If a student has mastered your content, it is OKAY to let them move on. Don't punish them by making them relearn the same content over and over again. They'll get it from you. They'll get it in test review. They'll get it again in the next grade level... it's exhausting for most G/T kids and burns them out.

• • Grade Level Acceleration (Grade-Skipping)

    • Supporting Research from the Acceleration Institute:

      • "A Nation Deceived highlights disparities between the research on acceleration and the educational beliefs and practices that often run contrary to the research."

      • "A Nation Empowered provides an update to the watershed work initiated by A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students."

    • Stories of Success in Acceleration:

      • Acceleration Stories at the Belin-Blank Acceleration Institute

      • Acceleration Videos submitted to the Acceleration Institute

      • The Davidson Institute for Talent Development has compiled a series of whole grade acceleration success stories.

      • Hoagies' Gifted Education Page provides a list of stories about students who entered college early.

• Hoagies Gifted website hosted a Blog Hop on Acceleration in March 2015

• Vanderbilt University’s Programs for Talented Youth (PTY) students share their experiences of participating in accelerative summer or weekend programs.

• • Content-Specific Differentiation - Allowing a student to progress at their own pace through the content of a specific course or courses. This can be done more easily within a grade-band than across grade-bands (i.e. 5th grade math accelerated to 6th grade math). This can often be accomplished by simply allowing a student to push into a higher level math class during math time, and then moving back to their grade level for the remaining instruction.

  • Subject-Matter Acceleration - If a student has demonstrated mastery in a particular subset of a subject, they may be allowed to research or investigate the next level of that specific subset. For example, if a student already knows all there is to know about plants at the third grade level, they can go on to obtain mastery of the TEKS for plants as high as they would like to go as time allows.

  • Curriculum Compacting - Teachers work through course content at a pace the student can handle instead of sticking to a rigid calendar. As students master content, new content is brought in. Students are able to complete whole courses at the rate they and students who learn at a similar pace are able. The curriculum is modified to include fewer introductory activities/engagement activities and less repetition (based on student need or lack thereof). Adaptations should be made based on pre-assessment of content knowledge. The time saved may be used for more advanced content instruction or to participate in enrichment activities. This practice does not necessarily result in advanced grade placement.

  • Telescoping Curriculum - Students are provided equivalent instruction in a fraction of the time it would normally be presented (e.g., completing a one-year course in a semester or completing 3 years of middle school in two years). A major difference between Compacting and Telescoping is that time saved by Telescoping always results in advanced grade placement.

  • Correspondence Courses - Students who demonstrate mastery are able to stay within their grade level while learning new, accelerated, material in a remote fashion.

  • Advanced Placement Courses Concurrent/Dual Enrollment - Students are able to learn higher level courses and test out of them in an AP or Dual Credit situation.

The following are ways to provide content-specific differentiation for a student after pre-assessing that they have mastered the content you plan to teach:

• • Subject-Matter Acceleration

  • Content-Specific Differentiation

  • Open-Online College or Correspondence Courses

  • Khan Academy

  • Advanced Placement Courses

  • Concurrent/Dual Enrollment - Concurrent or Dual Enrollment is for students who are still in high school who would like to obtain college credit. However, unlike Dual Credit Courses, coursework does not meet any high school graduation requirements.

  • Dual Credit Courses

  • UT OnRamps Courses

  • Internship - Interdisciplinary Studies and Mentorship Courses are offered at many high schools (including here in New Braunfels). Students in CTE courses may also have opportunities for internship. Opportunities for students to visit scientists and other professionals should be embraced at every level. If this is not possible, guest speakers or virtual visits can still be a huge benefit.

Curriculum Compacting from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)

Curriculum compacting is an instructional strategy in which the regular curriculum is adapted for G/T students by eliminating work that has been mastered and streamlining instruction to a pace commensurate with gifted students' readiness. Advanced students familiar with a topic can often demonstrate mastery on an assessment before a teacher introduces content to the class. These students require engagement with challenging replacement materials instead of redundant work. Compacting is appropriate for gifted learners because it provides an educational option that challenges learners and affords students who demonstrate high levels of achievement the time to pursue differentiated activities.

• • Teachers must be very knowledgeable about the objectives and content of a topic to assess what information is new or redundant for each student.

