Gifted cultural education model
Dr. Donna Ford has created a gifted cultural education model based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and James Banks’ levels of integrating multicultural content; contributions, additive; transformation, and social action. Dr. Ford’s matrix contains multiple pathways in which educators can develop curriculum that will affect students culturally and cognitively. The rows contain components of James Banks' Levels of Integration whereas the columns contain Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Ford's Revised Bloom-Banks Matrix of Multicultural Gifted Education
| Remembering | Understanding | Applying | Analyzing | Evaluating | Creating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contributions | Students are taught and know facts about cultural artifacts, events, groups, and other cultural elements | Students show an understanding of information about cultural artifacts, groups, and so forth. | Students are asked to and can apply information learned on cultural artifacts, events, and so forth. | Students are taught to and can evaluate facts and information based on cultural artifacts, groups, and so forth. | Students are taught to and can evaluate facts and information based on cultural artifacts, groups, and so forth. | Students are required to and can create a new product from the information on cultural artifacts, groups, and so forth |
| Addititive | Students are taught and know concepts and themes about cultural groups | Students are taught and can understand cultural concepts and themes. | Students are required to and can apply information learned about cultural concepts and themes. | Students are taught to and can analyze important cultural concepts and themes. | Students are taught to and can critique cultural concepts and themes. | Students are asked to and can synthesize important information on cultural concepts and themes. |
| Transformation | Students are given information on important cultural elements, groups, and so forth, and can understand this information from different perspectives. | Students are taught to understand and can demonstrate an understanding of important cultural concepts and themes from different perspectives | Students are asked to and can apply their understanding of important concepts and themes from different perspectives. | Students are taught to and can examine important cultural concepts and themes from more than one perspective. | Students are taught to and can evaluate or judge important cultural concepts and themes from different viewpoints (e.g. racially and culturally different groups) | Students are required to and can create a product based on their new perspective or the perspective of another group. |
| Social Action | Based on information on cultural artifacts, students make the recommendations for social action. | Based on their understanding of important concepts and themes, students make recommendations for social action. | Students are asked to and can apply their understanding of important social and cultural issues; then make recommendations for and take action on these issues. | Students are required to and can analyze social and cultural issues from different perspectives; they take action on these issues. | Students critique important social and cultural issues and seek to make national and/or intentional change. | Students create a plan of action to address a social and cultural issues(s): they seek important social change. |
Used with permission from Donna Y. Ford. From Recruiting & Retaining Culturally Different Students in Gifted Education by Donna Y. Ford, PH.D. Copyright 2013 by Prufrock Press Inc., P.O. Box 8813, Waco, TX 76714, 800.998.2208, www.prufrock.com. All rights reserved.
When using this matrix, curriculum can be created at four different levels:
- Use of dark purple rows and columns creates curriculum at low levels of both cultural integration and thinking. Curriculum developed at these levels provide no multicultural growth and no rigor for gifted students.
- Use of dark purple rows and light green columns creates curriculum at low levels of cultural integration but high levels of thinking. Curriculum developed at these levels provide no multicultural growth yet high thinking skills. According to Ford, most gifted curriculum is developed in this level.
- Use of light green rows and dark purple columns creates curriculum at high levels of cultural integration but low levels of thinking. Curriculum developed at these levels allow students to become more culturally aware and obtain more meaningful knowledge about diverse groups. This area is high on cultural rigor and thought processes would naturally increase due to the rigorous cultural content.
- Use of light green rows and columns creates curriculum at high levels of both cultural integration and thinking. Curriculum developed at these levels is relevant and rigorous, pushing students to encourage social change for non-dominant culture groups.
By incorporating the Bloom-Banks Matrix in the design of gifted curriculum, teachers create experiences that encourage gifted students to participate in multicultural educational opportunities allowing students to view the world through multiple perspectives catered to their strengths.
Careful review of resources and materials should ensure there are no negative representations or advantages for any culture(s).
Resources
Gay, G. (2002). Culturally Responsive Teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
Culturally Responsive Teaching. The Education Alliance at Brown University. https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/teaching-diverse-learners/strategies-0/culturally-responsive-teaching-0
Troutman-Scott, Michelle. (2014) Using the Bloom-Banks Matrix to Develop Multicultural Differentiated Lessons for Gifted Students Gifted Child Today, vol 37, no. 3 (162-168).
Ford, Donna Y. (2013) Recruiting & Retaining Culturally Different Students in Gifted Education. Prufrock Press.
Kaplan, Emily. (2019) https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-essential-strategies-teaching-english-language-learners.