Examining Similarities and differences

The third book in the Marzano Center series Essentials for Achieving Rigor that I have read is Examining Similarities & Differences: Classroom Techniques to Help Students Deepen Their Understanding by Connie Soles West and Robert J. Marzano. This book is arranged much like the other books I have read in the series: description of the technique, lesson plan steps, common mistakes, elementary and secondary examples and non examples, evaluation of student success and scaffolds and extension activities.  It includes a conclusion with self reflection questions and a short appendix of graphic organizers. Again, the approach is a practical implementation guide rather than explore the research behind the technique explanation. The text would also be useful to organize a PLC around.

Marzano and West  continue with the idea that in order for the technique to be effective for learning content, it must be taught. In order to use this particular group of techniques, students must be somewhat familiar with the content. These are not things to have students attempt when they are just learning information. The authors do not go into using teacher provided metaphors, similes or analogies to help provide initial instruction; their approach in this text is purely in using comparisons to increase content learning from the student's end.

The six techniques that the book covers are:

• comparing using sentence stems, summarizers and constructed responses
• comparing using graphic organizers
• classifying using sorting, matching and categorizing
• classifying using graphic organizers
• comparing by creating metaphors and similes
• comparing by creating analogies.

Throughout the book, sentence stems are seen as a preliminary step. This is a strategy that is highly effective for students with language disabilities and non-native English speakers. For students struggling with the more complex metaphors, similes and analogies, this step could be very useful. Stems like

• ______ and ____ are the same because ______
• Cities are like cells because __________________
• conjunction is to _______________ as ______________________ is to _________________
• Hamlet is like lion king because _____ and _____ and ____, but different because ____ and ____ and ____.

are helpful in getting students going, but before they approach this, many will need to brainstorm what is critical about the things being compared and share this information in groups before they start writing.

I have used sorts a couple of different ways to work on understanding:

• Give a list of words and categories and have kids sort them out.
• Give a list of categories and have students pull important terms out of a reading in each area
• Give a set of subtitles from a chapter and have students order them in a way that seems to make sense- explain why the students selected the organization they did, read the chapter and compare with the author's organizational approach and evaluate if their method would have been as effective.
• Provide a list of vocabulary terms and have them sort them into groups of their own making.

Kids do need to have these types of activities demonstrated for them before they go off and try on their own.

One strategy that I really liked was an affinity diagram. In this approach students brainstorm ideas around a topic with each idea going on a post it note (index card, strip of paper,..). Once the ideas are generated, they are sorted into groups. This approach could be used when thinking about an essay, discussion or debate- how are Romeo and Juliet showcasing hubris? Discuss three causes of the Revolutionary War. Should kids wear uniforms to school? Is chocolate the best ice cream and how do you know? Or they could be used to review before a test- how are polygons related? Distinguish between depositional and erosional glacial impacts.  This approach reminds me of mind mapping in that you manipulate the information generated in order to organize thoughts.

An important part of all the techniques was summation at the end of the activity. It is not enough to brainstorm and complete the Venn diagram. Students need to summarize what they learned- not restate the diagram. The image below is an example from science that I used years ago when I taught earth science.

My student had to arrange the information onto the chart (sort) and then come up with a statement. This level of information helped him to differentiate between two similar things. I have also used the technique with latitude and longitude, peninsula and strait, Romeo from Romeo and Juliet and Oedipus from Oedipus Rex, and congruent and similar (math) among others. I love comparing things to help students get it better and remember it more clearly.

Recording and representing knowledge

Ria A. Schmidt and Robert J. Marzano's Essentials for Achieving Rigor Series book, Recording & Representing Knowledge: Classroom Techniques to help Students Accurately Organize and Summarize Content describes how to increase knowledge in terms of students taking notes. This book is set up in two parts:

• Linguistic strategies: summarizing and note-taking
• Nonlinguistic strategies: graphic organizers, pictorial notes and pictographs, dramatic enactments, and mnemonic devices.

