getting the most out of gifted students€¦ · teaching •how to use bloom’s taxonomy in the...

Getting the most out of gifted studentsPractical ideas and strategies for stretching your most-able pupils

Getting the most out of gifted students2

Acknowledgments

About the author

Mike Gershon is a teacher, trainer, writer and educational consultant. His teaching resources on Tes Resources include The Starter Generator, The Plenary Producer and The Assessment for Learning Toolkit. Together they have been viewed and downloaded more than 2 million times by teachers in over 180 countries. Mike teaches at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds. He divides his time between Suffolk, London and Yorkshire.

He is the author of six books on teaching and learning, including three bestsellers.

How to use Assessment for Learning in the Classroom: The Complete Guide

How to use Differentiation in the Classroom: The Complete Guide

How to use Questioning in the Classroom: The Complete Guide

How to use Discussion in the Classroom: The Complete Guide

How to teach EAL Students in the Classroom: The Complete Guide

More Secondary Starters and Plenaries: Creative activities, ready-to-use in any subject

Tes Resourcestes.com/teaching-resources Copyright © Tes Global Ltd 2014

The Teaching Compendium

A series of short reads; think of it as a library of ideas, strategies, activities and tips for teaching. Putting theory into practice.

• Embedding literacy in subject teaching

• How to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom

• Planning brilliant lessons

• How to excel when being observed

• Your differentiation masterclass

• Strategies to develop independent learners

• Raising achievement in your classroom

• Helping students to revise

• Time-saving tips for teachers

• Innovation in the classroom —Exciting end-of-term activities

• Getting the most out of gifted students

• Practical strategies for active learning

Links to third-party websites are provided in good faith and for information only. Tes Global disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third-party website referenced in this e-book.


Introduction ContentsBuilding in challenge

1. High expectations 52. Ambiguity 63. Challenging language 64. More information, less context 75. Time limits 76. Challenge tools 8

Extension work1. Include extension questions 92. Evaluation and synthesis 103. Questions to test a partner 114. Peer teaching 125. Translation 136. Critical commentary 13

Higher-level thinking1. Banish cop-outs 142. Insist on balance 143. Counter examples 154. Devil’s advocate 155. Ethical dilemmas 166. Riddles 16

Expanding horizons1. Wider reading 172. Independent research 173. Image-based tasks 184. News and comment 185. Go off-curriculum 19


IntroductionThe essence of great teaching is seeking to challenge all students in order to help every one of them to succeed. Given this, it can feel rather problematic to label a small group of students as “gifted” and then proceed to offer them special treatment.

Some would suggest that drawing attention to the capabilities of a few serves to disenfranchise other learners and to instil that handful of gifted students with a sense of superiority that might ultimately lead to complacency.

That said, we cannot deny the fact that in any group of students there will always be those whose skills and abilities are further along than others, or who simply have more potential to excel in that subject. Many teachers find it useful to have a shorthand to refer to this group and a means of quickly identifying them when planning differentiation into lessons.

Whatever your feelings about the “gifted and talented” label, the ideas in this e-book will help you to meet the needs of those at the top of the ability range. Our focus is on practical ideas that you can put straight into action in your classroom without creating bags of extra work for yourself.

When it comes down to it, the gifted and talented are simply another type of student for teachers to make provision and adjustment for, just as they would right across the spectrum of educational needs. With no-fuss extension activities and simple suggestions for building additional challenge into your existing lesson plans, you can ensure that you are helping every student in your class to succeed – including the most able.


Section one – Building in challenge

Provision for gifted students does not necessarily involve you creating stacks of alternative resources or devising individualised lesson plans. In this section, we look at ways of realistically building high levels of challenge into the activities that you are already using in your lessons.

1. High expectations

The work of all students is affected by the expectations of their teacher. Gifted pupils are no exception. Having high expectations of your students will change how they perceive their own abilities and will encourage them to achieve more.

Here are three ways to maintain and convey high expectations:

● If students give up too early when engaging in a challenging task, do not give them the answer. Instead, encourage them to keep going, telling them that difficulties are part of learning and that they should persist when they encounter them.

● Include challenging tasks and questions in all of your lessons. Indicate to students that you only set work that you believe them to be capable of doing.

● Introduce higher-level concepts and make pupils aware of the fact that these ideas are from further on in the curriculum. This will help them to see that you are expecting them to work at a higher level.

You will also need to manage the expectations of your students. There are two issues that often crop up when it comes to gifted students. First is the fact that having high intellect or abilities does not always go hand-in-hand with having a high work ethic. The second problem is that gifted students will often become used to getting everything right and, as a result, will not deal well with being challenged.

