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STRATEGY
Modifying Lesson Content to Challenge Gifted Students
- Focus on the broad concepts in a unit of study. Gifted students will quickly grasp the
details of an assignment.
- Provide content that will not only challenge gifted students to learn but appeal to their
particular interests. For example, if one of your students is interested in a sport, capitalize on this in teaching mathematics, physics, history, or other lessons.
- When you work with gifted students, use information from a variety of sources and ask
students to synthesize the information. For a gifted child, a textbook is only a jumping
off point from which to begin exploring a topic.
- Encourage student input in the selection of material. You may have a general unit of study, but allow students to study the details that most interest them. For example, you may teach a general unit on space first and then have each student work on a particular aspect of space, such as planets, asteroids, or comets.
- Don't ask gifted students to just solve problems; have them use real-life situations to formulate their own problems.
For example, you could ask students to anticipate and solve the problems that they would experience if they were to create a new city or to solve a current problem in their own neighborhood.
- Focus on depth of content rather than more content. For example, reading three excellent books on a topic of study is better than asking students to read five books of lesser
quality.
- Plan to move instruction out of the classroom whenever possible in order to study material firsthand.
Enrich lessons with trips to museums and other appropriate points of
interest.
Excerpted from Section Sixteen, "Manage Diversity in Your Classroom," of The First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide, by Julia G. Thompson. Copyright © 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Thank you, Julia G. Thompson and Jossey Bass, for contributing this month's strategies!
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