Gifted Education

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Gifted Education

Ministry of Education Definition:

An unusually advanced degree of general intellectual ability that requires differentiated learning experiences of a depth and breath beyond those normally provided in the regular school program to satisfy the level of educational potential indicated.

Curriculum to be Differentiated by: Kind Pace Depth and Breath

·  Using interests talents and abilities

·  Community service & social skills

·  Self awareness & responsibility development

·  Developing independent research skills

·  Developing creative thinking skills

·  Developing critical thinking skills

Curriculum Differentiated by KIND
Expectations / Strategies
·  Seek out challenging and intellectually stimulating activities
·  Design own studies with increasing complexity
·  Make use of a wide variety of resources and media to obtain information
·  Develop interests in more mature themes and issues
·  Use advanced materials
·  Develop a high level of vocabulary / ·  Provide more freedom of choice- offer a range of materials to choose from
·  Allow time to explore options before expecting a final selection of topic or book
·  Include a “your own idea” (subject to teacher approaval) choice for projects
·  Find materials that reflect the higher ability level yet are still age appropriate in content
·  Provide alternate unites beyond the regular curriculum
·  Set aside time for a self-initiated independent study on a topic of the student’s choosing
·  Provide open ended activities
·  Establish interest centres based on special learning skills (e.g., problem solving, logic, philosophy, puzzles)

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Curriculum Differentiated by PACE
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Master new concepts quickly
·  Work quickly but accurately
·  Generalize information and apply it to new situations
·  Learn to identify and set priorities
·  Maintain interest in a topic for extended periods of time / ·  Pre-test for knowledge and comprehension in skills related unites
·  Compact programs and units
·  Speed up the introduction of new materials and avoid repletion
·  Assign only enough questions of a particular kind to ensure that the skill has been mastered
·  Avoid step by step texts and pre-packaged units
·  Keep instructions and lecturing to a minimum; allow time for self discovery
·  Provide multi-level assignments with variable entry and exit points to accommodate prior knowledge
·  Individualize programs through the use of regular individual conferences or small group lessons
·  Grant credit for assignments, courses or units based on prior mastery
·  Allow extra time to accommodate in depth study
·  Allow time for incubation of ideas
·  Provide continuous learning experiences and flexible deadlines to allow for students who finish quickly and those who want to pursue a topic for weeks
·  Experiment with allowing students designing their own works schedule or contract

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Curriculum Differentiated by BREATH
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Extend existing knowledge of a wide range of topics
·  Make connections between ideas and concepts
·  Discover relationships
·  Make comparisons
·  Relate events to personal experiences
·  Cross over traditional subject areas to find links
·  Focus on concepts, problem and issues / ·  Organize content broad-based themes, issues or problems
·  Present comprehensive, related and mutually reinforcing experiences within an area of study
·  Look for unusual connections and linkages between subjects , themes and issues
·  Integrate the learning between traditional disciplines
·  Push every student to find ways to improve and elaborate on what they have done
·  Celebrate the end of units with special open-house evenings or sharing of end products
·  Provide a wide range of content and teaching styles

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Curriculum Differentiated by DEPTH
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Derive pleasure from intellectual activities
·  Understand increasingly complex and abstract concepts and ideas
·  Develop the desire to explore a topic thoroughly
·  Become absorbed in a topic
·  Persevere on difficult tasks / ·  Explore topics more fully
·  Enhance learning with excursions, tours, speakers, cultural events, career exploration opportunities
·  Encourage students to explore topics on the internet, board film library, professional library, letters or calls to experts in the field
·  Make the content more abstract and the ideas more complex
·  Explore the possibility of using metaphors, tutors and resource personnel
·  Fully delineate the requirements for ‘acceptable’ and ‘excellent’

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Using Interests TALENTS and ABILITIES
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Share talents and abilities with others
·  Exhibit curiosity and new topics and ideas
·  Seek out opportunities to experience a wide variety of activities
·  Explore a self-selected interest in depth
·  Initiate self teaching / ·  Draw on students’ own needs, interests, goals and abilities
·  Use parents, students and other staff as speakers to share hobbies, interests, careers, special skills
·  Investigate contests and competitions offered by the board- science Olympics , think bowl, school reach
·  Investigate contests and competitions offered outside the board- prism awards, math contests
·  Encourage and promote inclusion in school activities, electives, teams and clubs
·  Encourage the student to add to class interest centres with items collected from home or made by the students themselves

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

COMMUNITY SERVICE and SOCIAL SKILLS Development
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Communicate effectively
·  Work appropriately with others
·  Participate appropriately in discussions and group activities
·  Show tolerance and consideration for others
·  Respect the opinions and ideas of others
·  Recognize and appreciate other points of view
·  Demonstrate leadership skills appropriately
·  Organize and plan activities
·  Help others willingly
·  Take an interest in community and charitable projects
·  Demonstrate strong convictions and develop a social conscience
·  Develop moral and ethical values
·  Risk criticism in support of own beliefs and ideas / ·  Arrange time to work with students of similar interests and or abilities
·  Develop an awareness of individual strengths and needs; make students aware that everyone has talents and ideas to share
·  Work on discussion skills, conflict resolution strategies
·  Employ social skills programs and strategies such as role playing; simulation, interviewing discussion, debate

