Teaching Strategies for Gifted Education
“Students with special needs” are typically considered students who have below
average learning abilities because of a particular disorder or handicap. However, not all
students with special needs have below average achievement in school. “Gifted students”
are a prominent and often overlooked group of students who also require special services.
Gifted students possess a number of academic talents and function and learn at a high
level in the classroom. In order to provide gifted students with an appropriate education ,
a degree of awareness and diligence is required by teachers and administrators. Like other
areas of special education, providing appropriate education to gifted students requires a
detailed process. Teachers must be able to accurately identify, assess, and provide
appropriate instructions for gifted students to allow each student to reach his or her full
potential.
Before learning how to provide an appropriate gifted curriculum, it is important to
consider the history of gifted education in the United States. Traditionally in the United
States students with extraordinary academic talents were revered, but at the same time
many were outcast. Society looks favorably upon their academic talents, but looked down
upon some characteristics of gifted students. A gifted student’s academic knowledge or
achievement was always viewed as positive, but at the same time gifted students were
criticized or labeled as “eggheads” or “oddballs.” However, the personalities of gifted
students did not always adhere to social norms. In 1925 the “Terman studies” were
published and many stereotypes of gifted students began to break down. The Terman
studies provided examples of gifted students who did leave normal lives, and were not
simply academic machines. While some gifted student stereotypes remain after the
Terman studies, it wasn’t until 1957 that the United States began to place a priority on
gifted education. In 1957 the Russians launched the “Sputnik” satellite into space. The
launching of “Sputnik” gave birth to the “space race” between Russian and the United
States. Suddenly, the United States began placing a priority gifted students, especially in
math and science. Gifted programs were launched across the country to ensure that the
United States would not fall short in the intellectual capital needed to effectively win the
space race with Russia. However, this phenomenon was short lived as the effect of the
“Sputnik” launch wore off in about five years, and gifted education was no longer a top
priority. Gifted education got another boost in 1972 with the Marland Report. The
reported was the first ever large scale effort to determine what schools needed to do to
provide and challenge for gifted students. The report gave a definition to the “gifted
student” (Marland). The definition defined gifted students as “those identified by
professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities, are capable of
high performance” (Marland). These are children who require differentiated educational
programs/ and services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program in
order to realize their contribution to self and society.” (Fiedler 1). Another important
contribution of the Marland Report was that it developed categories for areas in which
students could be identified as “talented” or “gifted.” The six categories included general
intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, creative or productive thinking, leadership
ability, visual and performing arts, and psychomotor ability. The Marland Report laid the
foundation for the development of gifted education programs in the United States by
identifying the needs of gifted students, while giving schools a blueprint for programs to
meet these needs (Fiedler 2).
The next significant study in gifted education was the Richardson Study
conducted in 1985. The Richardson Study was conducted by the Sid W. Richardson
Foundation and sought to update the results of the Marland Report. Districts’ from across
the country provided information on their gifted education programs. The study showed
that gifted students were often accurately identified in schools. However, the study found
insufficient identification of gifted students in diverse cultural and socioeconomic
backgrounds. The Richardson study also found problems in how “gifted students” were
being educated. Many of the programs were inadequate in that they were not challenging
and accommodating gifted students. Also, the instruction and pedagogy of the programs
were inconsistent (Cox). The study argued that gifted students should be provided for
within the context of a normal classroom setting and not through “pull out programs”
which secluded gifted students from the general education environment.
The federal government made strides towards effectively providing for gifted
students with the Jacob K. Javits Education Act in 1988. The passage of the act provided
an affirmation from the government that providing for gifted students was a necessity in
classrooms. The act was formed to not only identify and educated gifted students, but to
also help them reach their full potential. The Javits Act provided yet another definition of
gifted students. The act defined gifted students as ““Children and youth who give
evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or
leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities
not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities”
(Elementary and Secondary Education Act).The definition drew upon the categories
developed in the Marland Act and more broadly defined gifted students to give states and
local school districts more latitude in the definition of gifted students and development of
programs to educated them.
Once an understanding of the history of gifted education has been developed, then
one can begin to effectively identify and provide for gifted students in the classroom.
The first step in being and effective teacher for gifted students is to accurately
identify them. Properly identifying gifted students can be challenging because there is no
set number of quality of traits to a gifted student. However, there are a number of traits
and qualities that can be looked for to help determine if a further evaluation is necessary
for the student. Some general traits of gifted students include a questioning attitude, high
energy and alertness, independence in work and study, diversity of interests and abilities,
goal-directed behavior, critical thinking skills, and large vocabulary (Clark). These traits
are only some of the general traits that gifted students may display. There are also a
number of creative traits to look for as well. These include a liking for finding new ways
of doing things, an affinity for fantasy and toying with ideas, independent attitude and
social behavior, and intuitiveness. These traits are likely to be exemplified in the work the
students produces, and how they go about producing it. Gifted students can also possess
affective traits. An unusual emotional depth, advanced levels of moral judgment, unusual
sensitivity to the feelings of others, and a heightened self awareness are among affective
traits of gifted students (Fiedler 44).
