By Teagan Taylor
With access to the vast internet and with the onset of AI, our jobs as educators must be easy when it comes to lesson planning, right? Overwhelming may seem more like it. There are so many curriculum resources out there that it can be hard to navigate and know which are tried and true. Yes, we have more options nowadays, but are we really providing our students with the best quality curriculum that suits their particular needs, while also appealing to student interests and ensuring lessons are authentic and rich?
And to make matters even more complicated, as gifted education stakeholders, we have to find and design curricula that enriches, extends, accelerates, accommodates, deepens, integrates, condenses, and inspires. And oftentimes resources that fit the very unique needs of our students, are limited or nonexistent. So we find ourselves sharing the wealth, by turning to and relying on one another (as teachers are great at doing!).
Recently we had stakeholders like you fill out a survey, offering their expertise/experience on three domains: what curriculum/lessons/strategies worked great for their gifted learners, what did not go as well, and what curriculum hopes and dreams they have for the future of gifted education. In this three part series, we will share some of the responses from each domain, and hopefully you will come away with some insight, inspiration, and ideas to implement with your learners!
Here is Part One, The Right Stuff!
Favorite Go-To Resources:
“A great resource that we sometimes forget about are students themselves! Find what interests them, what the latest trends are in their world, what keeps them up at night reading etc. Turn their ideas into passion projects, use them as launching points for a unit. When you can find ways to relate the learning to them, I have found more buy-in overall.”
“My favorite go-to resources are paper books…There will never be a replacement for an actual book in each student's hands.”
Favorite Lessons/Units/Curriculum Models:
“Teaching using a concept and universal understandings like wonder, perception, and change can add a richness to everything you do.”
Anything with Sandra Kaplan’s Depth & Complexity
“Body Biography (students research an influential person and use chart paper to make a life-sized replica in which body parts represent different aspects of that person's life (head = big ideas, mouth=quotes, etc.).”
“Tha Taba Model, which focuses on open ended prompts and multiple response options, allowing the teacher to figure out what students know and need/want to know, using this as a structure for how to design and organize curriculum content so that students can better make generalizations through concept development”
“One of my favorite lesson-series to teach focuses on concept creation (mainly word creation, but also number, note, and form creation). I frame this lesson-series as an exploration of humanity's ‘Living Lexicon.’ My students enjoy the introductory video I created for the Living Lexicon project: Ennoummon: Living Lexicon …teachers can download a free curriculum that guides students into the word-creation process.”
“Teaching using a concept and universal understandings like wonder, perception, and change can add a richness to everything you do.”
Favorite Moments of Student Growth
“I love the excitement around rigor. For example, after I issued a math challenge, I had a student say, "Thanks. I won't be able to sleep tonight until I get this figured out."
“Working with gifted students of all kinds, sometimes there are moments when a student will struggle and start to compare themselves to their peers. They are used to getting things correct, and it can be daunting at first to work with others who challenge them, but this allows them to build resilience and endurance. For me growth is not just about the data points, but about the personal growth through mistake making and perseverance.”
“My favorite moments occur when a student goes from studying discrete parts of a unit to comprehending a constellation of integrated facts which support a creative effort…”
“I like when students teach each other, rather than turning to me for answers.”
Favorite “ah-ha” moments
“It is always exciting and humbling to be there when a student realizes something at a deeper level, but in their own way, their eyes lighting up and the passion being ignited. The best feedback I have ever received from a student was,‘I love that you provide us information, but then allow us to think for ourselves’. This is what teaching is all about.”
“...when students perceive--to their alarm or to their delight--that a unit of study makes electric contact with life. This occurred when we debated the future of AI and considered the dangers and opportunities that self-governing superintelligence could bring into the world--the formal debates we held on this topic flowed with a sense of real urgency and avid interest.”
“We were working on an open middle problem that we recognized as very challenging. Students started a list of things they tried that did not work. They worked for days on it. They celebrated each time a solution was found. Even when something did not work, they just ran up to the board to verify it was not on the list and added it…The parameters add an element of challenge that kept them multiplying for days.The parameters add an element of challenge that kept them multiplying for days…”
Check back next time for Part Two, which will be all about curriculum improvement ideas. In the meantime, in the comment section below, let us know what you agree or disagree with, and feel free to share a favorite resource of your own!
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