Each technique has a dedicated chapter that explains the technique, provides a sample lesson plan format, provides an elementary and secondary example of the technique in use across a variety of subjects, explains common mistakes, a rubric for evaluating mastery of the technique and a list of scaffolding and extension ideas. The book ends with an Appendix that includes an assortment of graphic organizers that are discussed in the graphic organizer section. The writing is clear and easy to read. The book includes some self-reflection questions and could easily be used for a PLC.

Much of the book recaps previous Marzano research and writings such as this ASCD article on vocabulary, The Art and Science of Teaching and Building Academic Vocabulary. If you are familiar with his research, this book will have a strikingly resonance. If you are not versed in his research and writings, he explains strategies and is light on deep research, so the material is very approachable.

A couple of critical elements leaped out at me as I read. First was his insistence on teaching the technique to ensure that students comprehend what is involved, why things are being done and all the steps required to complete the task. All too often, when it comes to recording information, we assume kids can do it and we ignore this step. Having students experience the challenge of selecting the best graphic organizer to use with the information is essential to their eventual independent use of the tool. Explaining types of mnemonic devices and how to develop useful ones is a critical step to being able to do it on one's own.

A second thing that he reiterated repeatedly was that students should not record information during the initial presentation. They should have processing time first. My brother, a university professor, talks about being able to either record what someone is saying or listening and processing what is being said. I do not think this is too different from what many people experience. Given a choice, I would far rather have my students listen and process than write it down. In practice this means presenting information- print, image, or verbal form- and then letting students process small chunks to find the key ideas. This requires a shift in how we think about taking notes- copy everything the teacher writes down or transcribe everything that he says- is not effective for learning. Notes need to be personal and relevant to the processing. More frequent breaks to record instead of recording while we work becomes the goal.

Third, a note about dramatic enactment. I worked with a teacher who had his students act out scenes from history. Typically a group of 6-8 kids to a group would draft a script (i.e. a lead student would draft the skit). Then kids would act it out. Points were given for props and dramatic vision. Once the activity was over students were given the unit test. These activities disturbed me because I could see that many students were not learning the material, but I could not articulate the problem clearly. Having read this book, I can. First, groups were not collaborative in the creative cycle. A leader did all the thinking with one or two inputs from others. A Reader's Theater approach might have been more useful because then students could have dived straight into the simulation rather than wait around for others to process the information for them. Deciding how to read a script would have had more use than the "bang with sticks" I saw in one skit.  Second, there was no summarization of the learning. After the enactment, writing or talking about what they learned from the activity would have helped the activity be cemented into memory. Third, the heavy emphasis on props took away from the emphasis on the events being depicted. Drama can be very useful for kids, but it has to be well-thought out and include a wrap up processing activity.

note-taking as an instructional technique

Lectures have a bad rap. Anyone who has ever sat through a three hour class lecture knows that at least some of it is deserved. So why do teachers and professors still do it? Because lecture is a highly efficient way of delivering large amounts of information. That being said, how do we optimize lectures so that students derive benefit from them? Silver and Perini wrote The Interactive Lecture as a PLC guide to help teachers tackle this task. Similarly, Ria A. Schmidt and Robert J. Marzano look at note-taking in their Essentials for Achieving Rigor Series book, Recording & Representing Knowledge: Classroom Techniques to help Students Accurately Organize and Summarize Content.

According to Schmidt and Marzano, teaching note-taking is essential. Think how many times teachers have complained that students can't take notes. Then think how we do not teach note-taking. It all makes sense. The authors propose four steps to developing note-taking:

1. Teach the method from the beginning of the year.
2. Consistently used the method on a daily basis
3. Provide feedback to students on note-taking
4. Allow notes to be formative assessment- after looking at them alter instruction to meet the needs of students- scaffold or extend as necessary for SPECIFIC students.

While the authors do not support the use of one note-taking technique over another, they emphasize teach and practice the technique repeatedly. When I was in college I had a professor who taught a class on teaching ELA and social studies. He was adamant that we learn how to create mind maps of material. At least once a week an assignment included creating a web. At first I hated it. It was foreign and hard. He collected and graded the notes we made with these webs. As time went by I became more comfortable with the webs. Ultimately I used webs to "outline" every paper I wrote in graduate school. Many students never latched on to the webs or preferred more traditional outlines or Cornell notes or some other method for recording information. The only way we were able to make a choice, however, was by being forced to learn different methods. It is ok if each teacher requires a different technique. We are building choices for our students and teaching flexibility in learning.

