Part Two: Learning about Lessons-Gifted Curriculum Share Outs! A Three Part Series

By Teagan Taylor

There are many curriculum resources out there, on the internet, in books and by word of mouth. With access to such diverse information and with the onset of AI, our jobs as educators must be a lot easier now when it comes to lesson planning, right? Overwhelming seems more like it. Yes, we have more options now, 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 curriculum 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 Two, Gone with the Wind!

Lessons/units that didn’t go according to plan:

• “Almost all of them!”

• “I once had [students] creating a miniature golf course and geometry and angles within their products. After looking through them I was disappointed in the work. I went back to look at my rubric and realized I needed to tweak it to get the results I was seeking.”

• “This past year I introduced Socratic Seminars to my 3rd graders. I have done them before with older students, but wanted to take a stab at trying them with these younger students. It took a lot longer than I expected to get them used to this very different format of discussion, and some definitely struggled with it, especially the open endedness of it all. I realized that despite these challenges, it was a great thing for them, and next year I need to find ways to embed more Seminars into their curriculum.”

• “Students' annotations of 100-foot scrolls took longer than I anticipated. The work of close reading and meticulous handwritten annotation requires a major investment of time. I find it to be well worth the effort, and the partly-finished work is still valuable--but I note: the time requirements for most students to finish a section of this work exceed the comfort zone.”

Things you wish you had known before implementing:

• “Start with the end in mind. Be clear in your expectations, whenever possible. Leave enough room though for creativity and passion.”

• “I…wish I knew more about the students' background knowledge before starting a lesson as I sometimes realize that it's going to be too hard or too easy for them.”

• “I wish I had known more about my students' particular life circumstances. Whenever I happened to learn a compelling fact about my students' personal or home lives, my whole perspective altered. I saw new needs and new meaning in our time together. I need to find more ways--safe ways--to elicit this sensitive information so that I can engage my students existentially.”

• “Before getting into gifted education, I thought I had a good understanding of what it meant to scaffold and differentiate. But now after many years of working with gifted students, as well as other types of students, I realize that meeting a student where they are at may mean accelerating them forward or compacting their learning more, not just slowing down or breaking ideas apart.”

Surprising (and perhaps humorous) lesson moments:

• “It was my first year teaching gifted groups. I was also going through the certification program while teaching them. It was a year I refer to as, "I really needed to know that weeks/months ago." I was literally learning as I went. I had a class create data projects. They choose the data they gathered and how to present it clearly. They did an analysis of the data and presented their conclusions. I could have done a whole presentation to my certification class on the characteristics of gifted students from this one project. The presentation that stood out the most was a student who collected data on the number of dogs euthanized in a local animal shelter. Boy, how I wish I did more to guide or approve subject matter on this project. However, the whole class was more engaged with her presentation than any other. She made a correlation between dogs given as Christmas gifts that did not work out to an increase in euthanized dogs in April and May. Whether her conclusion was accurate, it was passionate and engaging. It may have been too raw for an elementary classroom but clearly something she was thinking about and cared deeply. That was well over a decade ago and I still think of it vividly.”

• “I'm always surprised by students' creativity when I give them an open-ended task in which they get to make something new (i.e. using SCAMPER to transform a box into something else).”

• “This is not a lesson moment per say. Every year I implement what we call a “Wonder Wall” with my AIG classes. Basically if any student has a question or a “wonder” that is related or not related to what we are learning (and is burning in their brain), they can put their question on the Wonder Wall outside the classroom. We take time every month to look at the Wonder Wall, and students answer each other’s questions (if they know the answers), and/or add more questions. It is an ongoing process that increases each year. I am always surprised by the complexity of their curiosities and blown away by the knowledge my students’ have in such a variety of topics. It has really helped me get to know them better and has actually led to some great lesson ideas!”

Lessons about lessons, wisdom to pass along:

• “Look closely at what you use. It is easy to be fooled by something that looks impressive but when you get into the content, it can be lacking.”

• “Teachers by Teachers is great for promoting the creativity and hard work of teachers, but just because it says an activity/lesson is meant for gifted students, does not mean that the resource has been properly vetted or is research-based. There are a plethora of gifted curriculum models out there, and some of the best lessons/units I have found have come from books, not the internet.”

• “I did a lot of team teaching this year and while it has its challenges, I think the benefits outweigh them. I felt as though the lessons were more connected and relevant. It also enabled me to see the potential in students that I might have missed. It also made me feel like I was part of a team - and it minimized the sense of entitlement (or lack of it) that comes with pulling students out.”

• “The AIG "identity" is a tricky subject for many students. Some feel very eager to flex and display their brilliance; others resist the label and hide from work in order to guard themselves from critique and from "losing" the appearance of "being smart." This issue is a powerful emotional issue that presents serious problems to teachers aiming to serve AIG students.”

Check back next time for Part Three, which will be all about future aspirations for gifted curriculum. 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!