Teaching Gifted and Talented Students in the Regular Classroom

Gifted Students in the Regular Classroom

Today’s heterogeneously classrooms are filled with an array of learning abilities among of all students.  How are we as “educators” ever expected to meet the demands of all students in our classrooms?  Everyday teachers are faced with this problem as they plan units.  

Budget cuts have taken away funding from gifted education.  Therefore, it is the classroom teachers job to make sure they are providing challenging and rigorous lessons engaging their gifted population.  Tracy Riley provides an overview of various ways to make sure your gifted students needs are being met in your classroom.

As a classroom teacher, there are many areas in educating my gifted students that I need to improve on.  Yes, I have great plans and ideas of how I am going to challenge these students but I must admit that these great plans do not always make it into my classroom! I personally struggle with “pre-assessments” before each unit.  My social studies curriculum consists of very broad topics in which I have a hard time determining if a student has surpassed the anticipated skills.  Therefore it is often in the middle of a unit that I notice a student has already mastered the concept being taught.  Possibly I should be assessing the students throughout the unit in order to make sure all students needs are being met even the gifted population. 

My goal as an educator is to provide more opportunities for student exploration in my classroom such as “learning spots.”  Riley mentioned an idea of setting up various centers pertaining to curriculum throughout the classroom. Students can explore different concepts and ideas that interest them pertaining to current information being presented.  I personally believe my students would greatly benefit by having a few minutes each day exploring concepts being taught in the classroom in greater detail on their own.  Student exploration and interest is extremely important for all students including the gifted population.  Many teachers may fear that learning spots will require extra planning and resources, however, many of the activities that could be placed in a particular center may be activities you already have but do not have the time to incorporate them in your lessons, as well as activities you may have that are not appropriate for all learners.  Many of the resources are at the finger tips of your hands!

With the growing demands of state mandated tests, teachers feel pressured to teach to the curriculum so that ALL learners receive the basic knowledge expected.  How is this beneficial to our gifted population??  ITS NOT!  Therefore, teachers must take advantage of various learning activities to challenge their gifted population.  Activities such as “spin-outs” allow for teachers to have the opportunity to divide students based on ability and present them with the same concept but in a different manner.  This ensures that gifted students needs are being met in a totally different way then special needs learners.  Teachers need yearly professional development examining how to educate all learners in the classroom by challenging the highest achievers and meeting the basic needs of certain children.