In 1955, Robert C. Wilson called gifted students the most neglected children in the classroom. Seven decades later, his words continue to ring true. Some studies estimate that up to half of all gifted students may be underachieving during compulsory education.
While you, as a teacher, may not be able to do much to address socioeconomic factors at play, adapting your teaching strategy can go a long way. Here’s what you should know if you want to learn how to teach gifted students.
Who Are Gifted Students, Exactly?
Before we dive into how to teach gifted students, let’s be clear: there’s no universally accepted definition for a gifted student. That’s because there are different types of intelligence, and some of its aspects are malleable.
Generally speaking, it’s best to think of gifted students as those who display a remarkable ability and performance in a certain field compared to their peers. But beware: not all gifted students are prodigies who earn outstanding grades in every subject imaginable.
Different Types of Giftedness: No One-Size-Fits-All Definition
Just like Mozart would probably struggle with calculus, a gifted student isn’t guaranteed to ace every subject. Some students might have a knack for problem-solving; others may stand out with their creativity or leadership abilities.
All of this means one thing: it’s impossible to draw a list of traits that every gifted student is bound to have. Instead, before you can get to teaching gifted students, you should learn to recognize the many types of giftedness, such as:
- Intellectual, which manifests itself through advanced critical thinking and problem-solving skills
- Creative, which shows through originality, imagination, and innovation
- Artistic, which is marked by exceptional music, dance, or visual arts skills
- Leadership, which involves strong organizational and interpersonal skills
- Psychomotor, which you can recognize as outstanding coordination and/or physical performance
Why Gifted Students Can Still Struggle
Once you realize you have a gifted student in your classroom, you might be tempted to focus on the underachievers instead. That’s a bad idea: gifted students can struggle, as well. Common challenges include:
- Perfectionism: Setting unrealistically high standards and expectations
- Boredom: Slacking off or disengaging when facing tasks that are too easy for them
- Social and emotional challenges: Feeling isolated due to a lack of like-minded peers
- Asynchronous development: Experiencing a dissonance as their emotional/physical growth lags behind their intellectual abilities
Why It’s Crucial to Identify Gifted Students Early On
One estimate put the share of gifted students at 5% to 15% of the school-age population. So, you’re more likely to encounter a gifted student than you may think.
The sooner you catch on that a particular student is gifted, the sooner you can adapt your teaching methods to meet their needs and help them overcome the challenges described above. That can prevent underachieving and enable gifted students to turn their gift into a talent.
But if giftedness doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all definition, how can you identify gifted students in the classroom? We advise adopting a comprehensive approach that involves:
- Monitoring the student’s performance in the classroom; watch out for rapid task completion, minimum drill for learning, etc.
- Observing their behavior for traits like autonomy in seeking new information and learning
- Evaluating cognitive and creative thinking abilities through additional tasks
Note: IQ tests are suitable only for detecting one type of giftedness (intellectual).
6 Effective Teaching Strategies for Gifted Students
Know you have a gifted student in your classroom? Time to adapt your curriculum to their level, help them ease into a growth mindset, and provide support. These six strategies for gifted students will help you do exactly that.
1. Acceleration and Compacting
Gifted students will be bored by topics and tasks that are too easy for their level. Use acceleration and/or compacting to enable them to challenge themselves and, as a result, learn. Acceleration means allowing students to learn at their own pace, while compacting enables them to skip content they’ve already mastered.
2. Tiered Assignments
Most of your students may need to solve five simple math problems before taking on an advanced one, but a gifted student will be bored by them. So, embrace tiered assignments, i.e., assignments that vary in complexity but serve the same learning objectives. To create one, start with the baseline version of the assignment and add more advanced tiers.
3. Interest-Oriented Teaching
Oftentimes, gifted students are laser-focused on a specific domain and excel in it more than in others. Play to those interests by incorporating them into gifted and talented lesson plans. Doing so will help keep gifted students engaged in the learning process.
One way to implement this strategy is by creating custom Prospective Learning Plans together with the student and their parents. According to the Davidson Academy, this approach is effective because it secures buy-in from the gifted student in the process.
4. Open-Ended Questions
Instead of verifying that the students have retained a key fact and can repeat it back to you, open-ended questions promote critical thinking, creativity, and imagination. This makes for a more interesting classroom discussion for everyone and lets the rest of the students learn from their gifted peers, too.
5. Real-World Problem-Solving
Similar to open-ended questions, real-world problems are a boon for gifted students and their peers alike. They promote skills by encouraging students to apply theory to practice. But that’s not all: they also help motivate all students to learn by showing why the skills you’re teaching are valuable outside the classroom.
6. Continuous Progress Tracking
You might not notice a gifted student is stagnating if you compare their performance only to that of other students. So, instead, track their achievements and compare them to the student’s past accomplishments. If you realize their growth has slowed down or stopped, it’s a sign they need more challenging material or social-emotional support.
In Closing
You will come across gifted learners in your career as a teacher. Fail to recognize their gift, and you may unknowingly contribute to their struggles with engagement and personal growth. Catch on and adapt, on the other hand, and you’ll help them turn their gift into a lifelong advantage.
While you’re at it, however, remember that your attention can’t drift too much toward the gifted among your students. Make sure you cater to the needs of the whole class, not just its brightest members.