Classroom Is Equivalent to Gifted Programs and Is Sufficient Classroom Teachers Have the Time, the Skill, and the Will to Differentiate Adequately

Differentiation of instruction calls on a teacher to recognize that the students in his or her class-room differ from one another in a variety of ways— including readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles—and to respond to these differences with learning experiences matched to demonstrated indi-vidual student need (Tomlinson, 2003). This approach to teaching stands in stark contrast to approaches that assume that all students in a classroom, regardless of its heterogeneity, benefit and learn from a standard, one-size-fits-all curriculum. Within the philosophy of differentiation, gifted stu-dents are regarded as a diverse lot whose individual talents and needs cannot be met with a single “gifted” curriculum. As such, recommendations for differenti-ating learning experiences for gifted students includ