Special Education
Gifted Education - A Resource Guide for Teachers
Process
| The formulation af a problem is often more important that its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires imagination and marks real advance in science. Einstein and Infeld (1938) |
To design curriculum that meets the learning needs of gifted students we must consider not only what is being studied, but the processes that engage students.
Process skills include:
- higher level thinking,
- creative thinking,
- problem solving, and
- research skills.
Higher Level Thinking (Bloom, 1956)
Bloom's Taxonomy is a model frequently used as a guide when designing themes, units, lessons and assignments that promote higher level thinking. The taxonomy provides a way to understand levels of thinking. Bloom proposes that at the most basic level we acquire knowledge and comprehension. At higher levels we learn how to apply principles and to analyze, synthesize and evaluate.
Many teachers developing curriculum for gifted students use Bloom's taxonomy to design questions that promote higher level thinking. Assuming that a student has no background in a topic of investigation, the student would move from knowledge and comprehension to application before working with the higher order skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The latter three levels are associated with critical thinking.
Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Basic Levels
Knowledge refers to the memory of facts and information.
Examples:
- List Canada's provinces.
- Match each province with the correct capital.
- Label the parts of the brain.
Comprehension is the ability to explain, interpret and extrapolate ideas, concepts and information.
Examples:
- Explain how the battle was won.
- What was the main idea of the article?
- Tell how the model works.
Cue verbs to use in questioning: explain, summarize, interpret, estimate, paraphrase, conclude, prepare, demonstrate.
Application is the ability to apply understanding to new situations and solve problems.
Examples:
- Based on your knowledge of the contenders, predict who will win the election.
- Draw the school grounds to scale.
- Write journal entries in your log as if you were Columbus on his trip to the New World.
Cue verbs: apply experiment, organize, construct, solve, put together, model, select, put to use, interview.
Higher Levels
Analysis is the ability to break facts, ideas and concepts into parts, to examine relationships among parts, to compare and contrast, and to create categories.
Examples:
- Outline the chapter
- Categorize your ideas for solving the problem.
- Compare life in British Columbia today with life a hundred years ago.
Cue verbs: outline, compare and contrast, divide, classify, categorize, analyze, inspect, simplify, survey.
Synthesis is to create a new whole, see a new pattern of relationships, develop a new and unusual approach.
Examples:
- Design a vehicle that does not use a fossil fuel.
- Devise a plan for reducing the amount of garbage created by man.
- Develop the ideal regional plan for your community for the Year 2025.
Cue verbs: create, form, compose, design, produce, rearrange, predict, hypothesize, imagine, invent, develop.
Evaluation is to establish criteria and make judgements and decisions.
Examples:
- Explain which in your opinion is the best solution to the problem.
- Explain which is the better buy.
- Write a critique of the ruling.
Cue verbs: rank, judge, rate, evaluate, decide, critique, assess, grade, recommend, defend, conclude, determines.
| Characteristics of creative people...
Anne B. Crabbe, Future Problem Solving Program (1986)
|
Four behaviours associated with creative thinking are fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.
Fluency is the ability to generate many ideas. This skill is required for students to tell what they know; to think of ideas for writing, drawing or speaking; and to think of ways to solve a problem. Question stems to promote fluency include: "In what ways...," "List...," or "Brainstorm...." Examples are: In what ways might we solve the recess problem? List different forms of power. Brainstorm possible consequences of a global economy.
Flexibility requires generating a wide range of ideas. The question stem "How many different ways..." encourages student flexibility. For example, "How many different ways can you find to measure the length of a room?" or "List many different ways to produce a book report," are questions that encourage flexibility of student responses.
Originality refers to unique, unusual responses. Original responses usually occur at the end of an idea-finding activity, after the more obvious ideas have been produced. Question stems include: "What is the most unusual idea... way...?" and "What if...?" For example: "What is the most unusual way to market our product?" and "What if we had no air travel?"
Elaboration requires adding ideas, providing details, extending thinking. "What else...?" is a question stem leading to inquiries like "What else do you see?" followed by a probe, "Tell me more."
When students use creative thinking strategies to generate ideas, it is important to establish rules to keep the process moving and to create a safe environment. Some basic rules are:
- Generate as many ideas as possible.
- Work quickly.
- Add to other people's ideas.
- Defer judgment until all of the ideas have been given.
SCAMPER
Scamper is a strategy that can be used to break mind-set and enhance creative thinking (Eberle, 1987). Think about a topic of concern and ask, "To create a unique solution what might I...
