Educationally "Full" for the New Year

Have you ever sat through a professional development training, in which you were familiar with all the information being presented? Remember the intense feelings of boredom and/or frustration (come on, be honest here), the yearning to learn something new, something challenging, something you could use in your classroom?

Many gifted children experience these feelings on a regular basis due to what Dr. Tracy Cross, executive director for the Center of Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary, terms “educational malnourishment.” The failure of curriculum and educational programs to adequately meet the needs of gifted students damages the psychological well-being of these students, says Cross, leading to fatigue, boredom, underachievement, and other negative outcomes.

In light of the New Year approaching, perhaps one goal of teachers of the gifted and teachers, who instruct the gifted in their classrooms, could be to replace educational malnourishment with academically, intellectually, and emotionally satisfying curriculum and experiences—allowing gifted children to thrive in school on a daily basis. And just how do we accomplish this goal? In all honesty, it’s a challenging task as teachers are faced with curriculum imposed by non-experts in gifted education, principals and teachers unfamiliar with what practices work best with gifted children, time constraints, and lack of resources. The most promising advice would be to use research-based practices, which have shown to be effective among the gifted over the past few decades.

If I had to summarize the top methods to providing an educationally-rich environment, it would be this:

KNOW YOUR STUDENTS

In order to differentiate and meet the needs of your kids, you need to know their interests, strengths, areas of focus, and social-emotional needs.  This information can be collected through surveys, interviews, observation, and portfolios. Then, use this data to design academically appropriate and challenging curriculum and lessons.

“GET” YOUR STUDENTS

This is different from simply knowing their likes and dislikes. Getting your students means being able to relate to the gifted child, to embrace their quirks, their preferences, their ways of thinking. Talk to them about what it means to be gifted and how this serves them in  life. Have frank conversations about how being gifted might be perceived by others, both negatively and positively, and how might deal with these perceptions. Above all, make sure they know you “get” them and are behind them 100 percent.

MANIPULATE THE CURRICULUM

Notice I didn’t say completely change the curriculum or don’t teach it.  Manipulating the curriculum means to adjust, revise, or modify it to meet the needs of your gifted kids. Depending on the subject area, this could mean choosing higher-level text, compacting the curriculum (which might mean forgoing certain chapters or lessons the students have already mastered), and providing acceleration opportunities-which depending on your school district policy, could mean spending time in higher grades for all or part of the school day. A side note: you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you are trying to enrich the curriculum. There are research-based programs out there, such as SEM-R (for reading) or M2 or M3 (for math), that can be incorporated. Check out the gifted center at the University of Connecticut for more information,  www.gifted.uconn.edu.

PROVIDE CHOICES

Gifted children thrive on the opportunity to select their learning experiences.  Providing more choices could mean allowing students to select topics for investigation and independent research projects. For example, I have my students list their top three, current interests and build a research project around those topics. This excites and motivates the students to learn, but it also helps satisfy the intense need for gifted children to delve into areas of interest and become experts. In one instance, a third-grade student, who has been enrolled in the school’s gifted program for several years, has studied the subject of dogs, including how to assist in adoption efforts at shelters. She has since completed a number of projects and, in the process, collected hundreds of items for a local shelter and even proposed promotional ideas to help older dogs find homes. The opportunity to choose research topics has led her to collaborate with a local veterinarian and begin researching colleges with top veterinary medicine programs.

THINK TALENT DEVELOPMENT

Within the curriculum, provide opportunities for talent development. This could mean implementing an enrichment cluster model, where students with similar interests come together to create a product or service.   Students with a love for building might join together to design buildings, bridges, or futuristic cities.  During a language arts lesson, consider allowing students to choose different “talent development areas,” which allow for them to practice building models, writing, designing and drawing, or speaking or teaching. In addition, encourage your gifted students to participate in any extracurricular competitions or clubs, such as math competitions, Battle of the Books, Odyssey of the Mind, and science fair contests.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but my hope is that, for the New Year, teachers could begin to focus on ensuring that gifted students continually receive an educationally fulfilling and satisfying curriculum and school environment and never go “hungry” under your care.

Wishing you success,

Steve