys, and a Student Performance Assessment provides insights into the relationships among student importance (self-assuredness), teacher instructional decision-making, the discipline areas, and students' transfer of the elements of a differentiated curriculum. Additionally, patterns and themes that emerged from students' own reflections concerning their use of differentiated curriculum to complete tasks were examined. The results of the data indicated that students were clearly and concretely able to articulate their beliefs regarding (a) the importance of the elements of a differentiated curriculum as a tool for learning, (b) their preferred method for learning and for transferring the elements of a differentiated curriculum, and (c) the alignment between the elements of a differentiated curriculum and the discipline areas. These results provide implications for the development of differentiated curriculum for gifted learners, instructional strategies used to teach gifted children, and the content presented in Teacher Education programs at both the pre-service and in-service level. |
