Parallel Curriculum Model

Synopsis

Carol Ann Tomlinson's Parallel Curriculum Model is a model that takes place in the classroom and can benefit all students through differentiation and ascending levels of intellectual demand. The 4 strands: core parallel, connections parallel, practice parallel, and identity parallel each offer an important part of education for gifted and talented learners. This model acknowledges, "There is no single kind of gifted learner" (p. 573), and encourages practitioners to use several parallels in a unit of study, to allow students to grow in the various areas (p. 574).  This model is expansive and allows for flexibility, it "can be adapted for any learner, subject domain, or grade level."


What Works for Me

• This model acknowledges the core/basic curriculum and then extends learning for GT students through connections, practice and identity. As research shows, connections in GT education are a way of offering differentiation and rigor to a student's learning. This parallel pushes students to look for relationships among disciplines, time, location, and perspectives.
• The third parallel addresses the curriculum of practice and helps to answer the question: "When is this used?" Students are given the opportunity to bring their expertise to life as practitioners of the discipline. If done in authentic way, this parallel would allow our GT students to extend the classroom, connect with the community, and really become experts in what they're studying.
• The identity parallel brings feeling to the curriculum. GT students are asked to self-reflect, further their self-understanding, be meta-cognitive in their learning, answer the "so what? who cares?" questions. This parallel brings meaning that GT students so desperately need.
• "The Ascending Intellectual Demand (AID)-or opportunities for advancing students to work in more expert-like ways as a means of providing challenge that is congruent with a student's readiness for challenge. AID is what moves a well-crafted Parallel Curriculum Model unit from being good curriculum to being good curriculum for the advancing or advanced learner" (p. 575). Because the PCM is built around the characteristics of gifted learners, it provides a framework for teaching and differentiating for GTs.

What Doesn't Work for Me

• Honestly, it is difficult for me to find something that doesn't work for me in this model. It is appealing that this model if for the entire school and is engaging for all students. The need for all educators to be trained in the parallels and AID opportunities, could create barriers in the schools where I work.

Considerations

• Political: This model allows for students to stay in their current classroom, which is appealing to school districts and parents. The benefit to all students could help communities buy into this Parallel Curriculum Model.  It also would not have to be adopted by an entire district, or even an entire school, the model is set up to allow for classroom use. 
• Budgetary: Teachers and students would need proper resources for moving through the parallels which would need to be accounted for in the budget. 
• State/District Guidelines: The Parallel Curriculum Model was intentionally created to meet the needs of gifted and talented students. Those characteristics and needs that are spelled out in Chapter 104 can be appropriately fulfilled through this model.
• Population: This model is shown to benefit all students in classrooms that implement parallel curriculum. Gifted students are honored for their unique characteristics and appropriately challenged through the "Ascending Intellectual Demand."
• Time: Teachers would need to be properly trained in implementing the four parallels and ascending intellectual demand for gifted students. Planning time would be extensive up front for preparing students to extend the core curriculum with meaningful connections, for bringing meaning through authentic practice, and through helping students develop their meta-cognition.