Rachel Small's List: Gifted and Talented

• the United States Office of Education (US Department of Education, 1993), which describes these students as” children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment”,
• As with all students, the programming of instruction for gifted students should match the identified needs of students and may take many forms.
• but the level of commitment on the part of all educators involved with the student determines its effectiveness
• All of these whole school programs must accommodate depth, such as in research projects or within small student interest groups.
• Internet study provides an option both within and without the classroom.
• Additional programming options include enrichment in the classroom, consultant-teacher programs, resource room/ pullout classes, interest classes, community mentor programs, independent studies, special classes, special schools, magnet schools, summer programs, acceleration, advanced placement, early college entrance, online learning, and dual enrollment in college and high school (Karnes & Bean, 2001).
• Eleven curricular models were critiqued by Van Tassel-Baska and Brown (2007)
• They found that six of the models show some evidence of being effective with gifted learners.
• avored a discipline-specific approach
• suggesting that best practice would be to “group gifted students instructionally by subject area for advanced curriculum work that would be flexibly organized and implemented based on students’ documented level of learning within the subject area” (p.351).
• • Not with connected learning.  Teachers are no longer gate keepers of information.
• • Who would think such a thing?
    
• Gifted students bring an advanced and sophisticated knowledge base to the classroom and need educators who can accelerate them in their knowledge base
• f teachers do not believe that gifted students have varied learning needs and that they learn at different rates, they are less likely to be inclined to address those differences.
• he common complaint of teachers that there is not sufficient planning time needed on a daily and weekly basis to deal effectively with the management of differentiation in their classrooms
• Making modifications for gifted students is also a reform affected by professional communities.
• When all staff within a school share a belief that the learning needs of all students should be respected, then it will be possible for modifications, such as those needed for gifted students, to be made to the traditional program
• First, the differentiation of curriculum and instruction would have to be the norm, not the exception.
• Second, teacher education programs would have to make the ability to differentiate curriculum and instruction a basic skill for all graduates. Third, continuing staff development would have to be provided to maintain, reinforce, and strengthen these types of skills. Finally, the labels used for classification and grouping would have to be replaced by an acceptance of differences as the rule.

• In summary these actions should include the following:

   
   
  1. Engage the entire school community in committing to providing a differentiated education for its gifted students.
   
  2. Ensure that teachers are working within a professional learning community that supports them in advancing their skills and encourages peer support as well as provides administrative support.
   
  3. Decide on a programming model that will be supported by the professional community as well as the students and parents and build in sufficient training, planning and budget support to ensure its success in implementation.
   
  4. Review progress in differentiation at least yearly through student, parent, and staff surveys as well as other data that shows that students are progressing at a level commensurate with their ability.
• ifferentiation is not a puzzle that is too hard to solve. Teamwork, time, and talent are all that is needed to reverse this troubling trend of disappearing differentiation for our talented youth.

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• While PBL can motivate and engage students of all ability levels, it is an elegant way to facilitate the characteristics of gifted education that can be difficult for teachers to infuse in their classrooms using more traditional methods.
• There is always a direct connection to the curriculum and the curriculum is inherently interdisciplinary.
• he content focuses on questions or problems that the students must grapple with in order to discern the meaning of the curriculum concepts
• There is a constructivist environment in that students are building the knowledge they need in order to solve the problem or answer the questions. Students are self-directed to a significant degree in their pursuit of the problem resolution, and the problems are always based in real or authentic scenarios. The problems are incomplete in that students are not given all the information they need in order to solve the problem. Students may redefine the problem as they research it and the process will likely take longer than traditional school problems or units would take to resolve.
• side from the obvious motivational characteristics of working with authentic problems in an environment that nurtures independence, self-selection of topics, and an emphasis on professional products, gifted students exhibit qualities often associated with expert problem solvers, making PBL a natural methodology for them.
• PBL also appeals to gifted students because the content is conceptual, the pace is appropriate because so much of it is self-directed, and they can regroup within the larger group with students who want to pursue similar aspects of the overall problem.
• t is also important to note that such a problem will cover many curriculum standards related to science, social studies, technology, language arts, health, and math.
• Depending on the activities that are designed and the products that are created by students, this problem could also cover standards within the creative and performing arts and world languages.
• he content should drive the activity; the activity should not drive the content.
• Remember that the depth of the learning is more valuable than covering a lot of content

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