Meeting the needs of gifted and advance learners in the general education classroom

Dr. Patti Wood

11/22/13
Emily Kelley
Dr. Patti Wood has a heart for making sure those who are gifted and advance
learners get the proper education they deserve in their classroom. Currently, there is $0
being spent federally to meet the needs of gifted learners. Differentiation is key to
meeting the needs of all learners, whether it is for those for the lower level learners or
high. All students have similarities or differences, but it seems easier to create the list of
differences. Some similarities are that students will be around the same age and are all
capable of growing. Some differences are that they learn in different ways, they learn at
different paces, they have different backgrounds, and they have different interest. Every
teacher will have many different types of students in one classroom, curriculum should
aim to address as many of those learners as possible. A curriculum that meets the need
of gifted and advance students has may different aspects to it. It should be faster pace,
offers choices based on interest, provides challenges, and engages them in meaningful
learning task. One way you can determine what method is best for them is to give a pre-
test. From there you can give them projects, advance learning centers, and tiered
lessons and question. Children typically are asking procedural questions. For example,
"When is this due? Do I need to turn it in?" As a teacher, I will need to help improve
asking questions and helping them generate useful questions. Dr. Wood encouraged us
to use "How do you know that? questions. This will help them ask questions for
understanding of content, rather than simply recalling content. It is useful to wait and
here the students answers before generating more questions. Also, allow at least 5
seconds of quiet time to allow students to all come up with an answer. Then we had the
opportunity to practice differentiating. We chose a picture book and then created a set of
questions using Bloom's prompts for your book. Then we created a tic-tac-toe board to
allow for choice and creative thinking. The last task we had a PBL scenario and write it
out. We all shared out ideas with the class. Me and my group had practice doing all of
these things with the book Verdi. Dr. Wood made the concept of teaching higher level
learners more understandable and I feel like I know more about how to implement it in
my own classroom.