Process of Differentiating Curriculum for Gifted Learners

The process for the gifted curriculum is different from the process for the regular education curriculum because it is a long-term one that involves adaptation of the current curriculum, infusion of extant research-based curricula for the gifted, and the development of new curriculum.  The process takes three to five years of commitment from the district and key personnel working on committees.  Budget constraints regarding human and material resources can adversely affect the overall process regarding professional development, release time for curriculum developers, consultant costs during planning, writing, adapting, and implementing.  The curriculum development model (p. 35) details the overall process for the gifted curriculum in eight stages including planning, needs assessment, teams and workscope, curriculum development approaches, tryouts, piloting, and field-testing, implementation, evaluation, and revision.   

   If teachers are concerned about meeting the needs of all of their students, they should indeed develop curriculum for gifted learners while simultaneously  focusing on classroom instruction.  The standards for mastery in a classroom are generally designed for basic learning, and should be attained by all learners.  However, since the general education curriculum is not designed for gifted students, the very nature of gifted learning implies that a greater challenge should be presented to the gifted learner who usually surpasses the basic level quickly, easily, and that challenge should be one that allows the gifted student to interrelate ideas within and across academic domains of study, the arts, leadership, and the affective realm.  The Scopes and Sequences, Case Study, IEP, and Sample Unit Lesson which are included in Appendices 4 A-E are valuable tools for consideration and reflection in this regard.  Ultimately, teachers will ensure that their gifted learners will encounter a curriculum that reflects the modifications listed in the Differentiation Features Checklist on page 84 including acceleration, complexity, depth, challenge, creativity, and abstractness.

The areas that I believe would be most difficult to adapt for gifted learners are

depth and abstractness because the curriculum that I am currently using in my classroom is the state-mandated one, and the writers of the curriculum did not utilize the modifications of depth and abstractness.  The Differentiation Features Checklist causes me to examine my own instructional delivery.  I am not guilty of using acceleration, depth, or abstractness with reference to the currently used curriculum.  Now that this checklist is a part of my knowledge-base, I will share it with administrators, teachers, and other colleagues in my district so that our gifted and other students will benefit from the professional growth and development which is transpiring.