To overcome these common pitfalls and ensure that gifted pupils can maximise their own potential, try these techniques:

● When giving praise, focus on the effort that students put into their work and the way in which they deal with challenges rather than on the end products.

● Provide formative feedback that explains how students can make improvements or develop the work, even if what they have produced is already of the highest level.


2. Ambiguity

Making tasks or questions more ambiguous is an easy way to instantly introduce challenge. Ambiguity takes students into a place from where they must reason, infer, problem solve and predict. As such, it makes high demands of their critical and creative faculties.

Here is an example of an ambiguous task:

“Othello is neither hero nor villain, but something else entirely.” Discuss.

Here, ambiguity is achieved by closing down two familiar routes, suggesting an unspecific alternative and then leaving the instruction imprecise. The result is that students will have to work hard to first make sense of the statement and then to respond to it.

Another easy way to introduce ambiguity into your lessons is to describe the end product that you want from pupils without telling them how they should get there. This means that students will have to put in extra effort and think more independently to complete the task.

3. Challenging language

Using more complex language is a good way to push gifted students. This can be as simple as introducing higher-level keywords to those who need extra challenge.

As a supplement to the work that the rest of the class is doing, try setting gifted students the additional task of defining and exemplifying words from a list of keywords or phrases. This could be vocabulary from the next level of the course or words that are less commonly used.

Another option is to present gifted pupils with three new keywords prior to the start of a written task. The idea is that students research the meaning and purpose of these words before including them in their writing.

Thinking at sentence level can also help you to make the language you use more challenging, whether this is in written feedback, within teaching resources or when speaking directly to gifted students. Complex sentences that contain extra clauses and detail are more difficult to make sense of. A useful approach is to imagine that you are speaking to a student a couple of years older than the student in front of you. This can help to raise the level of the language you are using.


4. More information, less context

The amount of information you give to students can help to determine the level of difficulty that a task poses. A large amount of information is generally more difficult to process than a smaller amount. Therefore, by giving gifted students more material we can push their thinking and challenge them to go further.

Try creating a supplemental sheet for gifted students that provides more information about a topic and can be added to the materials you are giving out to the class as a whole.

If you have the time, you also have the option to create two sets of resources; one for the class as a whole and one for your gifted students, including more information in the latter. A less labour-intensive alternative is to provide gifted students with multiple sources of information at the same time − a handout, an article and a textbook, for example.

Just as increasing the amount of information can make a text harder to make sense of, so can reducing the level of context. In order to successfully decode a text, we need some sort of context to situate it in. Who wrote it? When was it published? Why was it written? Without this context, understanding the text will be more difficult.

We add an extra layer of challenge by presenting gifted students with texts that are in unfamiliar formats, are from unusual sources or require additional research to make sense of.

5. Time limits

Time limits are one of the simplest tools for effectively challenging your most-able students. Knowing that you are working against a time constraint increases pressure and makes any task more challenging.

When a student finishes their work before the rest of the class, set them an extension task with a specified time limit. To really create a sense of momentum, display a countdown timer on the board. This will encourage other pupils to aim for these extension activities in the future.

You can find a useful online timer here: http://bit.ly/boardtimer

You might also try questioning gifted students one-on-one while giving time limits for their responses. For example, you might ask your first question and say that you require a response immediately. Then, you might ask a follow-up question, but give the pupil sixty seconds of thinking time before they have to answer.


6. Challenge tools

Challenge tools are little things you can make and then reuse over the course of a year to stretch the thinking of more-able students.

Try cutting out ten pieces of card, each about the size of a playing card. Label each one with one of the following categories:

● Question = a question about the work● Task = a further task connected to the work● Synthesis = students must create something● Evaluation = students must assess something● Time limit = a task or question with a strict time limit● Re-Re-Re = students must redo, rewrite or revisit part of their work● What if? = a question that starts with the words “what if…”● Design = students must design a question, task or new idea● Translation = students must translate an idea or piece of work into a

different medium● Randomiser = students choose which of the categories they would like

Once a gifted student has finished their other work, ask them to select a card at random. You can then provide a question or task based on the category they have drawn.

You can also arrange these categories in a grid. Divide a sheet of A4 into twenty equally-sized boxes and then write a challenge in each square. Laminate this sheet, ready to hand out to a student who needs an extra challenge. They can refer to this sheet whenever they finish regular classwork before other members of the class. They should aim to complete every box on this grid over the course of the year.

Dice are another tool you can use to ensure that you always have a simple way to push the thinking of gifted students. Simply get hold of two dice and then produce a numbered list of challenges. When a student has finished their work, ask them to roll the dice and then complete the task that corresponds to the number they have rolled.


