Tips for Teaching Gifted Students
If you have gifted students, you know they have unique academic needs. Help them reach their potential by following these tips for teaching gifted students.
The Challenges of Teaching Gifted Students
Gifted students are quick learners and readily absorb your lessons. That makes teaching easy!
However, teaching gifted students has its own challenges. This is especially true if you have a classroom of students with a wide range of abilities.
Keeping Gifted Students Engaged
Gifted students grasp concepts and often complete work much faster than their peers.
It can be challenging to keep them engaged in lessons.
They may become bored and find alternative ways to entertain themselves, distracting others in the process.
Differentiating Instruction
The wider the spectrum of abilities in your classroom, the more differentiated instruction you need.
Gifted students need more challenging material to stay engaged.
Teaching gifted students requires that you do some extra planning and preparation to adapt your lessons to their needs.
Managing Anxiety and Burnout
Gifted students may have to manage high expectations from teachers, family, and peers.
This can be anxiety-producing and, in some cases, lead to burnout.
As a teacher of gifted students, you need to be sensitive to the social-emotional needs of your gifted students.
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Tips for Teaching Gifted Students
Although teaching gifted students presents unique challenges, you can smooth the way to success by following these tips.
Utilize Tiered Assignments
With a wide range of levels in your classroom, you will need to differentiate instruction.
Although your teaching objective is the same for all your students, assign tasks with varying levels of difficulty.
No matter the level of difficulty, all the tasks should share the same core elements and learning outcomes.
For example, if your learning objective is that “Students will be able to analyze the theme of sacrifice in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” you can use these tiers:
Tier 1 (Advanced): Write an essay comparing two characters and how they embody the theme of sacrifice. Use quotations from the book as evidence.
Tier 2 (Intermediate): Make a character chart of two characters from the novel and how they embody the theme of sacrifice. Use examples from the book.
Tier 1 (Basic): Make a storyboard of three scenes from the novel that show the theme of sacrifice. Write a one-sentence caption for each scene.
Go for Depth, Not Breadth
Because gifted students finish work quickly, it can be tempting to assign them more work to keep them busy.
This busywork occupies them, but it does not help them.
Instead, make your assignments more in-depth and draw out higher-level thinking skills.
Encourage Critical Thinking
Gifted students love to develop their critical thinking skills. They are ready for higher-level thinking.
Don’t just quiz them on facts. Ask open-ended questions.
Have them define, compare, relate, analyze, and support various terms. (e.g., “Compare gardening to writing. How are they the same? How are they different?”)
Give them tasks that require problem-solving.
Gifted students will often find independent research time engaging and rewarding. (Just make sure you are checking in frequently.)
Provide Enrichment Activities
Enrichment activities are (often) optional activities that take the lesson one step further.
Since gifted students finish most assignments quickly, they will enjoy having creative enrichment activities as an option.
These activities may involve creative writing, projects, or related independent research.
Give Them Choice
Gifted students are especially motivated by their own interests.
When possible, give them a choice in their assignments and projects.
For example, you can give them a choice of three enrichment activities.
Or you could allow them to choose their own related topic for independent research.
Foster a Growth Mindset
Gifted students are often perfectionists who struggle with fear of failure.
Cultivate a growth mindset with all your students; gifted students will benefit from this as well.
Read more on how to foster a growth mindset with students.
Create a Supportive Environment
Every learner, regardless of level, thrives in a safe learning environment.
You want your students to feel comfortable taking risks and be creative problem solvers.
Creative problem-solving involves trying a lot of different tactics, many of which will fail.
Cultivating a supportive learning environment can help gifted students (who are often perfectionists) feel relaxed and empowered to try new things.
Assign Collaborative Tasks
Collaborative learning is a help to gifted students.
By partnering with other students who have different learning styles and abilities, gifted students gain perspective and practice social skills.
Everyone, regardless of academic ability, must work to develop their communication skills.
Be Ready to Pivot
Observe and assess (both formally and informally) your gifted students to ensure that you are reaching them.
Be flexible. Even if you are following these tips to a T, you may need to adjust your approach and try new things.
(Remember, your classroom is a safe learning environment for you, too!)
Instead of locking yourself into the mindset of “This should work, so why isn’t it?”, remember that flexibility is the name of the game.
Gifted students are not all the same. You need to tailor your approach to fit the needs of your individual students.
Reaching Gifted Students
Teaching gifted students is both fun and challenging. It requires creativity, understanding, and flexibility.
Your job as a classroom teacher is demanding. You have to teach a whole class of kids with a wide range of abilities.
By being mindful of the needs of gifted students and following these tips, you can reach your gifted students with just a little effort.
