Special Education
Gifted Education - A Resource Guide for Teachers
Strategies
A variety of approaches can be used to meet the needs of the gifted learner in the regular classroom. In developing the curriculum the teacher can consider making changes in four areas:
- The content of the curriculum. (What the student studies.)
- The processes that engage the students. (How the student works with information.)
- The products of their studies. (How students represent what they know.)
- The learning environment.
The following strategies for working with students are grouped under these headings. In some instances a particular strategy could be placed under more than one heading. In the interest of space each strategy will be described only once.
The content of the curriculum consists of the facts, concepts, issues, problems and themes that students study in their pursuit of knowledge. In general gifted learners absorb material at a faster pace, work well with abstractions, make learning connections easily and often have interests more like older students. As a result they will need to work at higher instructional levels, at a faster pace and with a variety of materials.
Strategies for providing content at an appropriate learning level are:
- acceleration,
- telescoping,
- compacting,
- independent study,
- tiered assignments, and
- learning centres.
In addition, there are a number of curricular models that can be used to enhance content.
Acceleration programming options...
|
Acceleration is the practice of placing students at a higher than normal level of instruction to meet their learning needs. It occurs when a classroom teacher provides the student with advanced curriculum, when a student skips a grade, or when a student takes a specific course at a higher level.
Students can be accelerated by grade, when they are advanced in all areas, or by subject. In the latter case a student in Grade 6 may be doing math at an advanced level and language arts at his age level.
While many educators resist acceleration as a strategy, research overwhelmingly supports it. Acceleration has been shown to be positive for both achieving and underachieving gifted learners in the majority of documented cases. (Benbow & Stanley, 1983; Kulik & Kulik, 1992).
Telescoping
Telescoping is reducing the amount of time a student takes to cover the curriculum. Courses often involve overlapping content and skills from one grade level to the next. Gifted learners may not need as much time to learn and remember the material. An example of telescoping is when a student completes grades 8 and 9 math in one year. Telescoping can be used in conjunction with acceleration. For example, at Johns Hopkins University, mathematically precocious youth are offered both strategies to help them advance more quickly. The student's learning needs are diagnosed and instruction is provided only when needed. This allows the student to move on to more demanding work (Benbow, 1986).
The early university entrance pilot project housed at University Hill Secondary School in Vancouver is another example of telescoping. In this program highly gifted students, who range in age from 11 to 15, spend one year finding and working at levels that provide academic challenge. In the second year they learn skills needed for early entrance to university.
| ...the student will spend less time on regular classroom assignments and have more time to work on applications... |
Compacting is a strategy designed to streamline the amount of time the student spends on the regular curriculum. This strategy allows students to demonstrate what they know, to do assignments in those areas where work is needed, and then to be freed to work on other curricular areas.
Renzulli and Reis (1985) use compacting to reduce repetition and to "buy" time for the students to work on an individual project of their own choice.
It may also be used to extend work in a given topic. For example if the area to be compacted is math, the student will spend less time on regular classroom assignments and have more time to work on applications or math enrichment activities.
To compact curriculum the teacher needs to:
- Decide what the student needs to know in the area being considered for compacting.
- Find out what the student knows -- by testing, observing, analyzing performances.
- Provide assignments so the student can master unknown material.
- Work with the student in developing an individual learning plan that may include: - enrichment in the compacted area. - enrichment in an area of interest. - an individual study project.
