Teaching Gifted Children

Differentiated Instruction 

     Gifted education is special education.  One of the mandates of special education laws (IDEA, 1990) is that exceptional students should be placed in the least restrictive environment.  Any setting, including the regular classroom, that prevents a child from receiving an appropriate education is not the least restrictive environment for that child.  When applying these standards to the gifted and talented, educators must consider that the least restrictive environment for the advanced learner moves away from the regular classroom.  Advanced learners need learning experiences designed to fit them and teachers who can monitor the match between learner and learning.  Differentiated instruction is a method of accommodating the diverse needs of all students in the regular classroom.  This approach to instruction creates an environment that maximizes student capabilities, and requires teachers to define challenge and growth differently in response to students' varying interest and readiness levels. By differentiating the curricular elements (content, process, and product) teachers can present different approaches to what students learn, how the learn it, and how they demonstrate what they've learned. (Resource: Tomlinson, Carol Ann. How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, ASCD, 1995)

Content Modification: Content consists of ideas, concepts, information, and facts. Content and learning experiences can be modified through acceleration, curriculum compacting, pacing or the use of more advanced, abstract, or complex concepts, and advanced materials.

Process Modification: Activities should be restructured to be intellectually demanding.  Use methods of inquiry, active exploration, questions that require higher order thinking.  Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956) is the most common approach to process modification.

Product Modification: Encourage students to demonstrate what they have learned in a variety of ways that reflect knowledge, creativity, and the ability to manipulate ideas.  Products should address real problems, and be delivered to a real audience.  The focus should be on the synthesis of information rather than on the summary of information. Self-evaluation should be included as part of the process.

Guidelines For Teaching Gifted Children

1. Employ a superior teacher.
    

2. Find out what they already know.  Assess their level of achievement, and determine competencies and areas of deficiency.
    

3. Give them credit for concepts they have mastered.
    

4. Don't have them repeat content work just because its the curriculum or because its there.  Employ differentiated curriculum methods.
    

5. Provide new and different challenging activities for them to do instead of drill- and-practice or grade level work.  Provide opportunities for them to work with complex and abstract ideas.
    

6. Capitalize on interests.  Find out what their interests are and build projects around their interests.
    

7. Use curriculum compacting and allow them some flexibility in the way they spend the time "bought back" because they have mastered a concept.
    

8. Allow them to learn at a faster pace than their age peers.

9. Use discovery learning techniques and inquiry methods; avoid teacher dominated methods.
    

10. Trust them to learn in nontraditional ways; guide and lead them in learning differently.
     

11. Help them to find other advanced learners.  Never judge their social skills solely on the way they interact with their age peers.
     

12. Thrill them with many, varied, challenging and engaging choices.
     

13. Focus on higher order thinking skills.
     

14. Give them lots of experience with setting their own goals and evaluating their own work. 

(Derived in part from Winebrenner, Susan. Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, Free Spirit Publishing Inc., MN, 1992.)

Teacher Resources

Reference Books

Sourcebooks: understanding gifted behavior and the education of gifted children. 

Colangelo, Nicholas & Davis, Gary A. (1997). Handbook of gifted education. MA: Allyn and Bacon. 

 

Greenlaw, J. M. & McIntosh, M. E. (1988). Educating the gifted: A sourcebook. Chicago: American Library Association. 

 

Polette, N. (1980). Exploring books with gifted children. CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc. 

 

Renzulli, Joseph S. & Reis, Sally M. (1985). The schoolwide enrichment model: A comprehensive plan for educational excellence. CN: Creative Learning Press, Inc.

 

Renzulli, Joseph S. (2000). The Multiple menu model: a practical guide for developing differentiated curriculum. Creative Learning Press.

 

Sternberg, Robert. (1998 ). Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press.

 

Tomlinson, C.A., Kaplan, S.N., Renzulli, J.S., Purcell, J., Leppien, J., & Burns, D. (2002). The parallel curriculum: a design to develop high potential and challenge high-ability learners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.