Gifted and Talented students

According to the US Department of Education a gifted and talented student is

described as Children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the
potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared
with others of their age, experience, or environment. An IQ of 130 or more resulting
from various tests is used to identify these highly intelligent students. This is not
necessarily based on their performance though; it is based on their ability.
Gifted students come from all walks of life. They are both male and female. They
come from all ethnic groups and they live in both rural and urban areas. One of the most
commonly thought stereotype about gifted and talented students is they are straight A
students. This is untrue. According to www.davidsongifted.org, Students who are
intellectually gifted demonstrate many characteristics, including: a precocious ability to
think abstractly, an extreme need for constant mental stimulation; an ability to learn and
process complex information very rapidly; and a need to explore subjects in depth.
There are different levels of gifted and talented students the same as you have
different levels of athletes. While all show a higher capability, the ranges vary among
peers the same age. The National Society of the Gifted and Talented divides the groups
into three stages - moderately gifted, highly gifted, and profoundly gifted. While all show
higher ability, creativity and task commitment, many are not challenged in a mainstream
classroom. This can lead to behavioral problems, underachieving or general disinterest in
the classroom environment.
Gifted and Talented students in a mainstream classroom whose learning ability is
undiscovered could lead to some serious behavioral problems. Keeping children focused
is difficult enough, even if they are learning new things. If you have a student who
already understands the material and completes their assignments they will get bored with
their spare classroom time and could cause disruptions for the rest of the class. If at the
beginning of a new lesson or discussion topic, the teacher took an evaluation of the
knowledge the kids already had of the subject, he/she would better understand who
needed more or less attention on the subject, an assessment of sorts. For example, you
could have the children take the end of the chapter exam before starting the chapter to
evaluate their knowledge.
Another important thing to remember when teaching the gifted and talented is to
not limit their learning based on their age. If a student is in third grade but working fifth
grade math problems with ease, there is not a need to limit them to the third grade
curriculum. Once it is established that they fully understand the age appropriate material,
they should be allowed to learn at their capabilities and not be limited by their age.
Providing those students with more of the same will not challenge them to use their
abilities, it will most likely frustrate them.
Depending on the age, structure and choice classrooms might better suit students
in the gifted and talented program. If the teacher provides the structure and the students
the choice, those at a higher level will most often times excel when given the ability to
creatively think out their assignment. They could take the thought process to a level that
was unexpected by the teacher and this brings up an entirely new discussion.
It is my opinion that the gifted and talented are overlooked in the big picture. Not
all students excel at test taking. If this is the main provision for entering the GT program,

many would be left out due to their inability to take test well. When you as a classroom
teacher have a student who behaves well, and understands the material, they are often
used as a helper or tutor for those who do not. In my experience with observation, the
math teacher initially had the students paired in groups with high/low students. She found
that the higher ability students would just give the answer to or do the work for the lower
ability students. This doesnt challenge the higher learning or teach the lower learning.
Once you understand the needs of your students and where they are in learning the
particular subject, you can make an assessment and curve your curriculum to
accommodate the higher ability students.
It is also important to keep the GT kids engaged. If you cut them loose to work on
their own when the rest of the class is working in groups they are missing valuable
emotional, social and teamwork skills. By providing them with a more complex problem
and letting them work in the group, you provide them with the challenge of the lesson
and the interpersonal relationship building that is needed for every child. The difficulty a
classroom teacher faces with this is making sure there are other children at a higher
ability to place in the group.

Work Cited:
National Society of the gifted and talented (2014). In National Society of the gifted and
talented. Retrieved September 26, 2014, from www.nsgt.org
Neag center for gifted education and talented developmented (2014). In
www.gifted.uconn.edu. Retrieved September 26, 2014, from
www.gifted.uconn.edu
What it means to teach gifted learners well (2014). In National Association for gifted
children. Retrieved September 26, 2014, from www.nagc.com
Working with gifted and talented students (1998). In www.teachersfirst.com/gifted.
Retrieved September 26, 2014, from www.teachersfirst.com