Section two – Extension work

In any class, there will be students who regularly finish work before their peers. This is especially true of the gifted and talented, so a significant part of our provision for them must be ensuring that suitable extension tasks are always available. The following ideas will make sure that you always have a no-fuss extension on hand.

1. Include extension questions

An unobtrusive way to maintain a level of challenge for gifted students throughout the course of a lesson is to include quick extension questions or tasks on the presentation slides or other resources that you use in class. You can always use the same format for these extensions – place them in a box or use a particular font, for example – so that students can easily identify them.

A major benefit of incorporating extension tasks in this way is that it allows students to be adequately challenged without drawing attention to the fact that they are completing extra work. For less-confident students, this can be a real godsend.

What is more, these extensions are not exclusive to the gifted and talented. Other students can also attempt them when they have finished the main section of the work.


2. Evaluation and synthesis

When questioning gifted students, it can be helpful to refer to the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: evaluation and synthesis. This taxonomy, developed by a team of American educators in 1956, was designed to promote higher forms of thinking in the classroom.

Evaluation questions are challenging because they ask students to look at a topic holistically and take a critical standpoint, while synthesis involves using creative thought to produce something new.

One point to note when it comes to synthesis is that some pupils may struggle if not given any guidance about what their creations should include. To avoid this problem, you might like to suggest a set of criteria that students have to fulfil in the course of developing their ideas.

Similarly, you should take the time to coach students to make sure that they have all the tools they need to respond to the demands of evaluation questions. When you ask students to evaluate, you ask them to exercise their judgement. This is a great way to build confidence in their abilities but it is important to note that there is a difference between making judgements and giving opinions. The former should be supported by reasons, evidence and examples – this is where the mastery angle comes in.

If you are unsure about how to devise evaluation or synthesis questions, refer to my free resource The Bloom Buster at tes.com/teaching-resource/the-bloom-buster-6336786


3. Questions to test a partner

Rather than you doing all the questioning yourself, challenge gifted students to come up with questions that can be used to test other members of the class.

Here are three ways you might make this work:

● As a starter. When students have sat down, ask them to work independently to come up with three questions based on the previous lesson. Indicate to your gifted pupils that they should try to write three hard questions that they believe will be really challenging to answer. Give two or three minutes for this. When the time is up, invite students to challenge the person next to them with their questions.

● As an extension. When a pupil has finished the main body of work, ask them to come up with three questions based on the lesson that they think another student would find difficult to answer. When a second pupil finishes their work, the first student can go and ask them their questions.

● As a plenary. At the end of the lesson, invite all your students to come up with three questions based on the topic of study. Speak to your gifted students individually and challenge them to make their questions esoteric, ambiguous or complex. When everyone has done this, ask the class to stand up. Pupils now have to walk around the room and ask their questions to at least three of their peers, or to you.

You can ask pairs of gifted students to work together during these activities to make sure that the level of challenge remains high.


4. Peer teaching

This is an excellent method to employ when an activity is nearing its conclusion and your most-able pupils have completed the work before their peers. When this happens, invite the students who have finished to take on the role of teacher. This involves them circulating the room to offer support to those who are still working.

Many gifted pupils find teaching others difficult. This is because they have to take a step back and think about aspects of the work that they normally take for granted. As a result, it is a good way of stretching their thinking and encouraging them to pay closer attention to their own style of learning.

To extend this activity, you can challenge gifted students further by asking them to teach small groups, or even the whole class.

Here are three ways to structure this:

● Give a gifted student a short lesson segment, such as the starter or plenary, to plan. Allow them preparation time and then invite them to lead the whole class.

● Give a gifted student a specific idea or concept to teach. Indicate how long they will have and what prior knowledge they should expect from their peers.

● Give a gifted student a theme and tell them they are free to choose how they interpret this theme and the kind of activity they use to teach the class about it.

As has been noted, teaching is a challenge. It requires a sound understanding of the material which is being taught, a good knowledge of how to facilitate learning and sensitivity to the nuances of interaction and communication. By asking gifted students to take on the role of teacher, you will be challenging them to step up and deliver the goods in front of their peers.


5. Translation

Translating an item from one format to another is an excellent extension task to use in your lessons.

For example, you might ask students to translate a piece of written work into a more visual format, such as a diagram, storyboard or poster. You might also suggest that students translate their work into a song, drama performance or presentation for the rest of the class.

In translation tasks, you are challenging students to reassess their work, identify the key messages and repackage this in a new format, which potentially has a different purpose and associated demands.

