The Ideal Classroom for Gifted

and High Achieving Students —

Inside: Leadership Development Special Populations Differentiation Assessment Outline of classroom needs Some pictures of an ideal classroom Meeting Students’ Intellectual Needs Student Engagement What does the ideal classroom look like? Enrichment Opportunities Building Relationships Community Involvement Increasing Rigor Deepening Depth of Knowledge Resources

Resources Calero, F. R., Dalley, C., Fernandez, N., Davenport-Dalley, T. M., Morote, E., & Tatum, S. L. (2013). A Model of Academic Self-Concept for High School Hispanic Students in New York. Journal of Latinos and Education, 13(1), 33-43.

Ellerbrock, C. R., Abbas, B., Dicicco, M., Denmon, J. M., Sabella, L., & Hart, J. (2015, May 1). Rela-tionships-The Fundamental R in Education: Teachers Must Create Caring Communities for the Adolescents in Their Classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan.

Bruce-Davis, M. N., & Chancey, J. M. (2012). Connecting students to the real world: Developing gifted behaviors through service learning. Psychol. Schs. Psychology in the Schools, 49(7), 716-723. 2.

Parent, Family, Community Involvement in Education NEA Education Policy and Practice Depart-ment | Center for Great Public Schools | 1201 16th St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036

Developing Leadership Skills in Young Gifted Students by Amy Bisland WINTER 2004 • VOL. 27, NO. 1 GIFTED CHILD TODAY

Leadership development program fulfills gifted students’ need, Monica Florida, Spring 2004, Tempo, Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented 7-9cause part of our job is to prepare them to succeed in college.

Rick Wormeli: Formative and Summative Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4

Rick Wormeli: Formative and Summative Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4

Matusevich, M. N., O'connor, K. A., & Hargett, M. V. (2009). The Nonnegotiables of Academic Rigor. Gifted Child Today, 32(4), 44-52.

Mccollister, K., & Sayler, M. F. (2010). Lift the Ceiling Increase Rigor with Critical Thinking Skills. Gifted Child Today, 33(1), 41-47.

International Center for Leadership in Education. (2010). Teacher Questions by Quadrant.

Fertig, A. (2015, April 15). 5 Qualities Every Employer Wants in a Job Candidate. Retrieved Febru-ary 18, 2016, from http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2015/04/15/5-qualities-every-employer-wants-in-a-job-candidate

Considering Non-Academic Outside Activities for Your Child. Duke TIP. (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2016, from http://tip.duke.edu/node/1649

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A Guide for Parents

Students use art to show

understanding of conics

Students

use a

device to

cut perfect

slices of a

potato and

compare

the

Increasing Rigor and Deepening Depth of Knowledge

We increase rigor and depth of knowledge in our classroom in

numerous ways. For example, we have several projects with a

cross-curricular focus. For example, students in an AP Statistics

class met literature, art and math standards when they created

board games and games of chance to demonstrate their under-

standing of probability and game theory. Calculus students ex-

plored the concept of integration through the use of potato slic-

es. These and other activities require students to not only un-

derstand the material at a surface level but also at a deep level,

because they are forced to explore mathematical concepts in

real-world contexts.

Paper. Lots and lots

of paper from small to

banner-sized is critical

in the ideal classroom

to allow students to

express ideas and

show content

mastery.

Having lots of whiteboard

space is a great way to

Gifted students need the opportunity to work alone

or in groups. Moveable tables and chairs allow

flexibility for both types of activities.

The Ideal Classroom for Gifted and High Achieving Students

Julie Kokan Jeff Kent For more information, see our repository at: http://giftedcertificationclass.weebly.com/

Our gifted students are great at building relationships between concepts, but they also need to build relationships be-tween each other and with their teach-ers. Since our classes are diverse and encompass a wide variety of cultures, a lot of what we do works to help our stu-dents learn about each other’s culture. We also try to use culturally relevant examples, literature, word problems, and settings in our classroom. Our col-laboration space and reference library/technology center help us accomplish these goals.

Building Relationships and Community Involvement

Collaboration space provides an area for students to work together. The space has tables and chairs that can easily be moved to create any sized-group. It is great for when we want to talk as a big group about an issue or a problem, but it is also excellent for small group work and small group sharing.

The technology center is great for allowing our students to share back-grounds. We often have Google Chats in the technology center, which allows students to chat with each other without having to stare each other in the face, allowing them to be more open.

We also use our technology center to reach out and do service learning projects. For example, we have built websites for some of the service groups within our school. We have performed data collection and analy-sis for various government and pri-vate science projects, including NASA, CDC, and Captain Planet.

Another great use of our collaboration center

is meeting with members of our community.

