One challenge that teachers may encounter in the classroom is providing adequate support for gifted students while teaching students of different levels all at the same time. Effective classroom management is key to making sure that all students learn at the right pace for them. Teaching gifted students in a regular classroom is difficult, but there are techniques to improve effective classroom management and ensure that all students get the education they deserve. As teachers, it is our goal to ensure that all of our students have an equal opportunity to learn.

The main challenge that arises when gifted students are present in a regular classroom is that the gifted students will be able to learn the material you are teaching more quickly and easily than other students. You must have a plan to address this issue, otherwise the gifted students will be bored and frustrated. Bored and frustrated students can be disruptive to the classroom, which makes effective classroom management difficult, if not impossible!

One way to approach the issue of teaching gifted students along with regular students is to offer choices for the different levels. If you teach a Language Arts class, consider asking the regular-level students to come up with an argument in bullet point form; gifted students can take it one step further and turn their bullet points into a persuasive essay. Consider having more than two options – creative choices like making a poster are also good ideas. If you do end up with extra time for some students, make sure you have extra activities that they can work on that are related to the current assignment. You can also let them have extra time to work on something that interests them, or let them read a book. The most important thing to stay on top of is that students who finish early should not bother the other students that are still trying to work.

Show your students that you know they are capable and bright. For gifted students, work on creating a chart that outlines what they can work on when they finish their assignments. You can help them come up with ideas, but if you let them propose activities they may be more likely to enjoy said activities. The activities to avoid for these students are drills or remedial work. In order to encourage students to learn beyond the classroom you need to show them that learning is fun and get them excited for it. Figure out what the students’ strengths are and help them to enjoy activities that extend their knowledge in those areas. This approach keeps students interested and eager to learn.

It is difficult to practice effective classroom management when teaching gifted students in a regular classroom, but it can be done and the gifted students can still get an enriching experience in this situation. Make sure to offer choices, give students some responsibility, and help them expand their knowledge in ways that are interesting to them. Teaching gifted students can be very rewarding. Effective classroom management makes teaching those students that much easier.

Author Bio: Vince Welsh is CEO of Teacher Education Institute. TEI offers rigorous, graduate-level professional development courses for K-12 classroom teachers. For more about TEI, teaching gifted students, or effective classroom management, visit http://www.teachereducation.com

Category: Education
Keywords: teaching gifted students, effective classroom management