Thinking Skills and Instructional Strategies

With such a vast variety of instructional strategies from which to choose, I often find myself having difficulty deciding which plan of action would benefit my students the most.  With each new group of students, that plan changes to better meet their needs.  Many of the instructional strategies, such as activating prior knowledge or checking for understanding, are designed to better educate all levels of students.  However, as educators, we often forget basic teaching practices because we are searching for the “magic bullet” that will be the pedagogical miracle.  Instead, I think that teachers should keep learning and teaching fresh by choosing a variety of strategies that encourage a high level of student interest and learning.  For the gifted students, utilizing Bloom’s Taxonomy, differentiating the curriculum, applying best teaching practices and stepping outside of the box, are strategies that I feel could be successfully implemented in my classroom. 

By implementing Bloom’s Taxonomy, I can develop learning strategies that are most appropriate, effective, and efficient for the gifted students in my classroom.  Through informal assessments and the framework of Bloom’s, I can plan appropriate instruction, design valid tasks and ensure that instruction is aligned with the curriculum objectives while encouraging students to perform to their intellectual potential.

Differentiating the curriculum to meet the needs of gifted students is essential.  Building upon Bloom’s Taxonomy, offering inquiry-based instruction and open-ended flexible grouping would benefit my gifted students.  In addition, I would like to increase the students’ learning through problem-based learning tasks. Developing PBL units would allow students the opportunity to sharpen their thinking skills, as well as their listening and conferencing skills.  PBL’s demand students use critical thinking skills, creativity, and other skills essential for success in the 21^st century.

Activating prior knowledge, framing their learning, checking for understanding and the “final countdown” are some best teaching practice instructional strategies that I would like to incorporate into my classroom.  First off, I believe the “word splash” or “picture splash” activities would be a great way to introduce a new concept, as well as an effective way for students to summarize an idea or concept.  Framing the students’ learning is also an idea that I should be using in my classroom.  By using the daily objective and “I Can” statements posted on my classroom board, this would be almost effortless, yet would benefit the students’ understanding by directing their focus.  I currently practice several methods to check for student understanding in my classroom; however, I believe I could be more effective by using a variety of techniques on a more routine basis.  Quick writes in their Interactive Student Notebook, a ticket-out-the-door, whiteboard practice, and iPad activities with apps such as Kahoot are ideas that I would like to incorporate in a regular rotation to determine student understanding and provide structure, yet keep students engaged.  The “Final Countdown” is another instructional strategy that I feel would be successfully implemented in my classroom to help cement the students’ learning of the day’s topic and also serve as an informal assessment to drive the instruction for the remainder of the unit or concept.
Thinking outside of the box and utilizing strategies like game-based learning units may also work well in a classroom with gifted students.  Ideas such as this would allow students to be creative and work in teams to accomplish a common goal much like a PBL unit.  However, by making learning fun and challenging, game-based learning units can attract the attention of students who are uninterested and find normal modes of instruction boring. 


The ideal gifted classroom provides multiple strategies for student learning, uses many tools to reach diverse learners, and remains flexible to meet the needs of it’s gifted students.  Whether it be traditional best practices or problem-based learning activities, with a varied array of instructional strategies, I feel I can provide my students with meaningful and challenging experiences to better educate them, as long as they are research-based and student-centered.  Engaging the students through student-centered activities and guiding their understanding will enable them to communicate the content and their solutions collaboratively and independently. 

Miller, A. (2011) Game-Based Learning Units For the Everyday Teacher.  Edutopia. Retrieved June 21, 2015, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/video-game-model-unit-andrew-miller?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=game-basedlearningeverydayteacher

Tips for Teachers: Successful Strategies for teaching gifted learners. (2003). Retrieved June 21, 2015.

VanTassel-Baska, Basic educational options for gifted students in schools. Retrieved June 21, 2015.