6. Critical commentary

Reviewing your own work with a critical, objective eye is hard to do. This process can be particularly challenging for gifted students, who are used to getting things right first time.

However, being able to self-critique is an important skill to master if we are to progress and develop our abilities. To help students to get used to analysing their own work from an external perspective, set them the task of writing a critical commentary of their own work.

When a gifted pupil has finished a piece of work, ask them to write a detailed summary addressing the relative strengths and limitations of what they have produced.

Alternatively, give a gifted student a self-assessment task in which they have to go back through their work and annotate it to highlight strengths and indicate areas for improvement. Make sure that students have some guidance to help them do this, such as a mark scheme or a set of criteria for the work.


Section three − Higher-level thinking

Rather than allowing the most-able students in class to rest on their laurels, it is important to promote conscious, critical engagement with ideas and information. In this section we will look at a variety of techniques you can use to help gifted students to think in more developed and nuanced ways.

1. Banish cop-outs

When responding to questions, many students fall back on ‘cop-out’ answers. These are responses that either try to neutralise the question or do not require the respondent to think in any depth.

Here are some classic cop-outs:

● It’s just my opinion.● Everybody is different.● It’s a bit of one and a bit of the other.

Gifted students are as likely to use these as any other pupil – and they may be adept at coming up with new cop-out answers that are harder to spot than the old favourites. Allowing cop-out answers means letting pupils take the safe or easy route out, rather than challenging their thinking.

You can help gifted students to excel by banishing cop-outs. Whenever you spot one being used, draw attention to it and ask for an alternative response instead. Repeatedly identifying and disallowing cop-out answers will lead to improved thinking and higher-quality answers from your gifted students.

2. Insist on balance

A balanced argument or response takes account of multiple points of view. It means considering more than just our own ideological standpoint and accepting that what we think isn’t necessarily correct or complete.

As such, providing balance in our answers means putting forward a more realistic view. It also means producing a more advanced response that reflects careful thought on the part of the student.

You can insist on balance when giving formative feedback in books or verbally when students respond to your questions in class. You might also try producing a written list of success criteria specifically for gifted students that includes a requirement for balanced answers.

As with any technique that you want students to use, it is essential that you talk to them about what balance looks like and model how to produce more balanced responses to questions or problems.


3. Counter examples

Counter examples challenge students to reconsider the things they say.

Here is an example:

Student: The best way to decide where to put the solar panels is to work out which part of the roof is sunniest.

Teacher: But what about if we looked to see which part of the roof is the easiest for a builder to get to?

Here, the student has made a perfectly valid statement. However, the teacher’s counter example serves to extend the pupil’s thinking. In this case, the student has not thought about the practicalities of placing solar panels. The teacher is making sure that they consider the problem from different angles.

Counter examples help pupils to think around an issue. Because many gifted students think quickly and are able to analyse things at a fast pace, they can miss certain aspects of an idea or fail to cover all the bases. Counter examples work to mitigate this fact, helping pupils to arrive at more developed and meaningful answers.

4. Devil’s advocate

Playing devil’s advocate means taking a position that you do not necessarily agree with purely for the sake of debate or argument. This often means taking the opposite view to the person you are speaking to and responding to everything they say with an alternative or counter statement.

Devil’s advocate is a brilliant role to take on when discussing ideas with gifted students. It allows you to continually challenge their arguments and ideas, pushing them to take account of things they have not considered and examine the assumptions that their ideas rest on.

One of the risks with playing devil’s advocate is that students can become frustrated by the seemingly unending nature of the interrogation. To avoid this, make students aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it.

You can develop the use of devil’s advocate by inviting gifted students to take on the role, either when talking to you, when talking with peers or when mentally reviewing their own ideas and opinions.


5. Ethical dilemmas

Ethics is the study of morality; of the nature of right and wrong. Getting gifted students to think, talk and write about this area of philosophy will help them to challenge and critique their own moral positions as well as the structures of thought that underpin these.

We can make use of ethical dilemmas in almost any lesson. Issues of right and wrong play a part in all aspects of life and, therefore, all areas of the curriculum. Using ethical dilemmas will engage and motivate gifted students – everyone has moral views and most are prepared to defend these using argument.

You can find a range of classic ethical dilemmas by searching the key phrase on Google. You could also devise your own ethical dilemmas that are connected to your subject and lead discussions about them. For example, are poets obliged to tell the truth? Should scientists be held accountable for the consequences of their inventions?

For a more topical approach, present pupils with a current news story and ask them to analyse the ethical dimensions of it. Use questions such as: What is the main issue raised by this news story? Who are the different people or groups involved and where do they stand on the issue? What would the consequences be if the issue were to be resolved in the way suggested by X?

