We Need Your Support!
Gifted Students Have Special Needs Too
We Need Challenges!
As a teacher, you have many ways of offering challenges and providing differentiation to the gifted students in your class. You can use a tiered approach to differentiate the curriculum in your classroom. Using this approach, different children in the classroom will be expected to learn different content knowledge and skills. (Learning for All, p. 120) You can change the content of the curriculum, making it broader to provide a deeper understanding. You can increase the complexity of the content, requiring greater higher order thinking skills. You can increase how fast the content to covered. You can offer broader and more complex choices for student's final products of learning. (Becky Hurwitz & Rosann Lacalamita, IEP: A Resource Guide Developing Individual Education Plans for Gifted Students: Information for Parents/Guardians. Association for Bright Children of Ontario, 2006 ~ Revised and translated 2008.)
Help Us Learn to Organize!
Some gifted students may struggle with organizational skills. Some ideas you can implement to assist them include: providing direct instruction and developing systems of organization (ex. notetaking, binder organization, use of agenda), using graphic organizers or assistive technology to plan assignments, and allowing time for organizing materials and work space. (http://www.teachspeced.ca)
Help Us Learn to Manage Our Time!
Some gifted students may find it a challenge to manage their time. Strategies you can implement in the classroom to assist them include: using checklists, having students keep an agenda, chunking assignments and providing feedback on each part of the assignment and frequent check ins on work completion. (http://www.teachspeced.ca)
Help Us Learn to Get Along!
Some gifted students may experience challenges socially. It is important to implement strategies to assist them. This could include: direct whole class lessons, including media and literature use, on social skills, post how-to charts on social skills in the room and plan specific next steps for individual children and reward their accomplishments. (http://www.teachspeced.ca)
Don't Forget Us...
Gifted children need your support too! They will not just thrive in your classroom without consideration of their learning needs. Be informed! Find out more at http://www.abcontario.ca/