While the talents and traits of gifted students often help them excel in the
classroom, there are some drawbacks to some of the traits of gifted students. It is
important for teachers to accommodate for both the positive and negative behaviors of
gifted students. Once of the most basic traits of a gifted students is that they may learn
rapidly. Since they learn rapidly gifted students will often complete their assignments
early, but with that free time they may disrupt other students. Gifted students are often
intense and sophisticated which causes them to work and research in specials areas, but
also may cause them to ignore regular assignments. High level vocabulary skills are
beneficial in language and rhetoric areas, but these high level language skills can often
intimidate teachers. The wide and diverse interests of gifted students help create an
insatiable appetite to learn, but this can also cause gifted students to ask questions at
inappropriate times (Fiedler 47). Students who are gifted in math will find enjoyment and
excel in the area, but this also may cause them to make careless errors in their
computation. Highly imaginative students and fluent and original thinkers, but this may
also cause them to only want to do things their own way. These are just a few of the
gifted students’ traits that have positive and negative consequences. Teachers need to be
sensitive to both the positive and negative behaviors of gifted students to help them reach
their full potential. While these traits are important to consider, teachers need to be aware
of traits and behaviors of each gifted student. Since no student is the same, teachers need
to be able to constantly change and evolve their techniques of providing for gifted
students in the classroom. Also, gifted students often have special socio-emotional needs
that need to be considered as well. Gifted students are likely to feel additional stress
because of a desire to be perfect in school, while also dealing the societal pressures of
being academically talented. General education teachers need to be sensitive to these
needs of gifted students as well (Fiedler 76).
The Marland Report and the Richardson Study each explored the idea of students
have intelligences in different areas. Within the last 10 years Howard Gardner’s theory of
multiple intelligences has gained popularity as a means of classifying the abilities of
gifted and general education students. Gardner developed his theory by observing that
individuals perform unevenly on a variety of skills in modern society (Friend). Gardner
has proposed eight different intelligences for people. Gardner and other critics believe
that IQ tests too narrowly define intelligence. In relation to gifted education, it is often
that gifted students exhibit “talent in specific, isolated domains” (Bursuck). Gardner’s
theory proposes that these “intelligences” should be incorporated in the every teacher’s
curriculum and pedagogy. Gardner has defined the eight intelligences as verbal linguistic
(ability to use words in speech and rhetoric), visual/spatial (visualize forms, patterns and
designs), logical/mathematical (understand through patterns and symbols),
bodily/kinesthetic (use body effectively), musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and
naturalist (ability to explain and understand concepts in nature. (Bursuck). Students can
be “gifted” in any one of these eight areas, and an appropriate education should be
provided for these students to effectively develop these skills.
Many school districts provide separate “gifted classes” for students. These classes
allow students to be in a classroom environment with other gifted students. Teachers are
able to develop one specific curriculum to meet the needs of only the needs of gifted
students instead a juggling a gifted curriculum and a general curriculum. Students can be
placed in these classes through a variety of assessments. State achievement test scores, IQ
scores, and past academic performance are just some of the assessments used to place
students in special gifted or academically talented programs. These programs enable
gifted students to be integrated into a classroom of students with similar academic
prowess, but they also can seclude them from other students in the school. Often times
gifted students will have the same students in their classes for several years. This effect
can adversely affect a gifted students’ social development.
It is possible for gifted students to receive an appropriate education with a general
education setting. However, the general education teacher must make accommodations
within her classroom to effectively provide for gifted students. One strategy could be to
form “cluster groups” for gifted students (Fiedler). These groups would be comprised of
3-8 students and allow students to work with others of like ability on challenging
classroom tasks. The school purposely assigns a certain amount on gifted students into
the classroom. Usually these students are assigned to a class with a teacher who is
specifically qualified in education gifted students. However, cluster grouping would be
an effective strategy for a general education teacher who may have a number of gifted
students in his or her classroom. The students’ curriculum in cluster groups is based upon
what their academic and instructional needs. Activities that could be used in cluster
groups include advanced assignments, learning centers, group discussions, research
activities, and problem based learning. When using cluster groups in a classroom it is
important to keep the cluster group as part of the general curriculum and involved with
the other members of the classroom. However, it is important to allow gifted students to
get the special attention they need away from the rest of the class. One effective approach
in cluster groups is to allow the students in the group to share their work with the rest of
the class. This provides a challenging activity for the cluster group students, while at the
same time helping them feel part of the classroom.
Cluster grouping is not the only technique for teacher’s with gifted students in
general education classroom. Acceleration, enrichment, sophistication, and novelty are
four different types of interventions that can be used by teachers to provide for gifted
students (Friend). Acceleration is a technique that provides high achieving students a
curriculum that is more advanced. Acceleration takes the content or concepts from upper
grade levels and provides new challenges for the student. For example, a student who is
gifted in reading and writing skills could be assigned an upper level novel in class.
Enrichment is another intervention that can be used in a general education classroom.
Enrichment helps students deal with content and curriculum at a greater depth. These
activities should require high level thinking skills as well. Sophistication is another
intervention strategy for gifted students. This intervention requires students to engage in
classroom content on a higher level. For example, in a science class that is learning about
gravity, a sophistication activity for gifted students would be for them to master higher
level laws of physics. Novelty is an intervention that allows students and teachers
freedom in the classroom. Novelty allows for students to use their high level skills in
alternative or unusual ways (Bursuck).
Overall, the challenges of educating gifted students need to be considered by both
teachers and administrators. However, since not all school administrations have gifted
education programs in place, it is important for general education teachers to be
proficient in providing an appropriate and effective education to gifted students. Teachers
who are aware of the characteristics of gifted students and can adapt curriculum to meet
their needs ensure that all students in their classrooms receive the best education possible.