How to Create Rules and Guidelines in Gifted and Talented Classrooms

Students who leave the regular classroom for gifted classroom often discover they are in a distinctly different learning environment.

Creating and maintaining a positive learning environment in the gifted classroom is essential for student success. Gifted classrooms are often a haven for g/t kids; they are able to reveal sides of their personalities in the increased comfort that is borne of being in a homogeneous group. However, the group is only homogeneous to a degree, and soon conflicts abound. It is important to establish rules and visit them frequently, as new students are often identified and placed mid-year.

Because many gifted students stay with the same teacher for several years, it is to the students' benefit if the teacher makes broad rules that can be adjusted as time goes by. Some teachers like to involve students in creating classroom rules, but because gifted education involves frequent additions after the start of school, it seems unfair to create rules without some of the participants. It may be better to have student input on procedures related to rules, and revisit those procedures on a regular basis. For example, if one rule is that students must bring supplies to class, the class may vote on procedures to deal with students that do not bring supplies. Should the students bring extra supplies to loan out to one another? Should the empty-handed student have to return to his or her locker to get supplies?

Having rules established when students walk in, and posting rules on the wall, helps establish boundaries for students. The rules of the gifted classroom can be discussed with parents during placement into the program. To create rules, the teacher should consider the duration of the program and activities in the classroom.

If students are coming to a pull-out classroom once or twice a week, the classroom rules need to be easy to remember. A lot of rules will lead to a lot of overwhelmed students. If they are allowed to use their pencils in their other classes but only pens in the gifted classroom, the teacher should have a supply of pens. It is not easy for children to remember rules of a class they attend infrequently. Classes that meet daily are able to have more rules, but again, any rules that are atypical for the student's general experience should be highlighted on a regular basis.
Activities Impact Classroom Rules

Preserving student safety and teacher sanity should be the primary goal of rules. If students are not safe, they will not learn. If teachers are uncomfortable with the amount of movement and noise in a room, the quality of their teaching may reflect their discomfort. It is best to have a rules that everyone can understand and follow. Rules should be given with situations and procedures to help students understand the how to follow the rule. For example:

Rule: Students will respect their classroom materials.

Situation: If a student is working in a center, he or she will leave the center clean and ready to be used by the next person.

Procedure: When a student is done at a center, look at the checklist and make sure all of the supplies are returned to their original areas.

Gifted classrooms have more flexibility than regular classrooms, but students need rules to take advantage of the opportunities a flexible classroom offers. A supportive classroom has boundaries, and boundaries designed with g/t kids in mind will actually increase the sense of flexibility in the classroom.

Embrace Gifted Education Strategies to Fill Public Schooling Gaps

Embrace Gifted Education Strategies to Fill Public Schooling Gaps

For gifted education to work well, public schools should incorporate different service approaches for students. Eagle County demonstrates what works.

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Online Education Degrees in Gifted and Talented Education

Online Education Degrees in Gifted and Talented Education

Teachers have options for getting G/T certifications. Certificates and masters of arts and science degrees are available from two respected universities.

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Creative Problem Solving in Gifted Classrooms: Gifted Students Can Create Creative Questions and Creative Answers

Creative Problem Solving in Gifted Classrooms: Gifted Students Can Create Creative Questions and Creative Answers

Teaching Creative Problem Solving

The first phase of creative problem solving is understand what type of answer a question is truly seeking. Providing students with a list of question terms and the type of answers they require will offer clarity throughout the unit. Having such a list not only helps students answer questions, but it will help them phrase questions more correctly.

Understanding What Questions Are Asking

The following list should be provided to students and posted in the classroom. It is not necessary to make students memorize the list; gifted students will likely pick up on these standards innately.

• If a question asks "how", it is asking for a procedure or instruction.
• If a question asks "what", it is asking for a description.
• If a question asks "when", it is asking for a time or duration.
• If a question asks "where", it is asking for a location.
• If a question asks "who", it is asking for identification.
• If a question asks "why", it is asking for an explanation.
  