6. Riddles

Riddles are great fun, but they also encourage lateral thinking and the ability to make connections. You can get a wide range of riddles from the internet, which can then be used to challenge the thinking of gifted students, either during the course of their usual work or as an extension activity.

Here are some sites containing a wide range of riddles:

● Brain food: Riddles (http://bit.ly/riddles1)● Funology: Riddles (http://bit.ly/riddles2)● Good riddles (http://bit.ly/riddles3)

Another way to use riddles is by having your gifted students come up with their own. They can then try their creations out on you and their peers.


Section four − Expanding horizons

There comes a point where gifted students will need to move beyond what you do in class in order to truly expand their learning. The following suggestions will help you to open up opportunities for students to continue to learn independently beyond the boundaries of their timetabled lessons.

1. Wider reading

Not all gifted students are keen readers or are eager to read widely. It is all too common for students who do read for pleasure to stick to a particular interest or genre and pursue this at length. While any reading is to be encouraged, it is important that students are reading as widely as possible if we wish to really expand their horizons.

In order to support this, you might like to make a varied list of books connected to your subject and share these with gifted students. Try to include a mixture of fiction and non-fiction and to select works by writers from different times and cultural backgrounds in order to make the list diverse.

Alternatively, you might invite a gifted student to look through the school library with you while you recommend some relevant books that they might not have previously encountered.

Ask students to reflect on what they have read through writing book reviews or by presenting to the rest of the class about what they have learnt from their further reading about a topic. This will allow others to benefit from the shared knowledge and also give gifted students a greater sense of purpose for their reading.

2. Independent research

Independent research is a great way to motivate and challenge gifted students. This is because it gives them the freedom to pursue ideas in accordance with their own interests and to make decisions about the research process without anyone else intervening.

You can set gifted students a specific research question or topic as an extension activity or homework assignment. Give as little guidance as possible; simply ask that students present their research in what they believe to be the most appropriate format.

In cases where the whole class is working on a research activity, scaffold and specify for the class as a whole, but allow gifted students to conduct their research independently.

Rather than setting a specific task for these students, you might instead provide them with a list of possible research topics for them to choose from. This will further increase their sense of agency.


3. Image-based tasks

As gifted students are usually capable readers and writers, it is easy to fall back on text-based activities when coming up with new work for them. However, these students need variation in their learning as much as anyone else.

So why not try something a bit more visual by setting students an image-based research task? Find several websites that contains good selections of images that are related to your subject. Then set your gifted students one of the following tasks:

● Find an image that interests you. Write a response that explains why you chose this image and how it connects to your prior learning. Or, write a creative response to your image that makes reference to what you have learnt in class.

● Look at the image you have been given and imagine that you are part of the image. Explore this through writing or through discussion with a partner.

● Using the websites on this list, create a gallery of images that appeal to you. You will continue adding to your gallery through the course of the year and discuss your choices with your teacher at regular intervals.

4. News and comment

News and comment websites are easy to access and provide a wealth of thought-provoking material to engage or inspire your gifted students. Make a short list of the ones that you feel are most appropriate for the level of the students. Most national newspapers now host material online and you can also direct students to news sites that are targeted at a younger audience.

Once you have created your list, you can set a task related to the material on these sites for students to work on independently. Try one of the following:

● Print off an interesting or unusual article and ask a gifted student to review it for you. When they have done this, use it as a means to open up a discussion.

● Ask gifted students to find an article on one of the sites that they think is particularly interesting. Next lesson, either make time to discuss it with them or ask them to present the article to the whole class.

● Challenge gifted students to find out what is happening in a country that they know little about. You could turn this into an on-going challenge with a new country to research each week.


5. Go off-curriculum

It is likely that your gifted students will have a stronger grasp of the curriculum than the rest of the class. It therefore makes perfect sense that you might expand their horizons by taking them beyond the confines of what the curriculum dictates.

There are a number of ways to go about this. First, you might like to try simply talking to gifted pupils about ideas and concepts that are connected to the subject, but are not mandatory on the curriculum. If you are a subject specialist, this should be an easy task.

A second option is to suggest some themes or topic areas to students and then invite them to go off and research these on their own, with a view to reporting back their findings and opening up some sort of discussion with you. It can be useful to add a bit of structure by providing some success criteria or by giving pupils specific questions that you would like them to answer.

You can also ask students to conduct research and then present their findings to the whole class. This means that the rest of your students can benefit from the shared knowledge while the student at the front of the room is able to develop their presentation skills.

getting the most out of gifted students€¦ · teaching •how to use bloom’s taxonomy in the...

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