The process of compacting can be used to develop an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for students. A thorough presentation of compacting with lists of resources and places to obtain them is presented in Reis, Burns, Renzulli (1992.)
| Classroom Resources:
Curriculum Compacting: The Complete Guide to Modifying the Regular Curriculum for High Ability Students (Reis, Burns, & Renzulli, 1992) It's About Time: Inservice Strategies for Curriculum Compacting (Starko, 1986) Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom (Winebrenner, 1992) Fostering Independent Creative Learning: Applying Creative Problem Solving to Independent Learning (Treffinger & McEwen, 1989) How to Become an Expert: Discover, Research and Build a Project in Your Chosen Field (Gibbons, 1991) The Self-directed Learning Contract: A Guide for Learners and Teachers (Norman, 1989) Reach Each You Teach II: A handbook for Teachers. (Treffinger, Hohn & Feldhusen, 1989) |
Independent Study
Independent study is an opportunity for students to pursue areas of personal interest or to individually investigate course topics. Components of an independent study program include:
- identifying and developing a focus,
- developing skills in creative and critical thinking,
- using problem solving and decision making strategies,
- learning research skills,
- developing project management strategies,
- keeping learning logs,
- evaluating the process and product,
- sharing the product with an intended audience from beyond the classroom, and
- keeping a portfolio of results.
Independent studies help the student move from being teacher-directed to student-directed. With teacher support and coaching the student learns how to decide on a focus, how to develop a plan of action and follow it through, and how to monitor the process. Students take part in developing criteria for evaluation and begin to work with the teacher as a partner.
There are many excellent materials available to help teachers with this process. Among these are: Gibbons (1991), Norman (1989), Reis, Burns and Renzulli (1992), and Treffinger and McEwen (1989).
| Something to think about...
In what ways is optimizing the learning of a gifted student like:
|
Tiered Assignments
Tiered assignments are designed to meet the needs of a group of learners functioning at a range of levels. Students work on the same content, but are asked different questions and are provided with different activities which are assigned according to ability.
Some teachers involve students in the process of designing units of work. By teaching the students Bloom's taxonomy and creative thinking stems, students can write and design questions and activities for different levels of thinking. The teacher works with the students in deciding which questions and activities they will be responsible for completing and in setting evaluation criteria (Treffinger, Hohn & Feldhusen, 1989).
Learning Centres
Learning centres are physical "stations" where students are engaged in activities designed to extend their understanding and thinking about a topic. Activities may include working on an individual or small group investigation, watching a video tape, listening to an audio tape or working on a computer activity. Sometimes there are games to reinforce a concept or problems to solve.
Learning centres can be used to reinforce and extend the regular program or to identify and extend the interests of students. In the latter case, they may not be directly related to curricular content, but introduce the students to new possibilities for study.
For the teacher, learning centres provide a way to work with small groups while the rest of the class is engaged in other assignments or centre work.
| Gifted teaching...Gifted performance
When I casually asked Sharon Friesen how she and her teaching partner Pat Clifford taught their multi-grade primary class through broad based themes, I was in for a surprise. For one year all of their classroom curriculum was woven around the theme "structures". The big question that they presented students was "What holds thing together?" and related to it, "What causes things to fall apart?" She explained that everything the students studied was organized through the lens of these two interrelated questions. For example, students might ask what holds friendships, families, communities, countries, economics together? What causes them to fall apart? They might ask what holds plants, animals, or ecological systems together? What causes them to fall apart? They explored patterns in math and studied structures in literature. As well, all students had an opportunity to study and experiment with building structures as part of a study of robotics. I was curious how they organized the program. She explained that while she and Pat had established the intended learning outcomes for the year, they did not know at the beginning pricisely what content materials they would use. Content emerged from the students' questions, interests and concerns as they related to the topic of study. These lead to a variety of independent and group investigations. Not only were students working on a variety of investigations, but built into the program was the expectation that they would present their project outcomes to parents and the community. As I listened I was intrigued by the fact that the design of the program was very much like that recommended for gifted learners. More fascinating was that at the end of three years of working with this class, the average reading score on the Alberta Diagnostic Achievement Test for these Grade 3 students was at a Grade 6 level. (Clifford and Friesen, 1994) |
Learning Through Broad Based Themes
Kaplan (1986) uses broad based themes as a curriculum organizer. A theme can span several disciplines and give rise to the study of many topics. The content of the curriculum, the thinking and research skills used, and the end product of the investigation are taken into consideration in the development of the theme and related lessons. Examples of broad based themes are: change, cycles, structures and systems. Students at any level can take part in lessons developed around any theme. The work will vary in levels of sophistication.