  • Pre-instruction assessment is required to determine areas of mastery.

  • Pre-instruction assessment strategies should be varied, efficient, and thorough to document the students' levels of attainment of required knowledge and skills.

  • Grades must be based on the curriculum compacted rather than the replacement material.

  • Students must have a vested interest in the replacement task, which should involve advanced content and accelerated learning rather than enrichment.

Teach students just what they need to master the material. For example, you can have them do only the hardest problems to show mastery. Once they have shown that mastery, let them accelerate on to the next piece of content. Strategies include:

• • Most Difficult First - Simply have students simply do the most difficult problems first to demonstrate mastery, then let them move on or study an area of interest.

  • Student-Led Compacting (Joseph Renzulli and Linda H. Smith) - Students document mastery on a "Compacting" document as evidence for the need for acceleration or studying areas of interest. [Compacting Document Needed]

Procedures for Compacting

Stage 1: Indications of Student Strength

Think about the following questions:

What are the indications of student strength in this area (e.g., standardized test scores, previous grades, teacher reports, class work, student comments)?

What units/topics/skills are to be compacted?

In what ways might a teacher assess previous knowledge (e.g., pretests, checklists, interest inventories, conferences, demonstrations, portfolios, student self-evaluations, observations)?

After gathering information about general and specific strengths, record the findings for accountability purposes.

Stage 2: Outline Specific Activities and Assignments

If necessary, note the activities and assignments needed to master the material. These may be designed to accelerate content and/or teach needed skills, as indicated by the pre-assessment. Be sure to include the following:

Materials to be eliminated or accelerated

Activities designed to teach and practice needed skills

Means to prove mastery of skills learned

Stage 3: List Alternative Activities

Base these activities on students' interests and strengths, keeping in mind the resources available and local policy. At this stage, student choice is the most important consideration.

Develop simple forms for documenting compacting and managing the process. Students should maintain process records instead of relying on the teacher's management strategies. Formative and summative assessment strategies and criteria, as well as a timeline for assessment, should be established by teachers and students prior to implementing the replacement activities.

Students complete two or more grade levels or subject-areas worth of content in a single school year.

Examples include completing a one-year course in one semester, or three years of middle school in two.

Telescoping differs from curriculum compacting in two ways: it is planned to fit a precise time schedule and it always results in advanced grade placement.

Telescoping is reducing the amount of time students take to cover the curriculum. Courses often involve overlapping content and skills from one grade level to the next. Gifted learners may not need as much time to learn and remember the material. An example of telescoping is when a student completes Grades 8 and 9 math in one year. (British Columbia Ministry of Education, n.d.).

Let students consume lots of perspectives on your content. What does science have to do with the period of history you are studying? What does this math topic have to do with current events? Can they write a poem about this social studies topic? Elements of Depth & Complexity can be a big help here.

Work with another content-area teacher or teachers in your grade level to blend your curricula and media consumed in learning. IDEALab teachers can be very helpful in this implementation.

Let students consume lots of perspectives on your content. What does science have to do with the period of history you are studying? What does this math topic have to do with current events? Can they write a poem about this social studies topic? Elements of Depth & Complexity can be a big help here.

• Elements of Depth & Complexity - Namely, the "Across the Disciplines" Element.

Let students consume lots of perspectives on your content. What does science have to do with the period of history you are studying? What does this math topic have to do with current events? Can they write a poem about this social studies topic? Elements of Depth & Complexity can be a big help here.

• Elements of Depth & Complexity - Allow students to apply Change Over Time, Trends, Across the Disciplines, and Unanswered Questions Elements to the content so that they can research and discover to their heart's content.

• Differentiating with Merge Cube - Merge Cube uses QR Code Technology to create Augmented Reality simulations. They offer a suite of interactive lessons through their Merge Explorer App. Each lesson ends with a quiz in which students can pick the grade-level difficulty of the questions. If you come across situations like this, it is always acceptable for a G/T student who has mastered the content to choose the higher level or even be assigned the higher level questions at the teacher's discretion. For more on Merge Cube, click here.

