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Teaching History To The Gifted And Talented
It is good practice to add to each classroom task an open-ended question which invites deeper thinking. Pupils can find their own level, tackling your ‘think further’ question or not and at what depth. But many resources for the gifted and talented get no further than this, or even add extra text and more questions. The able student is rewarded for having completed the class task quickly by having more work to do. We all know how demotivating it can be. Unless they already have a passion for history, simply adding extra work may be counter-productive. A good principle is to design classroom tasks around individual learning. Make sure that each student has to make his or her own distinct response to the work you set. Turn each student into a different character in a game and set them decisions to make. Invent ‘jigsaw’ tasks, creating a series of specialist groups, each member of which then has to go back and report to their own ‘home group’ on what they have discovered. This way you create plenty of ‘headroom’ for the able to expand their ideas. A second approach is to provide alternative routes through your classroom tasks. Those who struggle with English as a second language may get no further than highlighting parts of a text. Those with more ability may study the same information but go on to copy out and create a list of causes or effects. Others may rank these or order them into categories. The more able may be able to create a diagram of cause or effect. Better students may be able to plan an essay and the very best in fact to write it with relatively little help from you. All these approaches can be going on in the classroom at the same time because each leads naturally into the next. You can help individual students to find their best starting level and then progress to something more challenging. A third approach is to package teaching and learning tasks together. Instead of leading the class step by step, let them work it out for themselves. Now you can work in pairs with the able as they fly ahead and explore different approaches and the less able as they tackle each stage more simply at a time. How did William I secure his conquest? The answer is in a whole series of strategies. Let them sort them out and you have challenged your able students to sequencing, cause and effect and a broad consideration of the operation of medieval kingship. Congratulate the less able when they have got things in the right order. A fourth approach is to use theoretical concepts. I have discussed the Tudor concept of imperium with year 8s studying Henry VII. I have taught year 9s to analyse and use historical discourses in explaining why stalemate remained so long on the Western Front. Introduce GCSE students of Edwardian Britain to social Darwinism or discuss Germany’s sonderweg with students of mid-war Germany. Explain that this is advanced stuff, joke that it will be beyond the examiners, and the class is yours. The able love speculating at this level and the average are delighted to use these ideas in a more straightforward way. You may be surprised how many quickly feel at home with them. Build teaching and learning for the gifted and talented into the fabric of every lesson and you find that all your students respond with enthusiasm. The unexpected thing is that my students who report history to be the most challenging of their subjects also say it is the most fun to do. Young people just love to be invited to think hard for themselves. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Visit www.brillianthistory.co.uk for ideas and resources for teaching the gifted and talented |
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