A question I had while reading this chapter was about
giftedness. The beginning of the chapter talked about how to identify and teach
gifted students. My question is, if there are only two or three gifted students
in the classroom, how can a teacher accommodate for them and still be able to
keep a normal curriculum for the rest of the class? If acceleration or pulling
students out of the classroom are not options, what else can a teacher do to
keep a gifted student from being bored in class?
Creativity is a form of higher order thinking because a
student needs knowledge of a topic before being able to build upon it. An
example the book gave was about a scientist discovering a gene for obesity.
This creative discovery could only have happened if the scientist had prior
knowledge on genetics. This applies to students in geometry. If a child was
given a triangle and was asked to find the area of a triangle, the student
would first need to know what area is, which is base times height, and would
need to be able to apply it to the triangle, so ½ times the base times the
height. Depending on how the problem is given to the child, creativity can be
used in other ways, too. If the triangle were given on a geoboard, a divergent
thinker might count the pegs in order to find the area or create a square with the
given pegs and divide it by 2.
As a teacher, I would provide an environment in which
students feel comfortable to share their feelings and ideas. I would also have
students the opportunity to engage in creative writing because that will allow
them to use their imagination without having to stick with a certain prompt or
topic. Finally, I would give students every opportunity to produce things from
their imagination. I would have them create projects out of play-do or posters
and dioramas to showcase their creativity.
I would assess creativity by seeing which students are
divergent thinkers and who follow the directions that I give them to complete a
task, but in a way that isn’t obvious. These students would constantly want to
improve things. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking would also be an
option. This test consists of tasks that involve skills and divergent thinking
and would be a great measure of assessing creativity.
Zarah, all students are entitled to a free and appropriate public education. Giftedness many times requires special education. If a gifted child needs special education to provide an appropriate education to the student, an IEP must be implemented and the school is required by law to meet that students needs.
ReplyDeleteIf a teacher has one or two gifted students without IEPs that provide her with more resources (pull out of class for enrichment, etc.) they must make up for this with the resources they do have. I would suggest for a teacher to enrich the students learning by provided more challenging problems in addition to or in place of the regular class load.
It can be very challenging for a teacher to accommodate for gifted students in a classroom, especially if there are a very few number of them. If acceleration and pulling students out of class is not an option, there are still ways to keep gifted students challenged and interested during the school day. One option is enrichment, which keeps student in their grade level while providing them with work that is more challenging and more in depth than what the rest of the class is learning. For example, in an elementary science class, the teacher can provide gifted students with more challenging worksheets and offer projects that go more in-depth into a subject.
ReplyDeleteTeachers can also take advantage of curriculum compacting, in which students are evaluated to see which information that already know. Students are then taught only what they do not know, learning many topics at a much faster rate than other students. This method might be harder to carry out for teachers and may involve more work. But it is good for teachers to know that these options exist, because they may very well have a couple gifted students in their classroom.