An entire content area arranged and structured around a Problem, Conceptual Framework, or Theme can lead to more connections and faster mastery by G/T students (VanTassel-Baska, 1989). Problem-Based Learning, Conceptual Frameworks, and Thematic Units allow teachers to facilitate opportunities to generalize, integrate, and apply ideas.

• Interdisciplinary Approach - Middle and secondary schools are generally organized to meet student needs within content areas. Providing an interdisciplinary approach is another way of modifying curriculum . Jacobs and Borland (1986) found that gifted students benefit greatly from curriculum experiences that cross or go beyond traditional content areas, particularly when they are encouraged to acquire an integrated understanding of knowledge and the structure of the disciplines.

• Thematic Units - Their learning characteristics are best served by thematic, broad-based, and integrative content, rather than just single-subject areas.

Allow the student to pursue an area of interest.

Please read the following to understand the importance of interest in learning; Learner Interest Matters: Strategies for Empowering Student Choice, by John McCarthy.

• Texas Performance Standards Projects

• Work Log

• Evaluation Contracts

• Reading Contract

• Learning Contracts

Student Experts

Many students have expertise in one area or a combination of areas. Some students are content experts and some are process experts, while others may be tools experts. The teacher's time can be increased significantly if these areas of student expertise are discovered early in the year, nurtured, and used wisely. Teachers should use appropriate care when using student experts as a strategy. Students must have the option to volunteer for this work rather than being assigned this work. Gifted students are too often used to do the teacher's work, and they feel their need to learn new knowledge and skills is being ignored.

Procedures for establishing student experts:

1. Have students sign up for an area(s) of expertise

2. Assess student level of expertise

3. License each student for an area(s) of expertise

4. Have student experts develop an appointment book for times they can be available

5. Have student experts keep a log of training they provide

Areas of expertise

• Public speaking, communication, writing

• Content/topic/skills

• Independent study process

• Creative problem solving process

• Deductive reasoning

• Graphic representation

• Production techniques

• Tools such as

• Computer application programs

• Photography equipment

• Science equipment

• Copier

• Overhead projector

• Sound equipment

• Computer equipment

Please see our Elements of Depth & Complexity section for ideas.

Tiered Assignments

Before beginning a Tiered Assignment, the following must be taken care of:

1. The teacher has reviewed pertinent data on students' abilities, interests, learning styles, and production modalities.

2. The teacher has pre-assessed the students on the material to be learned.

3. The teacher has compacted the curriculum according to the pre-assessment data.

4. The teacher has organized instruction using flexible grouping.

5. The teacher has a clear understanding of the expected student performance as a result of the assignment.

Learning Objective:

Students will use agreed-upon criteria to study information on the issue of global warming, examining a variety of primary and secondary sources. They will draw conclusions based on their findings and relate the information to the idea that conflict is a catalyst for change. Findings will be presented to the class through an oral presentation using a graphic organizer or a teacher-approved product of choice.

Introductory Activity:

The teacher asks the question: "What do we know about the issue of global warming?" Student answers are recorded. The teacher then asks, "As scientists, what criteria might we use to judge the validity of the information regarding global warming?" The criteria are posted for future reference. Students are then asked to develop a concept map representing what they know about the issue. Using the two pre-assessment techniques, the teacher determines that there are three distinct levels of readiness to accomplish the task. All students will use the posted criteria to judge the information they will use for the activity.

Tier I:

Students will use reading material that pictorially represents required information and conduct a pre-developed survey of science teachers and students to determine their awareness of the issue, beliefs about the issue, and reasons for those beliefs. Students will apply the validity criteria to the information gathered. Findings will be presented.

Tier II:

Students will use grade-level reading material to gather secondary information and develop and conduct a survey of a least two scientists currently investigating the issue. Students will apply the validity criteria to the information gathered. Findings will be presented.

Tier III:

Students will compare their knowledge of global warming with at least one other environmental issue and note the similarities and differences in the evidence that is presented by each side of the issue. Each issue being addressed must meet the established criteria. Findings will be presented.

Culminating activity:

Students present their findings on global warming and explain how this issue is an example of conflict as a catalyst for change. After all presentations are completed, the teacher asks: "What can we generally say about the issue of global warming? What predictions can we make based on our current knowledge of this issue? What value, if any, do the validity criteria have in drawing defensible conclusions?"