A couple of key features characterize effective note-taking:

• Students must summarize and prioritize ideas and information- NOT all the information is recorded
• Processing time is provided prior to notes being taken
• Note-taking does not occur during presentation of new information
• Often peers are given the chance to talk through some of the information to help with processing and prioritizing.
• Students are not expected to copy from the board.

This structure is very different from the note-taking we typically see in classrooms. A common classroom modification for students with disabilities is copy of classroom notes will be provided. This is helpful if the expectation is copying notes. Unfortunately, processing of information during note-taking is not a common occurrence.  Although the authors do not comment about the challenges many students with disabilities have with note-taking, many of their suggestions for note-taking eliminated the requirements for multitasking, copying from the board, and spelling.

Since several pieces of research (see here, here, here and here) verify that pencil notes are more helpful in increasing knowledge in students than notes taken on computers, we need to be very wary of students using electronics during lectures. The authors only highlight paper note-taking procedures. They do not, however, comment about trends toward audio-recording or live-scribing technologies that are sometimes used for note-taking.

A lesson might look something like this:

• Teacher presents new information for five to fifteen minutes. (The older the student, the more experienced with note-taking, and the more familiar the student is with the information, the longer the chunk of information can be.) No writing should take place.
• The teacher asks students to spend a few minutes recording key ideas and details from the lecture.
• Students are asked to pair-share for a couple of minutes to discuss their thoughts.
• Students receive another couple of minutes to refine their notes.
• (If still teaching the process or if a check for understanding is desirable- a few students are asked to share and defend their notes followed by another couple of minutes to refine notes)
• Repeat.
• Toward the end of a section of information or a period, nonlinguistic representations of the information and/or summary statements of the day's information are requested to be written.

True, a teacher might not cover quite as much information, but with this sort of approach, much more learning is likely to take place reducing the need for review at another time.

The authors suggest scaffolding such as student friendly definitions and examples of note-taking techniques be provided and templates or fill-in-the-blank notes for students to complete be available. Templates or skeletal notes could certainly be useful for students. I am not so sure that providing definitions of the techniques would be so helpful. If you are teaching the format you want students to practice, you should have done this already. Using more pair-share opportunities and nonlinguistic representations would be a good idea. Additional wait time might help, but in a whole class presentation, this could be difficult to implement. Encouraging preview material through short podcasts or video or key vocabulary review at home or in a resource room might allow the additional processing time some students need to be successful. Providing cut up possible notes that students select and prioritize and then glue/tape into notes might help with students with spelling, handwriting, or language issues. For students with memory problems, pictures highlighting key ideas might be used to trigger memory. Students could even just take "notes" with images. Color coding could be a useful scaffold for students who struggle with note-taking. If notes are being made on reading material, readings with a lower reading level could be utilized.

Suggested extension ideas include student prioritization of information, rewriting definitions in your own words and researching a big idea. Since prioritizing big ideas is part of the technique, I do not see how that becomes an extension idea. If students are not copying from the board, they either have fantastic memories and can write definitions verbatim or they are writing definitions in their own words. Researching a big idea is an extension of the content area and is useful but is unrelated to learning the technique of note-taking. I might have students try and make connections to other classes, past experiences, real life experiences and record them in their notes to share with others. Another extension idea for students who easily comprehend the reading that you want students to take notes on is to provide more challenging reading material. The internet provides a wealth of material at different reading levels; college level texts could even be used for some students. NewsELA, Reading A-Z and Breaking News English are websites that have readings about the same topic written at different reading levels.

A technique that could either take the learning to a more basic or a more complex level would be a parallel teaching form of co-teaching where one teacher presents the lesson content to one part of the class and the other teacher presents either a more basic or more complex version to a smaller part of the class. If another staff member is not available, a web video could be utilized. Students could then come together in a whole group for the summarization phase of the lesson. Or a jigsaw approach could be made where students could share their notes from a section of the learning with others from the class who learned about a related but different aspect of the material.

