I get a lot of questions about the practical details of running pre-assessments and setting up multiple groups in a classroom. I brainstormed a big ol’ list of tips I learned from my own experiments and those of my colleagues.
Tagged WithAssessment
Six Traits of Quality Pre-Assessments
Judy Galbraith identified boredom with school as a gripe of gifted students. This complaint is completely understandable. How many meetings have you sat through, going over material you had already mastered? For our gifted students, their school career is a long stretch of those meetings.
Ask Creative Questions
Is this the message I want to give to my gifted students? “Follow the directions?” This is a room full of students who are creative, flexible, divergent thinkers. These are the future Noble Laureates, inventors, and revolutionaries. Let’s allow them (or better yet: force them) to exercise their creative muscles.
Ask Them Which Is Better
Moving from analysis to evaluation sure makes things more fun. Why? Check out these examples. Which would you rather answer?
What’s Test Prep Like In A Gifted Class?
Testing is a reality in any classroom, but what does it look like with your gifted learners? Drill and kill, test prep, reviewing material… these all go against the ideals of your gifted classroom. Yet it would be a disservice for your kids to head into a high-stakes test without the utmost preparation, right?
Do Your Assessments Reflect Your Teaching?
If we expect gifted students to learn information at a more rigorous level than the general population, then we must also assess them at higher levels as well. How can you embed higher level thinking skills into an assessment (and ditch those “multiple choice” and “fill in the blank” sections)?