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Teaching Flexible Thinking in Gifted Classrooms: A Wide Range of Answers is Vital to Creative Problem Solving

Teaching Flexible Thinking in Gifted Classrooms: A Wide Range of Answers is Vital to Creative Problem Solving

Once students master fluency and flexibility, they are able to generate lists of potential solutions for given problems. These are foundational steps for creative problem solving, and they give students the luxury of having many options to choose from when determining the best answer.

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Teaching Fluency in Gifted Classrooms: Generating Ideas is an Important Part of Creative Problem Solving

Teaching Fluency in Gifted Classrooms: Generating Ideas is an Important Part of Creative Problem Solving

When teaching creative problem solving, it is important that students understand the concept of fluency, the ability to generate a lot of ideas on a given topic.

Fluency is one element of creative problem solving, and it is a foundation element that should be taught early in the problem solving process. Combined with flexibility and frequency, fluent idea generation is a basic step that students should feel comfortable taking when asked to solve problems, and the gifted classroom is the perfect place to learn such techniques.

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How Schools Determine Giftedness

How Schools Determine Giftedness: Teacher Compliments Are Different From District Assessments

It is always nice to hear a teacher or friend compliment a child by saying, "That one is gifted!", but placement into a district program requires more than compliments.

In general, students are given an assessment of intelligence (I.Q. test) by a qualified person, such as a trained gifted teacher or guidance counselor, a district psychometric tester, a psychologist, or a contracted tester from a university. School districts offer these services, but many accept recent private test results if the district uses the test. It is important to check with specific districts to see what tests are accepted before contracting private testing, because most children need to wait a specific amount of time before re-testing.

Common Intelligence Tests Used for Gifted Education

While I.Q. testing is not the only method of placement, it is usually an important factor in the evaluation of the assessment team. While different schools accept different tests, these are the most commonly used tests. They are given to a child individually (as opposed to a group of students testing) by a qualified tester

• CTONI (Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence) tests children aged 6 and up. It tests non-verbal cognitive ability.
• KBIT-2 (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, 2nd Edition) tests children aged 4 and up. It tests verbal and non-verbal cognitive ability.
• NNAT-I (Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test - Individual) tests children aged 5 and up. It tests non-verbal reasoning ability.
• SBIS-V or SB-5 (Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, 5th Edition) tests children aged 2 and up. It is a test of cognitive ability.
• SPM (Raven Standard Progressive Matrices) tests children aged 6 and up. It is a test of reasoning and perception. It is sometimes given if confidence intervals on a previously given test are low, of if a child has limited English skills.
• WISC-IV (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th Edition) tests children aged 6 and up. It is a test of general and specific cognitive abilities. There is also an integrated WISC-IV that is more specific.
• WJ-III (Woodcock-Johnson III NU Tests of Cognitive Abilities) tests children aged 2 and up. It is a test of general intelligence and cognitive ability.
• UNIT (Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test) tests children aged 5 and up. It is used for general intelligence and sometimes given if other tests had questionable confidence intervals.

Parents should not let a test or a school district be the sole definition of "giftedness", because all children have some special gifts to offer. However, for academic placement and optimal services, school districts should not let parent and teacher compliments be the sole definition of "giftedness". Using testing and team evaluations, schools can offer students placement in programs that allow them to work with teachers who are trained in working with students who are, for lack of a better word, "gifted".

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Creating Effective Quiz Bowl Questions

In scholastic quiz bowl competitions, the questions are as important than the answers, because a player can't answer a muddled question. Good questions equal good games.

Nothing frustrates quiz bowl players as much as a confusing question. Players look at their coaches, wondering if they should risk an answer on a poorly worded question. Coaches frown at each other, wondering if the poor word choice is worth tossing the question. Soon someone buzzes in and gives a possible answer, only to find that the question was misleading. The question is tossed, time is wasted, and everyone wonders, "Who wrote these questions?".