Substitute? -- person? place? thing?
Combine? -- what? combine purposes? ideas?
Adapt? -- reshape? tune-up? tone down?
Modify? -- magnify? minimize?
Put to other uses? -- new use?
Eliminate? -- remove? omit? simplify?
Rearrange? -- change order? plan? scheme?
| If I were mayor...
When a flyer announcing the "If I Were Mayor" contest arrived, Grade 2 teacher Louise Baines saw it as an opportunity to use the idea as a problem solving exercise. She presented the following scenario (mess) to her students:
The class discussed the rolew of the mayor, what makes a good leader and what pressing problems face their town. Each student had a different set of ideas. The following are excerpts from Ian's written responses. Note that first he lists all of his ideas, then selects the most important idea(s), marks it with an asterisk and then moves the most important idea forward.
He evaluated his solution by looking at its advantages, disadvantages and unique possibilities. Advantages included: animals can be seen, the Rod and Gun Club would help, and the Fish and Game Club would help. Limitations were: Loggers and the government might not agree. A unique potential was that he could fence the animals for people to see.
First item on Ian's plan of action was to contact a realtor and buy lots of land. In one month he planned to hire a surveyor to map out the property. In three months he would contact volunteers to start working. |
The Creative Problem Solving process is a flexible tool that can be used to examine real problems and issues. There are six stages to the model. Each stage requires a (D) divergent phase when many ideas are needed and a (C) convergent phase when decisions are made about the best ideas to move forward.
The process, initially developed by Parnes and Osborne, has been modified over the years so that it is more flexible. The following is from Treffinger, Isaksen and Dorval (1994, p. 19).
Understanding the Problem Component
- Mess Finding
(D) Seeking opportunities for problem solving
(C) Establishing a broad, general goal for problem solving.
- Data Finding
(D) Examining many details, looking at the Mess from many viewpoints.
(C) Determining the most important data to guide problem development.
- Problem Finding
(D) Considering many possible problem statements.
(C) Constructing or selecting a specific problem statement (stating the challenge)
Generating Ideas Component
- Idea Finding
(D) Producing many, varied and unusual ideas.
(C) Identifying promising possibilities -- alternatives or options having interesting potentials.
Planning for Action Component
- Solution Finding
(D) Developing criteria for analyzing and refining promising possibilities.
(C) Choosing criteria and applying them to select, strengthen and support promising solutions.
- Acceptance Finding
(D) Considering possible sources of Assistance/Resistance and possible actions for implementation.
(C) Formulating a specific Plan of Action.
All of the stages do not need to be used with each problem. For example, when students are studying an environmental issue like "our shrinking rainforests," gathering data and listing problems associated with the topic can be meaningful activities on their own. Later, students may choose one of the key problems to solve. While they may ultimately decide upon the best solution, they may or may not develop and implement a plan of action.
Following through on a plan of action and presenting findings to real audiences can be a powerful lesson in social responsibility. In Duncan, for example, a group of teens concerned about youth violence created a series of skits to present to younger students. The dramatization provokes the audience to think about the choices they make that escalate or reduce violence.
To assist teachers in assessing student problem solving, Treffinger, Sortore and Tallman, (1992) have developed 12 tools for observing, assessing and evaluating student understanding and use of the Creative Problem Solving process.
Strategy to promote question asking
As educators we want our students to become self-directed learners, to ask questions and to be curious about the world around them. One way to achieve this is to promote their question asking abilities. Millar (1989) presents strategies to help students ask questions at all levels of thinking. In addition, he shows how students can be taught to generate criteria which they can then use to assess their own levels of questioning.
- Levels of questioning include:
- gathering information: who, what, where, when, why, how?
- organizing information: why?
- extending information: what next, what if?
Supporting and encouraging gifted learners to ask "what next?" and "what if?" will help students learn to anticipate, to hypothesize and to go beyond the apparent in their thinking.
Teaching Students to Think
Opportunities for using higher order thinking skills can be made available to students in two ways. One is in the students' classroom assignments: written assignments, problem solving activities and project work. The other is the kinds of questions teachers ask during discussions.
When teachers rely on questions that require specific answers, students learn to respond in a convergent manner. They learn that it is their job to find the "right" answer. To create a classroom environment in which students feel safe enough to take risks and share ideas, teachers must be prepared to ask open-ended questions and to encourage a variety of thoughts and opinions as responses.
