TL;DR: When you differentiate, what are you doing for students who need more of a challenge? You must differentiate up as well. When we hear the term differentiate, we often think this means differentiating to support kids who are struggling. It might mean taking a complex task and chunking it into more easy-to-digest pieces. It could be scaffolding a lesson … Read More
The Best Way to Challenge Gifted Students (and all students, for that matter)
TL;DR: To challenge gifted students, you can accelerate learning or go into more depth. We must engage their minds in higher levels of thinking. Consider Bloom’s Taxonomy when asking students questions. How to Challenge Gifted Students There are all sorts of strategies for challenging gifted students. Sometimes we accelerate or go fast. Other times we go more in-depth meaning rather … Read More
The Myths of Gifted Children
TL;DR: Many gifted children aren’t challenged at their just-right level. One of the major challenges in giving students the work they need is a misunderstanding of how to help. Gifted children need to be challenged and taught the executive functioning skills needed to succeed. Underchallenged Gifted Children In my previous post, I talked about the underchallenged gifted child. These are … Read More
What’s Happened to Us? | Brian Butler | Common Assessments
In Don’t @ Me (3:50), Tom opens this week by questioning why we’ve collectively become so brazen and disrespectful towards others. Then, Tom is joined by friend and colleague Brian Butler (16:03) for a conversation about why gifted education should be the floor for all learners if we are to achieve true equity in our schools. Finally, in Assessment Corner … Read More