Community involvement is important to help

keep our students in school instead of drop-

ping out. It sounds counterintuitive that gift-

ed children would drop out of school; howev-

er, studies show that they do. Therefore,

having a supportive community around us

helps us keep these kids in school, and a

collaboration center fosters that community

involvement by providing ample meeting

space.

Bu

ildin

g R

ela

tion

ship

s

Leadership Development—Although our gifted kids have the in-tellect to be great leaders, they still need to be taught leadership skills. Our labora-tory area gives them the perfect place to do this. We allow our students to design their own experiments and run their own lab groups. Students take turns being the head of the lab, in charge of a piece of equipment, accountant for the lab, or a lab intern. If a student thinks of another role he wants to try, we certainly give him the opportunity. This is another place where we get the community involved. We often Skype with professors and graduate students from our local universities and from around the world while working on our labs.

Leadership

Development

Another place our students learn leadership skills is in our makerspace. We often use our makerspace to sim-ulate businesses. Students take on different roles in a business and cre-ate a product, budget, marketing plan, and business plan. Local busi-ness leaders work with our students as mentors. We bring in community members to take market surveys and do product testing. This gives our students an opportunity to try out different leadership styles, use deci-sion making skills, and develops a camaraderie amongst the group.

Our reference library is great for learning about world leaders of today and the past. Reading biographies of world leaders is a great way for stu-dents to build a leadership toolbox.

Our students participate in many state, national, and international competitions. These include Sie-mens, Intel, Google, Junior Science and Humanities Symposia, BioGE-NEius, DuPont, Exploravision, Na-tional Novel Writing Month, Young Georgia Authors Writing Competi-tion, and many more. In order for our students to be successful in these competitions, they need re-sources. Our laboratory, makerspace and reference library/technology center provide them with these re-sources.

Enrichment Opportunities Our students also publish the world’s first and only peer-reviewed journal run by a single

high school. This journal provides an outlet for students to have research papers reviewed by peers, teachers and sub-ject-matter experts and published in a national journal, an honor usually reserved for professors

and graduate students.

Why are these enrichment opportu-

nities so important? Gifted students

need to be challenged and stimulat-

ed outside of our curriculum. These

students’ peers are the gifted popu-

lation around the world. These en-

richment opportunities allow them

to think outside the box, meet kids

from around the world, and learn

many new things. Having these re-

sources allows our students to be

international competitors.

Our classroom is designed to

meet the needs of all gifted stu-

dents. We have a culturally di-

verse school, and our gifted pro-

gram matches the demographics

of our school. We also have many

twice exceptional students in our

program, and our room is de-

signed to work with their needs

and help them challenge them-

selves.

For example, some

students have diffi-

culty functioning in

loud environments.

Obviously, group

projects with col-

laboration, con-

struction and other

activities can get

loud. We have a

“quiet room,” at-

tached with an

open door, which

can be used as a

relatively quiet

space to give a

break for students

who need a quieter

place to work while

others can still engage in more

active activities. This space also

provides a staging ground for

small groups to use before mak-

ing a presentation to the entire

class.

We also have resources from di-

verse sources so that our stu-

dents will be able to explore cul-

tures, examples and materials

from diverse groups. These re-

sources not only help diverse stu-

dents feel more comfortable, they

teach students to value diversity.

Special Populations

In order to optimize the educa-

tion of our gifted students, we

have designed a classroom to

meet their needs. This classroom

is part reference library/

technology center, part mak-

erspace, part science lab, part

collaboration space, and part col-

lege lecture hall. Another im-

portant feature is our window to

the outside. Each of these pieces

serves different needs of gifted

students. It is a place where stu-

dents can feel safe, where they

can express and develop their

creativity, where they can ex-

plore, where they can collabo-

rate, and, most of all, where they

can learn. It is flexible, meaning

it can be easily rearranged to al-

low small group, large group and

individual work.

What does the ideal classroom for a gifted or high achieving

class look like?

Differentiation—Our classroom is all about differentia-

tion. From collaborative learning to hands on learning to occa-sional lecture, many different learning styles are taken into ac-count. Students have the opportunity to apply what they learn in many different ways. Often people don’t think of gifted students as needing differentia-tion. Gifted students are thought of as a monolith of smart peo-ple. However, like everyone else, gifted students have strengths and weaknesses. We also have some ELL students, and we work to meet their WIDA goals. Therefore, we have many levels of reading materi-als, scaffolding for math problems, and try to spark interest with many different students.

Assessment—We often let

students choose different ways to show us what they know. For exam-ple, some students keep a digital portfolio, and will often turn in work by blog post. Others will do a pod-cast or a video. Some students pre-fer writing a traditional essay. If their method of demonstrating the knowledge demonstrates their knowledge, we will often let them do it. However, we often give tradition-al assessments, and we seek to find ways to meet students’ needs in learning how to succeed on these assessments as well. Our classroom has the flexibility to be configured to multiple assessment styles.

