Curriculum & Strategies: Reflection 3
Participation in the Gifted Endorsement Program has changed my approach to curriculum development in all of my classes. As a second-year teacher, most of my lessons are untried. It's nerve-wracking to create and teach new lessons, and I find that I often overcompensate for my lack of experience in the classroom by over-planning. My lesson plans often have very specific end goals for what I want my students to conclude from their activities. Although it IS important to create very specific learning goals, I also created specific goals for what and how I wanted my students to think. My experiences in the gifted endorsement program have helped my realize how foolish that goal is. I now focus more on creating opportunities for open-ended questions and activities. This is especially clear in my assessments: the questions are open-ended and performance tasks are more varied now. Not only do I assess through multiple choice and formal writing, but also through creative projects, speeches, discussions, and visuals. My comfort level with open-ended discussions has sky-rocketed, and this has allowed me to explore more group work with my gifted students. The result of these changes has been amazing: my students have proven that their ability to think and experience the world around continually goes beyond my expectations. My experiences with the Creative Problem Solving and Circle of Knowledge lesson plans support my conclusions that the students definitely create and think more when I don't give them a "right" answer at the end. This has also challenged my gifted and non-gifted-identified high achievers to make room for multiple interpretations, which has enriched their reading of fiction and non-fiction texts.
I also find that my experiences in the Gifted Endorsement Program have created an emphasis on critical thinking in my classroom. Although critical thinking is NOT one of the Common Core standards, it is part of the TAG standards. I also believe that is it the key to unlocking a meaningful education for gifted students. Our school has made a commitment to Higher Order Thinking this year, and on my wall is a gigantic chart of Bloom's Taxonomy. I spent a good deal of class time investing in discussions of critical thinking and other metacognitive ideas. Although metacognitive discussions are only part of a few theoretical gifted programming models, such as International Baccalaureate, I find that they have made a huge difference in how my students apply themselves to their work in my class. For that reason, I have a very transparent classroom, and my students respect my assignments and instruction more because they understand the purpose of each activity and assessment. It also makes sense to focus on critical thinking skills when considering how students will use their education in the future. With the ability to access all information on the internet, I believe that focusing on the ability to identify credible knowledge when researching is much more important than memorizing knowledge.
I also find that my experiences in the Gifted Endorsement Program have created an emphasis on critical thinking in my classroom. Although critical thinking is NOT one of the Common Core standards, it is part of the TAG standards. I also believe that is it the key to unlocking a meaningful education for gifted students. Our school has made a commitment to Higher Order Thinking this year, and on my wall is a gigantic chart of Bloom's Taxonomy. I spent a good deal of class time investing in discussions of critical thinking and other metacognitive ideas. Although metacognitive discussions are only part of a few theoretical gifted programming models, such as International Baccalaureate, I find that they have made a huge difference in how my students apply themselves to their work in my class. For that reason, I have a very transparent classroom, and my students respect my assignments and instruction more because they understand the purpose of each activity and assessment. It also makes sense to focus on critical thinking skills when considering how students will use their education in the future. With the ability to access all information on the internet, I believe that focusing on the ability to identify credible knowledge when researching is much more important than memorizing knowledge.
Supporting Evidence
Underneath the Curriculum & Strategies tab above, you can find the tabs to the seven teaching strategies and performance tasks outlined by FCS Gifted Certification program. Each strategy has a full lesson plan, all required resources and handouts available for download, and student examples included.