Practicing Skills, Strategies & Processes

The Marzano Center has published a series called Essentials for Achieving Rigor. Kelly Harmon, Robert J. Marzano, Kathy Marx and Ria A. Schmidt collaborated to write Practicing Skills, Strategies, & Processes: Classroom Techniques to Help Students Develop Proficiency. The book is arranged so that each chapter discusses one technique. Every chapter includes a chart with implementation guidelines, elementary and secondary examples drawn primarily from ELA and math classrooms, common errors in implementation, and scaffolding and extension ideas.

In the resource room we tend to do lots of practice so I thought this book might have some insights into the skill. They identify two categories of practice with a couple of techniques to each. Guided Practice involves working with the teacher and contains close monitoring, worked examples and frequent structured practice. Independent Practice includes fluency, varied practice and practice before tests.

Close monitoring as a separate technique is interesting. Back in my early days of teaching we talked about monitor and adjust instruction. This has an element of that idea. The authors recommend that initial attempts be supervised carefully. It also includes the idea that practice, especially when initially learning a skill needs to be correct. When we practice something incorrectly, we are learning it badly and it takes more work to correct misunderstandings or unteach information or processes than to teach it originally. One central component then is to not assign independent practice until the student is successful under guided practice. This is contrary to many homework assignments I have seen children work with. One source I saw indicated that if a student cannot complete an assignment with 85% accuracy, it should not be homework. We should not expect parents to teach the material or the student to have to look up how to complete the task. This is asking for trouble. Further, if we assign independent practice too early in the learning cycle, we risk students not learning the material at all.

The chapter on frequent structured practice had a gem in it for me. On page 49 they suggest that practice at this stage be every 24 hours or less after the initial learning. This does not mean send the kids home with an assignment and expect them to complete it on their own. This means the next day practice it again under supervision. Daily practice of new skills is important. We know this with reading. That is why primary teachers ask students to read every night at home. It provides the practice with early reading skills that are essential for learning to read. One thing that the authors did not address was how to accommodate this idea in an alternate day style schedule common to many secondary environments. If research says that structured practice needs to occur within 24 hours, these schedule types eliminate the possibility of such and occurrence.  As students grow comfortable with the skill, the practice becomes spaced with longer intervals.

Fluency was another interesting chapter. They define fluency as having two separate strands- automatic processing, such as reading and math facts, and controlled processing, such as writing a research paper. They authors strongly suggest students learn multiplication facts to automaticity. In the world of special education we sometimes suggest that students do not need to do this- they have calculators. Unfortunately, if we want our students to conquer algebra, they do really need to have mastered multiplication facts. Without this automatic knowledge, they are slowed to a crawl, forgetting what they are doing mid problem and finding the topic exceedingly challenging. One key feature of fluency is that students need to have learned the discrete skills prior to focusing on speed. If reading fluency is focused on speed rather than comprehension, students become word callers. If students do not understand how to write all the elements of a paragraph (topic sentence, details, conclusions and transitions), they should not be asked to do so for homework.

Engaging the rewired brain information

David A. Sousa's book Engaging the Rewired Brain provides a large volume of research on how the brain is impacted by the deluge of technology we now have. Interspersed throughout the text are summary statements that describe impact. Some of these impacts are as follows:

• Television watching by infants and toddlers may hinder their spatial skill development and delay their development of language. (p. 28)
• Parents are often reluctant to limit the amount of television young children watch, because that may create friction and discipline problems in the family. ( p. 29)
• We can assume that children who spend their early years in front of screens will eventually have adult brains hardwired to process information at a frantic pace (p. 29)
• Students often use the word addicted to describe their dependence on technology (p. 31)
• Teachers have a bigger challenge today creating attention-getting introductions to their lessons(p. 39)
• Mind-wandering is pervasive and occurs frequently in classes where there is little or no student engagement (p.41)
• Despite popular belief there is no neuroscientific evidence that attention span in typical students is getting shorter (p. 44)
• Students today have had very little practice in sustained attention (p. 46)
• The average capacity of working memory appears to be declining. (p. 49)
• Whenever teachers can tie emotions to curriculum content, students are more likely to remember it and even negative emotions can sometimes result in a positive learning experience (p. 55)
• The closer new learning touches the students' interests, the quicker meaning is established (p. 58)
• Practice makes permanent not perfect (p. 62)
• Educational video games are excellent examples of how to motivate students and the power of practice (p. 62)
• Practicing new learning over longer intervals of time, called distributed practice, is the key to retention ( p. 64)
• Immediate and specific feedback is one of the most powerful factors for increasing student achievement (p. 68)
• Educators should prioritize curriculum so that students know exactly what they need to remember (p. 71)
• The brains of children watching cartoons operated with about half of their executive function capacity compared to children who watched educational games or were drawing (p. 76)
• Internet addicted adolescents had a lower density of gray matter in the areas of the brain responsible for decision making when compared to non-addicted adolescents. (p. 81)
• Because of the Internet, students may become gathers and reporters of information, and not curious and original thinkers (p. 81)
• Teachers should sue the internet to expand our creativity and problem-solving skills rather than replace them (p 83)
• Playing certain video games can improve executive functions such as problem solving and decision making. (p. 90)
• The integration of educational video games is not merely to engage students, but to enhance and extend their learning (p. 91)
• Young children addicted to technology are likely to perceive social interaction as device-centered rather than person-centered (p 101)
• The more friends an adolescent has on Facebook, the more stressful it was to use. (p. 105)
• Facebook did not help individuals with low self-esteem, but rather exposed them to disparagement from respondents. (p. 106)
• Instead of sleeping, teens are continuing their online activities in their bedroom into the late night hours. (p. 107)
• Content-centered texting can improve teens' writing in informal essays, predict reading ability, and benefit students' phonological awareness (p 108)
• Technology provides an opportunity for students to understand the social implications of what they are studying (p. 110)

These bits of information are surrounded with the research and suggestions for how to address the concern or leverage the action. Of particular concern is the impact of technology on executive function. While some educational and problem solving games have a positive impact, the games that many students like to play- violent shoot 'em up, mechanical ball exploding, wild car driving or X-box type sports- have a negative impact. Finding ways to engage students in problem solving SIM games or Mindstorms as an alternative may be important.

Another interesting implication is around young children. Parents using technology to quiet children down in the car, restaurant or home tends to reduce language skills and ability to focus. We need to advocate for more interaction and less techno-sitting. The move for universal pre-K may be important for developing language. That being said, we will need to be wary of technology in these environments. Students get lots of opportunity to play with technology at home. At school they need to engage in collaborative play, human interactions and imaginative activity.

Another concern to me is the reduction in working memory. Telephone numbers were created as a 7 digit sequence because it was consistent with working memory. If students struggle with maintaining that number of bits of information, it has implications in reading. Reading comprehension requires working memory skills. If students cannot keep as much information at hand, we may need to change how we read- more focus on graphic organizers and summarization to help us to juggle information. I have a math textbook from 1898. It asks students to be able to mentally calculate long division. How many of our students could do that today. Not just wrestle with the procedure, a task many students struggle with, but actually maintain in memory the numbers you are working with and arrive at an answer. This type of practice might become more important in developing memory practice to help our students be able to successfully compete in the workforce.

I think the most important take away, however, is that teachers do matter. We need to find ways to leverage learning through technology. We need to focus on higher level thinking and problem solving rather than merely rote activities. This may mean a reduction on a dependence on multiple choice testing and an increase in more expansive projects, writing and speaking opportunities. It means that we need to not depend on the latest and greatest technology in the classroom, but technology used to enhance instruction not to replace the same activity with a screen.

Engaging the rewired brain

People who know me know that I am somewhat of a Luddite. (For those who don't remember their high school global studies, Luddites were a group in England during the Industrial Revolution who did not approve of the new technology. Their behavior ranged from refusing to deal with it to destroying it.) I still have my first cell phone, it is over three years old with a 12 button keypad. I do not answer it unless I am expecting a call. I do not carry a laptop as an itinerant teacher. I rarely use technology in my teaching- no internet, no device, no technology.

