A Differentiated Curriculum

for Gifted Students

Gifted students have the right to be challenged. Frequently high ability students do very little homework and are not stretched. They have the right to struggle.

Without Struggle

There Is No Progress

Differentiating the Curriculum for gifted students

One of the sources on the Internet that discusses Differentiating the Curriculum for gifted students is the ERIC Clearinghouse. The following is information copied from that Web Site.

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)

The Council for Exceptional Children

1920 Association Drive

Reston, VA 20191

"The curriculum committee of the Leadership Training Institute (Passow, 1982) developed seven guiding principles for curriculum differentiation that reflect the considerations described in this Digest.

1. The content of curricula for gifted students should focus on and be organized to include more elaborate, complex, and in-depth study of major ideas, problems, and themes that integrate knowledge within and across systems of thought.

2. Curricula for gifted students should allow for the development and application of productive thinking skills to enable students to reconceptualize existing knowledge and/or generate new knowledge.

3. Curricula for gifted students should enable them to explore constantly changing knowledge and information and develop the attitude that knowledge is worth pursuing in an open world.

4. Curricula for gifted students should encourage exposure to, selection, and use of appropriate and specialized resources.

5. Curricula for gifted students should promote self-initiated and self-directed learning and growth.

6. Curricula for gifted students should provide for the development of self-understanding and the understanding of one's relationship to persons, societal institutions, nature, and culture.

7. Evaluations of curricula for gifted students should be conducted in accordance with the previously stated principles, stressing higher level thinking skills, creativity, and excellence in performance and products.

Developing curriculum that is sufficiently rigorous, challenging, and coherent for students who are gifted is a challenging task. The result, however, is well worth the effort. Appropriately differentiated curriculum produces well-educated, knowledgeable students who have had to work very hard, have mastered a substantial body of knowledge, and can think clearly and critically about that knowledge. Achieving such results for one or for a classroom full of students who are gifted will produce high levels of satisfaction, not only for the students who are beneficiaries, but also for every teacher who is willing to undertake the task."