Describe how participation in the Gifted In-field Endorsement Program has changed your

approach toward curriculum development and your ability to effectively instruct gifted
students. (Include student work from strategies implemented in the Curriculum and Strategies
course.) (GEPO-K4, GEPO-K5, GEPO-K6, GEPO-S3, GEPO-S4, GEPO-S5, GEPO-S7, GEPO-
S8)
The Curriculum and Strategies course was the course that changed my teaching for the
better. At the beginning of the year, I struggled to find strategies to use in my TAG classes that
would really challenge the students. It really helped me take a hard look at my teaching practices
and analyze how to make them better. The seven different strategies that were taught to use
helped me create my own lesson to teach in my classroom. One of the major reasons I enjoyed
this class is because I am always looking for new ways to engage my students in rigorous and
fun lessons. This class really helped me tap into my TAG students potential. It has changed how
I plan and teach. Our 7
th
grade social studies department went to project based learning this year
and besides for struggling with letting go, I struggled with ideas on how to teach a mini-lesson or
use a strategy that would not bore my students. The only strategy I had really used in my
classroom before was compare and contrast. While I find this strategy extremely helpful in social
studies, the students find it boring and often times act up when we do a compare and contrast
lesson. Many of the other lessons were hard for my students because it required them to think
outside of the box and often times did not have a right or wrong answer. The first time doing a
mystery lesson, my students kept asking me if their answers were right. It was hard for them to
get over the hump of right and wrong. Once my students realized that they were allowed to be
free thinkers and have their own opinions, my classroom started to flourish. Their favorite lesson
was the creative problem solving ones. This type of lesson lends itself well to social studies
because we are always discussing different environmental problems or societal issues and how
we can fix them.
After taking the characteristics class, I now realize how important it is to keep in mind
the different characteristics of a gifted learner while planning different strategies to teach in the
classroom. One thing that I noticed is my kids love to read! Often times when I present a subject,
they already know a lot about the topic, therefore my surface level introduction is not necessary.
This is probably one of the characteristics that remains in the forefront of my mind while
planning lessons. If my students already have a basic understanding of my material, I need to
change the curriculum map a little bit. My favorite characteristic of a gifted learner are their
responses to what if questions. My students never cease to amaze me. Their answers are
always different and they get to their answers in a variety of ways. Without learning about the
different characteristics of a gifted learner, I would not be able to plan accordingly. (Recognizing
the Characteristics of Gifted Children 2012)
More than just bringing higher interest into my classroom, I also think these strategies
allow the students to become better members of society. They can use the different strategies in
order to think on a higher level and handle problems when they are presented to them. Some of
the strategies took a lot of front end work when creating the lessons. That is why I really enjoyed
learning all of the different toolbox strategies that we presented at almost every class. The
toolbox lessons were easy and quick to implement into my classroom. A lot of them could be
used as a pre-assessment or a formative assessment at the end of a lesson. One of my students
favorite toolbox lessons was Tweet About It. We used it as a ticket out the door and what
helped me to assess their knowledge was the fact that tweets only have 140 characters in them so
the students could not write more than 140 characters. This strategy worked best in my on-level
class because many of my students struggle with summarizing.
My pedagogy on teaching and planning for gifted and non-gifted students has forever
been changed. Learning the different strategies has forced me plan using backwards design. It
was hard at first but once I can pinpoint exactly what I want the students to know in a unit, I can
more effectively write lessons to meet the needs of all my students. The strategies force the
students to show what they know in a variety of different higher order thinking tasks instead of
just a multiple choice test. Now instead of planning one lesson for the TAG students and one
lesson for my on-level students, I differentiate the product, process, or product in order to make
it more rigorous.
In the future I plan on using these strategies to reach all students not just the gifted ones. I
was even hoping to share it with my grade level team in order to show all teachers that these
strategies can be differentiated to any level. I also think that I need to practice these strategies
more because I am in no way an expert. My students seemed happier by the end of the year
which in turn made me happy. It also makes for a less stressful day because you are not fighting
behavior problems. The biggest suggestion that I have for teachers trying these strategies out is
to call them by their given name. Before I did the creative problem solving lesson with my
students, I just said we were going to be discussing Asian Environmental Problems, the kids just
looked at me. Once they got the Mess, I heard them say Oh its CPS. It was amazing to see that
they instantly knew what to do. I now refer to them by their given names and the students
understand the process and it saves on time.

Recognizing the Characteristics of Gifted Children, Web. 21 Apr. 2012.,
http://www.ri.net/gifted_talented/character.html