Learning at a better pace

At first glance Haley Murray’s class at Woodard Elementary looks like any other. Books line the shelves, the day’s schedule is written on the board.

It’s the students who are different.

Murray teaches West Valley School District’s PACE Program for gifted students, now in its second year. Her class of 29 includes students in grades 3-5 and runs all day, every day. It’s a switch from the previous program that pulled students out of their regular classrooms one day a week for more advanced work.

Teaching three grade levels in one room simultaneously may sound difficult, but it’s really not, Murray said. At the beginning of the year she tests each student to see where they are academically and divides them up into small groups based on their abilities. That plan allows her third-grade student who reads at a 12th-grade level, but has age-level skills in math, to be challenged in both areas.

“They’re kind of all over the board,” she said. “They really don’t pay attention to their grade level. It kind of gets washed away.”

Murray leads the class with the help of a full-time aide and parent volunteers. When she started the class last year as an experiment, she was in her first full-time teaching job and had no curriculum to work from. “Last year was definitely one of those eye-opening experiences,” she said.

This year she has curricula, and a lot of the learning uses hands-on projects. “All of those things are really fun to do.”

A recent project had the students traveling by boat to the New World as though they were explorers in the time of Christopher Columbus. They organized in colonies and drew cards that determined how long they sailed and what happened to their ships. Once they reached the New World, the supplies they carried were essential to creating a settlement.

One by one, a representative from each group took a card and read it aloud. When Dominic Brumfield looked at the card he drew, he simply turned to his group and said, “We lost a ship.”

After using math skills to determine how far they had to sail, they were assigned to write journals as a character from that time period. Murray asked them to talk about their feelings as well as what happened. “What did it feel like when you saw the land?” she said. “You want to be really detailed.”

Victoria Cochran pondered how to continue her journal from where she left off. “I was already seasick,” she said, pointing to the page. “This shows me passing out.”

Since Murray teaches three grade levels, she has to take care not to repeat any projects. “I’m on a three-year rotation,” she said. “I can’t do anything I taught last year.”

Liz Law put her son Aaron in the class when it began last year. This year he is a fifth-grader and will graduate from the class. “One of the neat things about that class is that it’s cool to be smart,” she said. “They push each other.”

Law confessed she was doubtful about combining three grades in one room at first. “I was probably one of the biggest skeptics,” she said. “Now I would say it’s been a really good thing. I think it’s a wonderful program. I would recommend it to anybody.”

She really likes the fact that it’s an all-day class. “To just have a pull-out class is nice, but to have something every day where they can be challenged all the time is much nicer,” she said. “They’re not just gifted one day a week.”

Not only is her son being challenged at school, Law said she has also seen social growth. “I think in a lot of ways that’s been the high point for my son.”

Murray said she has seen many of her students blossom socially now that they’re in a group of academically bright students. “Some of them have never been the mental age of their peers,” she said. “That’s really been a cool thing to watch.”

By any indication, the class has been a success. Five students earned perfect WASL scores last year. There’s a waiting list for the class, which also draws a lot of out-of-district students, and Murray hopes to expand the program in the future. “Our district is really committed to focusing on what the kids need,” she said. “We hope to grow the program.”