When I was in high school I took computer programming classes and was one of the best in the class. Now I hate trying to figure out programs. I am completely frustrated by technology that is not intrinsically simplistic and intuitive for a nonuser. I do not have the time or inclination for playing with it all. I am an outlier and know that.

David A. Sousa's book, Engaging the Rewired Brain, discusses the impact of technology on our brains and how it relates to education. The first chapter examines where we are now. It contains a couple points of interest.

First is he documents that students learn more when they take notes with paper than when they use electronics (p. 10). This idea was also highlighted by NPR in a review of psychology research. I also recall a study about usefulness of electronic notes. Students who took electronic notes had trouble finding them again. Further students who sit with their devices open before them do not attend to class well either- they surf the net, use social media and tune out. That being said, Sousa does not see a decline in electronic note taking in our future, so he recommends we look at ways to use technology and increase the utility of this skill.

The second major takeaway I had from his first chapter is that teachers should only use technology if it increases achievement. I have sat in many classrooms with Smartboards. This technology is crazy expensive  ($5000-7000 each plus installation and other hardware, tools like "markers" and software licenses) and has a limited life use. Most of the time I have not seen them used in ways that leverage the tool. They are used to project a page that is to be written on, to link with a computer and project contents, and to show movies and videos- all things a projector can do at a fraction of the cost. They are used to play games like Jeopardy, select groups or take attendance- all activities that are in no way given an advantage over other methods for these activities. In order to leverage the tool you need to do two things- increase responses per student (think clickers and cell phones) or increase reinforcement without being distracting.

Sousa suggests using Kolb's Triple E framework to determine if it is a gimmick to engage or a learning tool- Engagement, Enhancement and Extension. He includes a nine question test to determine if the technology is worthwhile. The Framework includes questions about promoting active versus passive learning, determining if the technology does something that cannot be done with traditional methods, and if it builds P21 skills (skills for the future). This sort of evaluation reveals that most of the time our Smartboards are expensive whiteboards. In an era of fiscal concerns, our money might be better spent on other things. Sacrilege, I know, but as I said I am a bit of a Luddite.

With all this being said, the truth of the matter is that technology is here to stay. We will continue to have new apps, software and devices. Our students will continue to have access to devices and parents will demand that it used. We need to teach students to be smart consumers of technology, teachers to be discriminating users of technology and communities to wise spenders on technology. I am looking forward to the rest of this book to learn what is happening to tech-exposed brains and how we can best facilitate learning in our students.

Strategies for challenging gifted learners

ASCD's Education Update this month includes an article "Six Strategies for Challenging Gifted Learners" by Amy Azzam. As a parent of a gifted child, I read this article with thoughts of her and what I want her teachers to do to help her learn.

Strategy 1- offer the most difficult first. Instead of having students start with the easy practice problems, have them start with the hardest. In math worksheets and textbooks this is usually the last ones. If students can correctly answer the last 4 or 5 questions, they do not need to practice on the others. This is similar to Robyn Jackson's idea of having a red flag. Students who cannot pass the flag mark, need to do the assignment, students who have it, only need to do it if they want to. If students are successful, they could be assigned an alternate assignment. As a strategy, this is easy to apply to math assignments since most are arranged in order of difficulty. Other types of textbooks have a range of strategies for arranging questions. If we know what they are, we can select the ones we want everyone to be able to answer, the ones the struggling students need to use as scaffolds and the ones that are beyond what we expect. Make assignments based on that knowledge. Phrases like, "You need extra practice, so I want you to do questions a, b, and c," and "You don't need more practice with this so a) the assignment is optional or b) do questions c, d, and e."

Strategy 2- Pre-test. If students are able to achieve a certain score on a test before the unit is taught, they can be assigned a different set of activities. This does require extension activities be available. Students can be assigned deeper assignments. For example, if you are studying the Civil War, perhaps a student could be asked to read a series of personal narratives around an event and write a paper or produce an oral report on the particular event. If you are studying ecology, a student could investigate the Exxon Valdez  and the BP oil spills and compare them in their environmental impact. If you are reading a whole class novel, perhaps the student could compare some aspect of the novel to another novel or movie that requires some evaluative impact. If you are studying how to find volume of polyhedrons a student could be asked what is the effect of increasing the height versus increasing the radius or apothem.

