Educators have the responsibility to meet the academic, social, and emotional needs of every child in their care, including students who are gifted or high-achieving from diverse backgrounds. For gifted students to thrive in the differentiated classroom, teachers can consider the ways in which they establish and promote positive affective, physical, and digital learning environments. This article introduces the Reciprocal Learning Environments Model in which we describe four teacher actions based on research and recommended best practices from the field of gifted education to cultivate a more positive classroom culture conducive to differentiation.

Student motivation is a necessary catalyst for reading achievement; therefore, educators need to determine how to motivate reluctant readers, including students reading below grade level. Our qualitative study begins to address this challenge by reporting what struggling adolescents and their teacher at 1 urban middle school discussed about their motivation to read before and after the implementation of a multicomponent reading intervention. We found that students (a) valued narrative fiction over informational text, (b) valued certain text features and books, and (c) were motivated by key relationships with others to obtain and read books. Furthermore, some students were uninterested in reading, unable to obtain books, or not inspired to read by others. The teacher also noted students’ differential preferences for texts and levels of motivation for reading. We discuss how these qualitative findings yield important implications for practice and future research centered on motivating adolescents who read below grade level.

Because of these learners’ potential as future leaders, it is imperative that educators develop gifted students’ ability to identify and solve complex social justice problems. Nourishing students’ affective traits, including empathy for others, understanding of themselves, and the ability to connect to others in local and global society, will help students to recognize and seek out authentic problems. This article examines the nuances around the creative problem-solving process and how educators can infuse the curriculum with opportunities to develop and strengthen the skills students need to become engaged, real-world problem seekers, as we call it, and problem solvers. Through the combination of social justice issues and creative problem seeking, students can be motivated to engage with the community and promote positive change in the world.

In response to the pervasive problem of making college more accessible to at-risk and underrepresented populations, the early college high school (ECHS) model has gained popularity. However, limited research exists on engineering-focused ECHSs (EECHS). Given the current demand for diverse and highly qualified engineers in the workforce, further research on EECHSs that potentially support the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline is warranted. We examined the perceptions of six teachers, 10 ninth-grade students, and one principal at a newly formed EECHS. Our qualitative analyses revealed numerous successes and few challenges related to the school’s culture, curriculum, and instructional practices. General findings that might apply to all ECHS programming included the school’s small size, the benefits of developing caring and supportive relationships, and a common focus on preparing students for future academic and career success. We discuss key implications of these findings within the context of replicating an EECHS program or similar school structure.

Asking questions that invite students to access advanced thinking skills during classroom discourse is a key strategy for challenging and supporting high-ability middle school readers. This critical teaching practice requires careful teacher listening. However, empirical research around teachers’ listening orientations, or how teachers listen, is sparse. We investigated five middle school reading teachers’ listening orientations as they conducted differentiated reading conferences as part of their first year implementing the Schoolwide Enrichment Model–Reading Framework (SEM-R). Our qualitative analysis of multiple data sources revealed evidence of differing teacher listening orientations, including evaluative, interpretive, student oriented, teacher oriented, undetermined, and combinations of these. This exploratory study has important implications for understanding how teachers’ listening orientations contribute to classroom discourse. Specific implications pertaining to high-ability readers are highlighted in the article.

Effective listening is essential when teachers facilitate instructional classroom discussions. While the intersection between teacher listening and how students engage in discussions has received a wealth of research attention from other fields, this important phenomenon continues to be underresearched in the gifted and literacy education fields. To deepen our understanding of the phenomenon of teacher listening from students’ perspectives, we conducted an in-depth focus group study with middle school gifted students from five schools in a Southeastern state in the United States. Findings of our data analysis revealed four key interrelated themes: (a) teachers as active listeners, (b) teacher character traits, (c) student feelings and behaviors, and (d) listening as a pedagogical tool. Of significance, this study revealed students’ perspectives of how gifted education teachers should listen and that their listening influences students’ sense of connectedness and motivation for learning. Implications for professional learning and recommendations for future research are discussed.