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

SELF-AWARENESS and RESPONSIBILITY Development
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Develop a positive self concept
·  Recognize personal strengths and growth areas
·  Express thoughts, feelings and needs appropriately
·  Offer candid and honest observations
·  Set high but attainable goals
·  Set future educational and career goals and work towards these
·  Gradually accept more responsibility for own learning
·  Be aware of dominant learning styles and strive to improve others
·  Complete tasks in assigned time
·  Make good use of work time
·  Deal with frustrations and perfectionism appropriately
·  Accept the fact that all individuals experience failure / ·  Encourage the development of self-understanding (i.e., recognizing and using one’s abilities, becoming self-directed, appreciating likenesses and differences between oneself and others)
·  Provide class discussion time to share problems and solutions
·  Make use of journals , portfolio entries, and conferences as opportunities to express thoughts and feelings
·  Discuss issues with students such as the ability to criticize constructively and to accept constructively criticism as an opportunity to improve
·  Provide guidance for students exhibiting signs of perfectionism, underachievement, organizational difficulties, withdrawal, low self-esteem
·  Adapt how material is presented to allow for individual learning styles

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Developing INDEPENDENT RESEARCH SKILLS
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Work independently
·  Produce original ideas and hypothesis
·  Conduct original research and experiments
·  Gather information from a variety of sources
·  Observe and examine closely
·  List attributes
·  Paraphrase accurately
·  Understand and employ inductive and deductive reasoning
·  Record information in an organized fashion
·  Form and use conceptual frameworks
·  Combine information with imagination
·  Self-edit and peer-edit accurately
·  Strive to improve the quality of work
·  Produce attractive and informative work
·  Experiment with a wide variety of presentation types
·  Present own work with confidence and pride / ·  Don’t assume that skills are inherent; work habits, study skills, research skills must be taught systematically
·  Allow for a wide variety of learning styles; group and individualize assignments, oral, written or visual products
·  Employ the methods of inquiry, Renzulli’s triad, learning contracts, self directed study, Brett’s Autonomous Learner Model
·  Allow for students’ desire to investigate a topic of personal interest
·  Avoid concrete assignments (people, places or things) and aim for real topics (problems, issues and themes)
·  Develop criteria for success before planning assignments
·  Demand hypothesis, opinions, conclusions and applications in research
·  Expect students to transform, not just restate, facts and information
·  Expect professional type products that have a real purpose
·  Provide an authentic audience for finished assignments
·  Allow students to assist in developing evaluation guidelines (rubrics, checklists, tests, quizzes)

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Developing CRITICAL thinking skills
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Use a variety of metacognition and thinking skills models
·  Analyze information
·  Detect bias, stereotypes, clichés, propaganda and other emotional factors in a presentation
·  Classify data in a variety of manners
·  Recognize inconsistencies in information
·  Analyze syllogisms
·  Evaluate information (i.e. adequate, essential, verifiable, consistent, reliable)
·  Challenge existing rules and traditional beliefs appropriately
·  Support answers with proof
·  Make appropriate inferences
·  Judge the credibility of a source
·  Evaluate arguments
·  Employ and explain a variety of problem solving strategies
·  Identify central issues, problems and assumptions / ·  Integrate critical thinking onto the program
·  Formally introduce, develop or extend at least one critical thinking skills program such as Talents Unlimited (Multiple talents), Six thinking hats, CORT thinking, Creative Problem Solving, Think Bowl, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Feri Math Problems, Logic Problems
·  Use metacognition extensively- encourage students to explain their thinking processes an how they arrived at a conclusion
·  Emphasize higher levels of thinking- put less emphasis on memory and recall and more on analysis, synthesis and evaluation
·  Expect students to cite evidence to support statements
·  Stress problem seeking rather than question answering
·  Use real life, school, or classroom challenges as opportunities for problem solving
·  Include opportunities to examine changes in attitudes, beliefs and values from a contemporary and historical perspective
·  Look for examples of bias in textual material and challenge traditional attitudes (i.e. Columbus- hero or villain?)

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner

Developing CREATIVE thinking skills
Expectations / Strategies
Students will be able to:
·  Use a variety of creative thinking models
·  Generate a large number of responses (fluency)
·  Think in a variety of categories (flexibility)
·  Find original responses (originality)
·  Elaborate ideas, responses and written work (elaboration)
·  Use humour appropriately
·  Find practical applications to theories
·  Tolerate ambiguity
·  Synthesize information
·  Adapt an idea or response
·  Visualize and build on mental images / ·  Integrate creative thinking skills into the program
·  Formally introduce, develop or extend at least one creative thinking skills program such as Lateral Thinking, SCAMPER, Future’s Wheel, Synectics, Theatre Sports, Attribute Listing, Forced Association, Elaboration Model, Productive Thinking, Brainstorming, P.I.
·  Teach skills of developing effective products and presentations
·  Explore unusual ways to share information (MI)
·  Encourage the development of products that use new techniques; material and forms
·  Evaluate information and imagination equally
·  Be open and responsive when students suggest ideas for their own learning
·  Have a “Problem of the week”, “Riddle of the Day” or “Brain Teaser” display for on-going thought
·  Deal with the future and the unknown as well as the past and present; encourage students to forecast new trends and ideas based on the past

Excerpt from Ontario Curriculum Planner