An ideal classroom for gifted students has supplies to allow students to be creative

and explore topics more deeply than in traditional classrooms.

Designing, building and

testing are important ways

to differentiate lessons.

Having a flexible classroom

gives space to do so.

Teaching for Learning: A Philosophical Approach

To Classroom Design for High Achieving Students

1. Classrooms should facilitate student engagement

a. Highly accessible for all students including those with disabilities b. Many electrical outlets c. Multiple display/work surfaces (white boards, etc.) d. Comfortable furniture

e. Rolling and swiveling chairs

f. Movable tables g. Mobile/multiple whiteboards to record student work h. Robust lighting control

2. Classrooms should facilitate student collaboration

a. Use of modular tables

b. Rolling and swiveling chairs

c. Movable tables d. Semi-private breakout spaces connected to main learning space e. Mobile/multiple whiteboards to record student work

3. Classrooms should facilitate connections between & students

a. Wide aisles both horizontally and vertically

b. Movable tables c. Rolling and swiveling chairs d. All students easily visible, seating begins near to instructor area e. Semi-private breakout spaces connected to main learning space f. Many electrical outlets g. Multiple, simultaneously visible display/work surfaces (white bds, etc.)

4. Classrooms should incorporate appropriate technology

a. Many electrical outlets b. Instructor station with Tablet PC-like technology c. Multiple electronic display surfaces (LCD projectors, etc.) d. Reliable network connectivity e. Printing/copying availability f. Robust lighting controls

5. Classrooms should have flexible physical arrangement

a. Wide aisles both horizontally and vertically

b. Movable tables c. Rolling and swiveling chairs

d. Highly accessible furnishings for all students including those with disabilities e. Reconfigurable space for lecture/lab work f. Multiple, simultaneously visible display/work surfaces

Education is nothing if students are not

engaged in what they are learning. All

of these opportunities we are giving

them allow for a much higher level of

engagement, which allows them to

learn more, which makes them more

engaged.

One way we encourage student engage-

ment is through Genius Hour. One hour,

twice a week, we allow students to work

on their own project. They have full run

of our facilities to research, experiment,

and try things out on any topic they

want. This allows our students to make

connections that we don’t know exist.

We never want our students’ learning to

be bounded by the teacher’s knowledge.

Letting students write on

desks is a great way to

enhance experimentation

and

creativity.

Flexible classrooms allow students

to break into small groups for

discussion, research and problem-

Student Engagement

Having ample

space and a

flexible

classroom even

allows for

rewards such as

Ping Pong

Technology is critical

for research, design and

collaboration. Desktop

computers, laptops,

tablets and cell phones

are all important tools

in the ideal classroom.

A room which meets the social and emotional needs of our students

Gifted students have myriad emotional needs. Many are more ma-

ture than their non-gifted peers; some are socially awkward; some

have interests different from other students; many times they want

to be with their peers; sometimes they want to be alone. In other

words, the characteristics of a gifted student are as varied as that of

other teenagers, albeit sometimes in different ways. Our ideal

classroom has a large open space that can be configured for groups

and individuals. It also has a smaller attached room which can be

used in tandem with the larger room to meet the unique emotional

and social needs of the gifted students. Primarily, however, our

classroom feels safe and welcoming. We have examples of student

work all around the room; we have places were students can con-

gregate; we have places where students can congregate and inter-

act; and we have places where students can be alone.

Meeting Students’ Intellectual Needs Gifted and high achieving students have intellec-

tual needs that are different from other stu-

dents. Although such students are as

varied as any other group of students,

many gifted and high achieving stu-

dents have the following characteris-

tics: they are very curious ; they ask

deep questions; they sometimes pre-

fer to work alone; they are creative;

they are extremely observant; they

want to explore deeply; they day-

dream; and they want to learn about

things that interest them. Our class-

room takes into consideration these

intellectual needs and meets those

needs by challenging students to

think differently and deeper and to

explore.

Our classroom has technology, includ-

ing desktop computers, a smart board,

laptops, audio-video equipment and Wi-fi,

which allows students to explore beyond the

constraints of textbooks and teacher lectures. It

has resource materials for exploration, art ma-

terials for self-expression, examples of student

work for inspiration, and quiet areas for individ-

ual reflection and work.

Gifted students discuss complex

combinatorics algorithms using a maze

they build in our classroom.

Students are able to

select projects that suit

their strengths,

learning styles and

educational needs.

Here, students show

off games of chance

they created for our

probability unit.

Our flexible classroom is big enough

to allow us to create a human dotplot.

Given space, resources and

gifted students, there is no limit

to what one might see in a gifted

classroom.

Math is more fun when

students are able to guide their

learning and create new things.