Working with Gifted Students By Joseph

Mentoring Research and case studies focusing on mentors and mentorships often address the effects of the mentor in terms of career advancement, particularly for women. The research emphasis on professional advancement and success takes priority over clarifying the basic characteristics of the relationship and its importance to gifted students. Kaufmann's study of Presidential Scholars from 1964 to 1968 included questions pertaining to the nature, role, and influence of their most significant mentors. Having a role model, support, and encouragement were the most frequently stated benefits. Respondents also stated that they strongly benefited from mentors who set an example, offered intellectual stimulation, communicated excitement and joy in the learning process, and understood them and their needs.

Challenging Activities Provide gifted students with challenging independent activities for their free time in class. Gifted students often have a lot of free time in class as they usually finish their work early. Give them activities that are difficult but intriguing, instead of just more of the same work that they can speed through. For example, you could ask a fifth grader to sketch the floor plan of a house or read chapters from an advanced novel and write a book review.

Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms taxonomy should be the main guide in teaching gifted students. Blooms taxonomy allows for critical thinking that progresses from the most basic to the most complex. Blooms taxonomy is mainly used when the educator is writing the objectives and goals that should be achieved by the students. Gifted students objectives and goals should utilize the more complicated ones like analysis, synthesis and evaluation. An academically gifted student should be asked to analyze information and usually what is expected of the student is for them to compare or contrast, solve some information, investigate, examine, classify and inspect information. The end result should be a report, a conclusion, a plan, a survey a solution to mystery or mock crime scene and questionnaire.

Academic Competitions Research academic competitions available to students in your school and encourage your gifted students to enter. This will help motivate students who often feel boredom in class. These competitions could be anything from playwriting contests to building car models that run on alternative energy sources. Whatever it is, the competition should be fun and challenging for the student.

Material for Gifted Students Order materials created specifically for the gifted student for your classroom. You can tweak some of these lessons for the class and give a more challenging version to gifted students. These materials challenge students in a range of academic disciplines while developing their higher level thinking skills and problem-solving abilities.

Citations Information was found from a variety of sources located on the list page.