Learning to ask questions that promote exploration of ideas is a skill that takes time and perseverance to develop. Serious Players in the Classroom (Wassermann,1990), written for primary teachers, provides examples of teacher interactions that promote thinking. Teaching Elementary Science: Who's Afraid of Spiders (Wassermann & Ivany,1988) does the same for intermediate level teachers. Training in developing questioning skills is available through the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. The Great Books Foundation also offers training in leading group discussions that promote thinking.
Educators agree that students need to think creatively and critically. There is disagreement, however, about whether the teaching of "thinking skills" should be done separately or only in the context of the curriculum's content.
DeBono has been one of the proponents of teaching thinking skills separately and then embedding them in the content. DeBono's CORT program for students at the intermediate or higher levels introduces 10 different thinking skills at each of five levels. Tyler's Just Think (1982) and Stretch Think (1984) materials introduce CORT thinking skills to primary students. Ultimately the goal is to use these skills to promote deeper exploration of content.
To support independent investigations all students need to know where to go to obtain information, how to record ideas and how to organize and report the outcomes of their work. If they are working on real problems the information they need may not be found in books. Interviewing and developing surveys are two skills to consider.
| Research Skills
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Interviewing
Preparation for the interview:
- Decide on the purpose of the interview.
- Brainstorm possible questions.
- Select questions to provide the data needed for the project.
- Develop an order for presenting the questions.
- Decide how to analyze the data.
- Brainstorm things to do in preparation for the interview.
- Select the important items and put them in a logical sequence.
Role play the interview
Interviewing is high risk for students. If they are well prepared and have had opportunities to rehearse the interview in advance and get feedback from their classmates, they will feel more secure. Working in teams for face to face interviews -- with one person asking questions and another recording helps to relieve some of the pressure associated with this process.
Surveying
Surveying follows the same process as interviewing with these differences:
- Write the list of survey questions.
- Decide how to obtain responses. Yes or no responses? Multiple choice? Open ended?
- Select questions carefully.
- Field test the questions by trying them out on several volunteers.
- Rewrite questions until they are clear and provide data that can be sorted and analyzed.
| Classroom Resources:
Teaching Elementary Science: Who's Afraid of Spiders (Wassermann & Ivany, 1988) Planning Integrated Curriculum: The Call to Adventure (Drake 1993) Gate: Curriculum Framework 1991-1996 The Grid: A Model to Construct Differentiated Curriculum for the Gifted (Kaplan, 1986) Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Design and Implementation (Jacobs 1989) Learning and Loving It: Theme Studies in the Classroom (Gamberg, et al., 1988) Introduction to Case Method Teaching: A Guide to the Galaxy (Wassermann,1994) The CPS Evaluation Sourcebook: Practical Resources for Evaluating Creative Problem Solving Outcomes (Treffinger, Sortore & Tallman, 1992) Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction (Treffinger, Isaksen & Dorval, 1994) The Real Problem Solving Handbook (Treffinger, 1994) Reach Each You Teach II: A Handbook for Teachers (Treffinger, Hohn & Feldhusen, 1989) Soar: A Progrtam for the Gifted Using Bloom's Taxonomy (Reid &Reid, 1982) The Creative Problem Solver's Guidebook: A Practical Set of Reproducible "Templates" to Guide Facilitators and Group Participants (Treffinger, Sortore & Tallman, 1992) Creative Problem Solving for Teens (Elwell, 1993) Practice Problems for Creative problem Solving (Treffinger, 1994) Inventing, Invenions, and Inventors: A Teaching Resource Book (Flack, 1989) Lessons from the Hearthstone Traveler (Stanish, 1988) Mindglow (Stanish1986) Scamper (Eberle, 1977) Scamper On (Eberle, 1987) Developing Student Questioning Skills: A Handbook of Tips and Strategies for Teachers (Millar, 1989) User's Guidebook: Measure of Questioning Skills (Himsl & Millar, 1985) CORT Thinking: 1-6 (deBono, 1976) Just Think (Tyler, 1982) Stretch Think (Tyler, 1984) Patterns for Thinking: Paterns for Transfer: A Cooperative Team Approach for Critical and Creative Thinking in the Classroom (Fogarty & Bellanca, 1989) Thinking in the Classroom: Resources for Teachers, Volumes One and Two (B.C. Ministry of Education, 1991) Developing Independent Learners: The Role of the School Library Resource Centre (B.C. Ministry of Education, Learning Resources Branch, 1991) |
