Re:The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom
by femto on Friday January 09, 2015 @07:04AM
(#8861861)
It's not uncommon for gifted students to also suffer from a learning disability [1], which goes unrecognised, because it is masked by their intelligence. Unrecognised, such students can be written off as the "naughty" one. When taught, and assessed, to their strengths, such students will shine.
By way of example, typical advice is to concentrate on challenge, rather than quantity when teaching these students. Rather than giving them 50 problems of varying difficulty, just give them the 5 hardest ones. When assessing, rather than giving them lots of questions of varying difficulty (like a typical standard test), give them fewer questions, but make them require more thought.
As a parent, who helps in the classroom and observes quite a few children, I'd say that at least 10% of the children in my (typical) school would fall into the gifted category (by measured intelligence) and of those, probably more than half have some soft of learning difficulty. I'd also say that these children will be sold short by the standardised testing.
By way of example, typical advice is to concentrate on challenge, rather than quantity when teaching these students. Rather than giving them 50 problems of varying difficulty, just give them the 5 hardest ones. When assessing, rather than giving them lots of questions of varying difficulty (like a typical standard test), give them fewer questions, but make them require more thought.
As a parent, who helps in the classroom and observes quite a few children, I'd say that at least 10% of the children in my (typical) school would fall into the gifted category (by measured intelligence) and of those, probably more than half have some soft of learning difficulty. I'd also say that these children will be sold short by the standardised testing.
[1] http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10462.aspx