1. Teaching the Gifted Student in the Regular Classroom
Blaine Parker

2. Students who are the same age differ in their readiness to learn, interests, ways of learning (visual, auditory, etc.), experiences, and their background knowledge of topics.

3. A teacher’s responsibility is to teach the students (not the content), to make sure that all students learn new content everyday!

4. Student’s will learn best when…
Supportive adults encourage their learning
They can make a connection between what they are learning and what interest them
Learning opportunities are natural

5. Teacher’s Role Be facilitator and mentor
Partnership in the learning task
Encourage to explore
Skilled in orchestrating the diverse elements of the differentiated program and ensuring a comprehensive yet balanced educational provision.

6. Learning Environment Pace Variety Exploration of ideas
Student choice of content
Challenge
Development of creativity
Collaborative
inquiry
Exploration of ideas
Independent investigation
Development of thinking skills
Intellectual risk taking
Research skills

7. What Gifted Students Need
Gifted students need compacting and differentiation.
Compacting – condensing a semester or year’s worth of learning into a shorter period.
Differentiation – providing gifted students with different tasks and activities that their age peers

8. 5 Elements of Differentiation
Content
Process
Product
Environment
Assessment

9. Content
Content is differentiated through the use of more advanced, complex texts and resource materials.
The focus of differentiated content should be on understanding more than just the information.

10. Process
Defines the methods students use to make sense of concepts, generalizations, and/or the required standards.
Gifted students should spend most of their learning time on tasks that are more complex and abstract than those their age peers could handle.

11. Product
This describes the ways in which students choose to illustrate and demonstrate their understanding of the content and process.
Product is differentiated by steering children to exciting and unusual resources.

12. Environment
Gifted students typically spend more time in independent study than their classmates.
They thrive in a challenging atmosphere in which individual differences are valued and nurtured.
Learning environment is differentiated by changing the actual place where students work, altering the teacher’s expectations, allowing flexible time limits, providing for in-depth research, and letting students work with mentors.

13. Assessment
Describes the method used to document mastery of curriculum.
They should experience consistent opportunities to demonstrate previous mastery before a particular unit of work is taught.

14. Five Steps to Successful Compacting
Identify the learning objectives all students must learn
Plan an alternate path through the content for those students who can learn the required material in less time than their age peers.

15. Five Steps to Successful Compacting
Plan and offer curriculum extensions
Eliminate practice, review, or preparation for state tests for students who have already mastered such things
Keep accurate records of student’s compacting activities

16. Examples of Activities
Create a model
Make a game
Have a panel discussion
Make a photo album
Write a new law
Design or construct a new product
Make a movie
Create a musical instrument
Make a map
Create an advertisement
Create a slide show
Write a book

17. Resources
Winebrenner, Susan (2001). Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom
Hill, Frances (2005). Teaching Gifted Learners