1. Creating Quality Curriculum for Gifted Learners
Cindy Sheets
KGTC 2008

2. Overview What is curriculum? What is justifiable gifted curriculum?
What are the components of quality curriculum?
What makes curriculum a good fit for gifted learners
What makes curriculum good for life-long learners?
(Is it possible to learn and have fun at the same time?)

3. Fluff ’n Stuff Justifiable Curriculum
Meet the needs of gifted learners
Differentiated from general curriculum, but based on core concepts/skills
Embed skills in a larger curriculum – not isolated
Gifted facilitators as leaders in curriculum design and modification

4. What KIND of Curriculum is Best for Gifted Learners?
Content Based Curriculum (Joyce Van-Tassel Baska)
Parallel Curriculum Model (Carol Tomlinson et al.)
Concept-Based Curriculum (H. Lynn Erickson)
Problem-Based Curriculum
Multiple Menu Model (Renzulli et al.)

5. Some Underlying Assumptions About Curriculum .
guide students in mastery
key information, ideas, and the fundamental skills of the discipline.
help students grapple with complex and ambiguous issues and problems.
move students from a novice to an expert level of in the disciplines.
provide students opportunities for original work in the disciplines.
help students encounter, accept, and ultimately embrace challenge in learning

6. prepare students for a world in which knowledge expands and changes at a dizzying pace.
help students determine constants in the past and in themselves while helping them prepare for a changing world.
help students develop a sense of themselves as well as their possibilities in the world in which they live.
be compelling and satisfying enough to encourage students to persist in developing their capacities.
(The Parallel Curriculum Model, Carol Tomlinson et al.)

7. “Teachers who are beginning to implement concept-process curriculum models are discovering techniques to help students think beyond the facts. With a student population that has been trained to think more about facts than ideas, the transition can be difficult. It takes patience and perseverance on the part of the teachers, but if they persist, students will begin to understand that facts relate to bigger ideas.”
(H. Lynn Erickson, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction)

8. What about Standards and Objectives?
And those TESTS!

9. Checking the “Standards”
Are they really just objectives?
Skill based, instead of concept-based?
Discreet skill instead of big ideas?
Do they challenge students to go beyond factual thinking – knowledge and comprehension?

10. Questions to ask yourself . . .
What do you really mean when you say “I’m teaching a unit on __________”?
Why are you teaching a unit on ______?
What is the “big idea” or important lesson you want students to understand from this topic or unit?
What do you want student to know, understand or be able to do?

11. Concept Based Curriculum ++
Promotes greater depth of understanding
Provides transferable learning
Provides structure for students
Promotes higher-level thinking
Less emphasis on facts
Motivation!

12. Designing Curriculum Starting From the Big Idea
What are the principles or concepts we can explore?
What are the essential questions that can be asked about these concepts?
What content would best illustrate these concepts?
Which processes should be taught or applied?

13. What types of skills will students need to be able to demonstrate?
What instructional products might be used to demonstrate understandings?
What activities will help the students “uncover” the “big idea?”

14. Structure of Knowledge
Facts
Fact s
Principles
Generalizations
Theory
Topic
Concepts

15. Teaching for Meaning and Understanding
Understanding big ideas in content is central to the work of students
Students can only find and make meaning when they are asked to inquire, think at high levels, and solve problems.
Students should be expected to apply knowledge and skills in meaningful tasks within authentic contexts.

16. Ten Components of a Comprehensive Curriculum Unit*
Content
Assessment
Introduction
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Grouping Strategies
Products
Resources
Extension Activities
Modification
* As outlined in “The Parallel Curriculum Model” by Tomlinson, et al., 2002

17. Does that Make it Gifted?
Is it differentiated?
Is it adapted, modified, or a replacement of general education curricula?
Is the pace a match to gifted learners?
Are there opportunities to extend or go beyond the basic unit or curriculum?
Are there opportunities to explore personal areas of interest, or to highlight personal strength areas?
Does it demand sufficient depth and higher level thinking – not based just on “factual” learning?

18. What About the Affective Domain?
Creativity
Creative production
Creative problem solving
Understanding of Self
Intrapersonal skills
Social Skills and Interactions
Embedded within the curriculum

19. Two Units
Awake Curiosity!

20. Paleontology

21. Why Paleontology? Why Puzzles?
Science is a process of putting together puzzle pieces until the “big picture” becomes more clear
Theories change over time
Inquiry science process skills
Understand the nature of science
Practice methodologies and skills used in the discipline

22. Would you like to be a Paleontologist?
Fossils
My, how dinosaurs have changed
Careers
Create-a-saurus
Museum
(Evolution)
The Big Dig

23. Tyrannosaurus Charles Knight

24. Make-a-Saurus My Life with Raptors and Other Dinosaurs
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins

25. Bambiraptor – KU Museum of Natural History

27. From the Farmer’s Field to the White House
More than fun with fruits and vegetables

28. A Unit for Fourth graders
Data collection and analysis; graphing
Creative skills
Propaganda and Persuasion
Tie in to election year themes or other

29. What are we Learning? Surveys & questions Demographics Data collection
Organization
Graphs and Charts
Analysis, Evaluation
Research
Ad appeals
Creative production
Presentation skills
Creative language and persuasion
Technology skills

30. Is that on the Test?

31. More, More, More . . . Mock Trial Genetics Bridge Building
Artifact Exchange
Seminars
Messages From Space (Astrobiology)
Archaeology (DIG) (Interact)
Video Production
Robotics

32. Middle School Examples
Middle School Curriculum planning
Principles
Template
Example

33. Resources and References
The Parallel Curriculum: A Design to Develop High Potential and Challenge High-Ability Learners, Carol Tomlinson, et al, Corwin Press, 2002
Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, ASCD 1998
Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction: Teaching Beyond the Facts, by H. Lynn Erickson, Corwin Press, 2002
The Multiple Menu Model: A Practical Guide for Developing Differentiated Curriculum, by Joseph Renzulli, Jann Leppien, and Tom Hays, Creative Learning Press, 2000
Content-Based Curriculum for High Ability Learners, by Joyce Van-Tassel Baska (with Catherine A. Little) 2002