What is flow? How can we create opportunities for flow state, specifically in middle-school and high-school English classes?
Teaching Gifted Students: Good Strategies for All Students
A Teacher’s Toolbox for Gifted Education by Todd Stanley (2022) is a practical and approachable resource that we found, designed for classroom teachers who want to learn how to meet the needs of gifted learners. The book outlines twenty specific strategies that teachers can use to help challenge and engage students who need further enrichment and depth in their learning.
Each strategy is broken down with a clear explanation for ideas on how to implement the strategies in a classroom, and provides examples that help it feel approachable. The strategies don’t put emphasis on adding more work for gifted students, but instead offering opportunities for different and deeper learning. Interestingly, Stanley notes that all of the strategies can and should be used for all learners. They work particularly well for gifted learners, he notes, but gifted learners respond to good teaching, just as all learners do, and therefore these strategies are simply good teaching (Stanley, 1).
The twenty strategies that Stanley outlines are bulletin board enrichment, enrichment clubs, higher level questioning, performance assessments, pre-assessment, independent projects, a makerspace, students as teachers, four corners, project-based learning, STEM design challenges, bonus opportunities, student choice, inquiry learning, differentiated centres, creative thinking, depth and complexity, 20time, board game enrichment, and mentors/mentorships. All of these strategies are interesting and involve practical tips for easy applications in the classroom. Enrichment clubs, for example, are interest-based clubs that challenge students and their thinking but are not directly curricular. Chess club or debate club are both examples. The most successful clubs are designed through student input. 20time, to expand upon another strategy, is the idea that you give students designated class time to dedicate to projects which involve students solving problems about which they are passionate about, rather than assigned projects.
These strategies all allow for student inquiry, support students in working at their desired level and pace, and allow them to be creative and to think critically. A major theme in the book is giving students control of their own learning and choice of topics. Stanley emphasizes project-based learning and other methods that allow students to dig deep into topics of interest to them. Stanley also includes other supports such as graphic organizers, templates, and video links where he talks about how to use the strategies. This felt incredibly helpful for teachers who want to differentiate work, but who don’t usually have time to “reinvent the wheel,” per se.
Summary
Good teaching, for gifted learners and for creating opportunities for creativity, looks generally the same as regular good teaching. We mostly want to provide calm, safe opportunities where we get out of students’ way. We need to give them the time, space, and autonomy to pursue things that they are interested in for projects and assignments. We need to support them in learning deeply. We need to facilitate opportunities for students to dig deeply into topics and ideas, and to problem-solve their learning and figure out how best to present what they learn. I already do this to a certain extent, but I’d like to do it more in the future, and figure out how to strategically support and scaffold certain students, while leaving others alone to flounder productively and achieve the flow state.
References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Flow, the secret to happiness. Ted Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness
Stanley, T. (2022). A teacher’s toolbox for gifted education : 20 strategies you can use today to challenge gifted students. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003238577