Teachers Sharon Friesen and Pat Clifford used the theme "structures" with a multi-grade primary class in Calgary in 1993/94. (Clifford & Friesen, 1993). Throughout the year, all lessons were woven around this theme. Students were presented with two questions:
- What holds things together?
- What causes things to fall apart?
Everything the students studied was viewed through the lens of these two interrelated questions. For example, the questions were used to study friendships, families, communities, countries and economies. The same questions were used to examine plants, animals and ecological systems.
Students explored patterns in math and studied structures in literature. As part of a study of robotics, all students had an opportunity to experiment with building structures.
Although the two teachers established intended learning outcomes for the year, they did not decide on the precise content materials they would use. Instead, content emerged from the questions, interests and concerns of their students as they related to the topic of study. These lead to a variety of independent and group investigations. A final, important component of the program was the expectation of students to present the outcomes of their studies to parents and the community.
The design of this program follows a model often recommended for gifted students. Friesen and Clifford found, at the end of three years, that student's with average ability were functioning several years above grade placement. (Clifford & Friesen, 1994. Unpublished raw data.)
Information for developing multi-disciplinary themes can be found in Drake (1993), Jacobs (1989), Gamberg, R., Kwak, W., Hutchings, M., and Altheim, J. (1988) and Kaplan, (1986).
Learning Through Cases
In case study teaching students are presented with a realistic scenario that is woven around a dilemma. Students read the case and then work together in study groups to discuss questions about the case. After they have formulated some ideas about the issues, the teacher holds a class discussion. Through carefully designed questions, the teacher helps clarify and extend the thinking of students by drawing out what they know in a non-judgmental way. Students are encouraged to question aspects of the case they may not have considered. Often students find that, as a result of the group discussion, there are other things they will need to know before they can reach conclusions or make decisions about the issues presented in the case. This need to know more leads to follow up activities.
Cases require the student to think critically and to make sound decisions. To make an informed decision the student needs to know and to understand the facts of the situation, study it from different points of view and, ultimately, to think about the consequences of their opinions and decisions. Teaching with cases is a methodology used in many business, medical and law schools. Wassermann (1993, 1994) provides numerous examples of cases in her presentation of this methodology.
Learning Through Problem Solving
Developing the curriculum through the study of problems is related to case method teaching. Both begin with a scenario that presents a multifaceted problem. In problem solving not only do students critically analyze the problem from different points of view, but they must also decide upon a solution, develop a plan of action for its implementation and, in some instances, carry out the plan of action. See Treffinger, Isaksen and Dorval (1994).
School and community problems, environmental issues, political issues and global issues are sources of real problems to study. For teachers new to this process, the Future Problem Solving Program is a way to get started. Each year the Future Problem Solving Program presents problems for students to address such as hazardous waste disposal, overpopulation and shrinking rainforests. The topics are written as scenarios taking place in the future. Students must look at the problem from many points of view, decide on the critical sub-problems, choose one to work on and formulate a plan of action for dealing with it. Curriculum support materials are provided with this program.
For inventive students interested in technology or drama, the Odyssey of the Mind Program presents challenging problems for students to solve. Problems include developing structures that hold up under pressure, designing vehicles with limited sources of power and developing a dramatization that depicts a transformation. Curriculum support materials are available for science, math, social studies and English.
| A Case Study...
As I enter Maureen Adam's Grade 7 classroom in Maple Ridge, the students are absorbed in an article that reveals the wonders of taxol, a rare, experimental agent from yew bark that has a positive effect in reducing cancerous tumors. When students finish reading, they discuss study questions in small groups to prepare for a whole class discussion. Their teacher begins the discussion by inviting students to tell what they belive are the main issues in the case. What at first appears to be a promising solution for cancer victims turns out to be a multifaceted problem:
|
