Integrated Technology Education
High-Interest Instructional Programs that Enhance Gifted Learning
Assume for a moment that you had the ability to plan, develop and execute a program that promotes differentiated learning in your school. What would you design?
Unfortunately, it is not every day that an educator is given carte blanche to design and implement an instructional program that would enhance gifted students' learning. With all of the fiscal rumblings coming from both the state and Federal levels, one must sadly suspect that it will be a while before anyone asks this question in earnest. However, considering the possibilities of a revamped NCLB, it would be a good exercise to imagine what teachers could do for the gifted if they had the resources.
Teaching How to Learn
The world is changing its knowledge base at a geometrically accelerating rate. The body of information which was sufficient for veteran teachers to be successful as young men and women just a few years ago simply is not enough in the new millennium. Further, it does not seem possible that teachers can expect our smartest young people to memorize or internalize all of these data, there is too much information that will change too fast, and rote memory usually isn’t the best teaching tactic to take with gifted students anyway.
With gifted children, the chief responsibility of a school in the upcoming century will be to teach them how to learn. They will need both critical thinking skills and problem solving strategies to be successful as lifelong learners, and just going to school and graduating will not always prepare a gifted student to compete for a job in the next one hundred years; they will always have to be learners, constantly updating their knowledge bases and skills.
Keeping this in mind, some of the tenants from integrated technology education of the 1990s can be an ideal focus to enhance all gifted students' learning. The day of the information superhighway is here, and the ability to connect with anyone anywhere around the world within seconds is at our fingertips. Never before in history have children had so much power within their grasps, and with this kind of power also comes the need to learn how to use it properly.
Most children today don’t learn keyboarding by staring at their screen with their hands covered by a sheet of paper as they follow the prompts on the screen. They learn by text messaging their friends between classes and when mom isn’t looking. So, where does the school fit into that equation? It is a concern that a when youngster is asked to go out into the world without the skills to navigate that superhighway that he or she might end up in a collision, and schools need to prepare them for the journey.
How to Use the Technology
It is beyond the scope of this article to point out all of the reasons why it is necessary to integrate technology into gifted education curricula; hopefully, a few key examples might suffice. Programs such as personalized flexible instructional techniques offered through computer-based learning programs give each student a private tutor that can monitor and adjust each new learning to the individual's needs. Since gifted students learn at accelerated paces, this kind of differentiation can be very helpful. Since computers and information exchange devices allow immediate information on what's happening in the global community and in their own hometowns, students can use their word processors and other technologies to enhance their abilities in working with language and improving their communications skills even when mom is looking.
Making all of this happen takes a great deal of hard work in the development and implementation phases of the ‘carte blanche design.’ The amount of money necessary to provide each student with a computer networked the way it is described above would be extensive; however, there are schools where this is done, so it is not an impossibility.
Then, a needs assessment needs to be completed by reviewing the current research and documents, and by surveying the stakeholders involved in the school. Once this is completed, a set of goals by which schools can formulate their objectives needs to be accomplished. These outcomes should be written in terms consistent with the District's Exit-Level Standards and the gifted education teacher.
A model program would involve laptops or computer-based stations replacing the traditional students' desks. These stations would be equipped with CD-ROMs with interactive capacities along with external communications devices. The stations would all be networked with one another and with the teacher, giving the students the opportunities for self-discovery and for teamworking in cooperative projects.
Teachers' computers would all be networked, and content standards would be developed that include interdisciplinary and thematic units. The students' projects and benchmarks could all be stored into computer-databased portfolios for assessment, which could be reviewed by parents, teachers, and peers much like running-records are used. Many of the authentic pieces that teachers use for assessment presently in the gifted classroom could easily be restructured into a technology integrated curriculum.
Next, since the integrated technology curriculum naturally lends itself to interdisciplinary instruction, teachers could link various standards under different curriculum areas to maximize students' learning. In this way, the basic core school subjects could be mastered by all and the gifted students could advance further at their own pace.
To implement the program, the school could purchase all of the necessary hardware and software and install it in the classrooms, with the teachers receiving an appropriate amount of professional staff development offerings to assure that the new program would be effective.
Never Give Up!
Unfortunately, teachers will probably not be given carte blanche to design and implement an instructional program that would enhance gifted students' learning any time in the near future. But, that doesn’t mean educators shouldn't think about it anyway!
