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An effective curriculum for students who are gifted is essentially a basic curriculum that has been modified to meet their needs. The unique characteristics of the students must serve as the basis for decisions on how the curriculum should be modified. Students who are gifted because their characteristics and needs are so personal and unique. However, as a group they comprehend complex ideas quickly, learn more rapidly and in greater depth than their age peers, and may exhibit interests that differ from those of their peers. They need time for in-depth exploration, they manipulate ideas and draw generalizations about seemingly unconnected concepts, and they ask provocative questions. A program that builds on these characteristics may be viewed as qualitatively (rather than quantitatively) different from the basic curriculum; it results from appropriate modification of content, process, environment, and product.
Curriculum development is a dynamic, ongoing process. Special attention needs to be paid to articulation, scope, and sequence to avoid gaps and repetition through grade levels; ensure that the understandings and skills we expect children to develop fit together; and assure that children are provided with the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for the future. Periodic evaluations of curriculum effectiveness allow corrections to be made when needed, and they are essential if curriculum is to meet the long-term needs of gifted students for increasingly complex and challenging opportunities.
Developing curriculum that is sufficiently rigorous, challenging, and coherent for students who are gifted is a challenging task. The result, however, is well worth the effort. Appropriately differentiated curriculum produces well-educated, knowledgeable students who have had to work very hard, have mastered a substantial body of knowledge, and can think clearly and critically about that knowledge. Achieving such results for one or for a classroom full of students who are gifted will produce high levels of satisfaction, not only for the students who are beneficiaries, but also for every teacher who is willing to undertake the task.
The curriculum committee of the Leadership Training Institute developed seven guiding principles for curriculum differentiation. Curricula should:
- Focus on and be organized to include more elaborate, complex, and in-depth study of major ideas, problems, and themes that integrate knowledge within and across systems of thought.
- Allow for the development and application of productive thinking skills to enable students to re-conceptualize existing knowledge and/or generate new knowledge.
- Enable them to explore constantly changing knowledge and information and develop the attitude that knowledge is worth pursuing in an open world.
- Encourage exposure to, selection, and use of appropriate and specialized resources.
- Promote self-initiated and self-directed learning and growth.
- Provide for the development of self-understanding and the understanding of one's relationship to persons, societal institutions, nature, and culture.
- Be reviewed and conducted in accordance with the previously stated principles, stressing higher level thinking skills, creativity, and excellence in performance and products.
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Content consists of ideas, concepts, descriptive information, and facts. Content, as well as learning experiences, can be modified through acceleration, compacting, variety, reorganization, flexible pacing, and the use of more advanced or complex concepts, abstractions, and materials. Not all students need to cover all of the same content at the same rate because each student is an individual whom may have differing prior knowledge and learning skills. When possible and appropriate, students should be encouraged to move through content areas at their own pace. If they master a particular unit, they need to be provided with more advanced learning activities, not more of the same activity. Their learning characteristics are best served by thematic, broad-based, and integrative content, rather than just single-subject areas. An entire content area arranged and structured around a conceptual framework can be mastered in much less time than is traditionally allotted. In addition, such concept-based instruction expands opportunities to generalize and to integrate and apply ideas.
Middle and secondary schools are generally organized to meet student needs within content areas. Providing an interdisciplinary approach is another way of modifying curriculum. Gifted students benefit greatly from curriculum experiences that cross or go beyond traditional content areas, particularly when they are encouraged to acquire an integrated understanding of knowledge and the structure of the disciplines.
To modify process, activities must be restructured to be more intellectually demanding. For example, students need to be challenged by questions that require a higher level of response or by open-ended questions that stimulate inquiry, active exploration, and discovery. Although instructional strategies depend on the age of the students and the nature of the disciplines involved, the goal is always to encourage students to think about subjects in more abstract and complex ways. Activity selection should be based on student interests, and activities should be used in ways that encourage self-directed learning. Bloom's TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES (1956) offers the most common approach to process modification. His classification system moves from more basic levels of thought, such as memory or recall, to more complex levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Every teacher should know a variety of ways to stimulate and encourage higher level thinking skills. Group interaction and simulations, flexible pacing, and guided self-management are a few of the methods for managing class activities that support process modification.
Gifted students learn best in a receptive, nonjudgmental, student-centered environment that encourages inquiry and independence, includes a wide variety of materials, provides some physical movement, is generally complex, and connects the school experience with the greater world. Although all students might appreciate such an environment, for students who are gifted it is essential that the teacher establish a climate that encourages them to question, exercise independence, and use their creativity in order to be all that they can be. With some gifted students, independent, blended or online courses may be a better fit than a traditional classroom. As the teacher, you will learn about your gifted student over time and be open and proactive about communicating with what your gifted student prefers if your classroom setting isn't appearing to be the most conducive environment for learning. Also, contact your gifted-talented coordinator to discuss possibilities that may help with any environmental modifications that may be needed.
Teachers can encourage students to demonstrate what they have learned in a wide variety of forms that reflect both knowledge and the ability to manipulate ideas. For example, instead of giving a written or oral book report, students might prefer to design a game around the theme and characters of a book. Products can be consistent with each student's preferred learning style. They should address real problems, concerns, and audiences; synthesize rather than summarize information; and include a self-evaluation process. Many teachers already do this when they give students choices as to how to demonstrate their learning in a particular unit of study. When offering choices to do a report, create a poster or propaganda, give a speech as a character or icon, create a game, make up a video or song, etc, you are doing a product modification. It is encouraged that if your gifted learner does not seemed as interested in one particular choice, give them the option to come up with their own way of demonstrating their knowledge to you and have them present the idea to you and outline a rubric (if the one you have is not already fitting) for how it will be scored before they are allowed to go ahead with their project.
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