Strategy 3- Prepare to Take it Up. This is about the age old idea of differentiation. Have assignments at various levels for students to attempt. The levels can be student or teacher selected. This is clearly more work for the teacher because multiple assignments are required, but it can lead to more interesting assessment. True having three math worksheets- one with addition of two digit problems, one of three digit and one with four digit problems or one with base ten block images and one without, or leveled assignments from a textbook manufacturer- is easy. They are readily available. Coming up with different levels of an essay may be more challenging- one with graphic organizer scaffolding, one without. NOT ever one is one page and one is three pages. The essay could look at characterization of a major and clearly stated character versus one that uses more indirect characterization. Assignments could be look at just this text versus compare two texts. In New York the engageNY modules include many of these challenging assignments with scaffolding. Scaffolding could be eliminated or reduced. Additional scaffolding could be provided.

I remember kindergarten orientation when they talked about the new full day program. I asked about extending the academic rigor to meet my daughter's needs. One parent got up and remarked how the teacher had kept his child busy teaching other kids. As far as I know my young child had not gone to school to learn how to teach. The article even says, "Don't assume that by making gifted students tutors, you're providing a learning extension" (p. 3). The teacher offered to send home work that would be at her level. Unfortunately my five year old was tired after a day of coloring and did not want to then be stretched. This was not the teacher taking it up. This was me teaching my daughter. If I had wanted to home school her, I could have made that choice.

Strategy 4- Speak to Student Interests. My son's teachers utilized this strategy to engage motivation. His interest is antique bottles. The social studies teachers allowed him to periodically bring in one bottle and tell the class how it related to the time period of interest. Other teachers simply let him have the stage for ten minutes to share about his interest. He was engaged because he wanted that perk. Taylor Wilson, the youngest person to create nuclear fusion (see The Boy Who played with Fusion), talked about the joy of sharing his interests with his peers and with the world on TED talks. Being able to share his special interest validated his research and gave him a purpose for participating in less interesting, "slow-paced" classes that his age-mates were a part of.

Strategy 5- Enable gifted students to work together. My daughter talked about a time in first grade when she was consistently paired with another child who struggled. The teacher paired them up because my child was patient and capable and could help the other one through the assignment. She hated it because she ended up doing the majority of the work. On the other hand, she has participated in Johns Hopkins' Center for Talented Youth program and loves being able to interact with a bunch of kids who think "fast" like she does. They can relate like kids, something she struggles with in our rural school district where there are not many high ability kids in her grade. While our gifted kids need to be able to work with everyone, they need to have a chance to "geek out" with their cognitive peers. We have sports teams for our best athletes and select music groups for our musicians, we need to have opportunities for our academically gifted to work together too. One study I read said that gifted kids are reported to not like group work. In one sense they don't. They don't like being paired with poor performers who they have to teach or do the work for. They enjoy groups with other highly capable students.

Strategy 6- Plan for tiered Learning. Again this is differentiated instruction. It may involve questioning at different depths of knowledge or providing different ranges of scaffolds to achieve a goal. Tomlinson talks about planning the lesson for your brightest student and then putting in place the strategies to make it accessible to the other learners. This might involve grouping for extra instruction, providing graphic organizers, vocabulary lists, leveled readings, text to voice or voice to text technology, or various other supports.

While many of these strategies fall under the differentiated instruction category and do involve extra upfront work, there are multiple pluses: students will be engaged if they have work at an appropriate level, they will feel respected for their unique abilities, and they will be learning- a right all students have. One of my favorite assertions is that "All students have the right to learn something new every day, whether they are in regular classrooms, or in special education, language acquisition, or gifted programs" (p. 4). We often forget this when we have the mindset that gifted students will get it and don't need to extra support or that it is unfair to enrich their education with extensions off the regular curriculum. It is no more unfair to do this than to have cut athletic teams or special ed support. We need to meet the needs of ALL our kids. This includes our gifted learners.