Write Open Questions

Even though any question that has limited answers is technically a closed question, in the world of quiz bowl, a closed question has two answers, such as yes/no or true/false. These questions should be avoided because if one team answers incorrectly, the other team will automatically get it correct. This is frustrating because it amounts to gaining an unearned point.

Clear Questions Have Clear Answers

Questions need to be short and pointed. Long questions or questions that include unnecessary detail are harder to understand. An example of differences in phrasing can be found in these two questions: "George Washington is famous for having wooden teeth. However, his false teeth were not actually made of wood. What were his teeth actually made from?" and "What were George Washington's false teeth made of?". Players might buzz in with the incorrect answer of "wood", but they also might buzz in with the correct answer of "bone". Quiz bowls are competitions of knowledge, not competitions of focus.

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Using Quiz Bowl in a Gifted Classroom

Gifted classrooms give students opportunities to work and play with their similarly-paced peers, and one activity students love is quiz bowl competitions.

Many secondary schools have official academic teams, and being on a scholastic bowl team is a rewarding experience. However, not every student can be involved in extra-curricular teams. Quiz bowl is an excellent gifted classroom experience, because all students can participate in all steps. Everyone gets a chance to buzz and shine individually, but there is the security of working together in an setting that encourages healthy competition.

Setting Up A Classroom Quiz Bowl

Having a real buzzer set makes all the difference, because students can answer in a split second and the buzzer will indicate who really did buzz in first. Buzzers can be found by searching for “quiz system buzzers”, “lock out buzzers”, or “player recognition systems”.

Arrange the desks to face the person asking the questions, not the opposing team. An outlet needs to be accessible for the buzzer set, and a scoreboard (such as a white board) should be visible.

Creating Questions

It is tempting to just open a box of Trivial Pursuit cards, but it is best to get questions from research. Students enjoy researching questions and answers, and question libraries grow quickly.

Questions need to be open, meaning they are not multiple choice or yes/no. Usually, questions are written on a theme, such as “Award-Winners”.

It is important that the required answer is clear. The question, “Which states border Utah?” is less clear than“Which six states border Utah?”.

Rules and Procedures of Game Play

It is important to establish if teams are allowed to discuss answers before buzzing. In Scholastic Bowl competitions, discussion is limited to written portions of games, but classrooms have flexibility.

A quiz bowl buzzer set is an excellent investment for a gifted classroom and for gifted children, because students enjoy competition, benefit from new challenges, and build skills for future opportunities.

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Sometimes Censorship is Spelled M-O-M

Helping gifted children choose appropriate reading materials is a tricky road; gifted children tend to read voraciously and at high levels.

These reading habits are understandable characteristics of giftedness; gifted children are cognitively more developed than is normally expected. However, gifted readers need guidance in book selection. A child reading at a college level is not necessarily ready for college material. Just because a ten year old can comprehend Anne Rice's writing does not mean that a ten year old is ready to meet the Vampire Lestat.

This, then, becomes the difficulty for parents. Children of all reading abilities tend to enjoy books about people slightly older than they are, so a ten year old will relate to and be interested in books about thirteen year olds more than books about twenty year olds. Finding books written at a high interest, high ability level requires time and work.

Choosing Books

Doing an advanced book search at Amazon.com and highlighting the appropriate age range is one tool. Amazon also provides book reviews, and reading those reviews is an excellent start. The reviews are usually written by adults, but sometimes there are child reviews. If there are no child reviews, beware: this is not a book for children.

Sometimes gifted children need to hear, “We'll put this book up until your life experience catches up to your reading level.” When parents say that, they need to drive directly to the library or bookstore and find a book that is of the appropriate interest level. Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series is more a more appropriate vampire series than Interview with a Vampire or Dracula.

Helping gifted children pick out appropriate reading materials helps keep them in common experience with their peers and helps preserve childhood a little longer, which are admirable goals in themselves.

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