In the classroom: What’s a Teacher to Do?

Kathy Hargrove

Ben teaches second grade—a heterogeneous bilingual classroom in a large district. His assignment in a graduate class was to conduct action research. There was never any question what Ben would do. He was concerned about the academic performance and motivation of two gifted but underachieving Hispanic boys. Both students had been identified as gifted the previous year based upon high scores on standardized and nonverbal tests and teacher and parent recommendations. Each of them demonstrated high cognitive ability both mathematically and verbally. But, Ben had a problem.

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