GT Back to School Planning: Low Prep, High Thinking Strategies
Today we have an extra special blog post in our Back to School Planning series! When I began teaching K-2 gifted education 2 years ago, I had the most amazing 3-5 GT teacher that I got to work with and learn from! Today, she is sharing with us some incredible Low Prep-High Thinking Strategies.
From @gifted365247:
When Megan from Gifted with Goldens asked me to share some back to school planning strategies for teachers, I immediately said yes. I’ve always had a passion for working with gifted learners. As a general education teacher, I tried the latest and greatest new strategy to keep my gifted learners engaged. But I always wondered, did I do enough for them? Did I truly up the rigor and reach my gifted learners at their level?
I think one of the biggest challenges for classroom teachers is to meet the needs of ALL learners, especially your gifted learners.
When I co-plan and co-teach with different teachers, third through fifth grade, the biggest question I consistently ask my co-teachers is, “What type of thinking are they doing with this activity or lesson?”.
Over the years, this passion has only increased. I’ve seen how gifted students are overlooked, are asked to be the teacher, or put in a corner to work on an independent project or just read a book. Yes, gifted students have different needs, but they also deserve the opportunity to be taught by their teacher.
The struggle arises when teachers are spread so thin trying to meet the needs of all their students. So, how do you ensure that your gifted students are not left behind? There has to be an easier way to raise the bar for all students without having to create 10 different learning groups or 20 differentiated activities for one lesson.
As I’ve deepened my understanding of how to teach gifted students, I’ve discovered that we need to plan for a “high ceiling” and scaffold down. We need to include some type of critical thinking into all our lessons or activities. Critical thinking is not exclusively a gifted thing. Critical thinking is a culturally responsive thing and benefits ALL students.
Our goal is to ensure that ALL students participate in some type of activity that pushes their thinking.
“That’s great!” you might think, but how do I do that?
Here are a few of our go-to favorites. They are easy to implement and do not require a lot of prep time (some none at all).
Strategy 1: Rank ordering
Rank ordering is a reasoning strategy that has students compare and contrast concepts or ideas by creating a rank order based on a criterion. This is a low risk strategy for students. There is no right or wrong answer. As long as students can explain or justify their order, they can’t get it wrong. It’s about the thinking, not about being correct.
No prep needed for this strategy. Apply it to anything that can be compared.
Examples:
Which character in the book is the most unique?
Which story had the worst ending?
Which addition strategy is the least useful?
Which multiplication strategy is most efficient? Or accurate?
Which ecosystem contains the most interesting animals? Or which biome is least likely to survive?
Which is the most important stage in a frog’s life cycle?
Strategy 2: Hexagonal Thinking
It is a retrieval and connection strategy that is student led and hands-on. Speaking and listening, writing, reading, and language skills are all part of this strategy. Students show relationships between terms on hexagons by connecting one hexagon to at least one other, but can connect to up to six, as long as each connecting side relates in some way.
This is another low risk strategy for students. There is no right or wrong answer as long as students can justify their thinking. Each side that connects can reflect a variety of relationships (ex. cause and effect, sequential, conceptual, etc).
Low prep needed (i.e. science content – place terms on different hexagons, print, cut, and students connect hexagons). Get a FREE sample pack exclusively for you, the reader, by clicking HERE.
Ideas for hexagonal thinking:
- Vocabulary Words
- Literary and/or rhetorical devices
- Quotes from nonfiction or fiction text
- Thematic ideas
- Questions
- Science or Social Studies content
Or check out other hexagonal thinking resources in my TPT store. I have a new growing collection of Hexagonal Mysteries.
Strategy 3: Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning is a critical thinking skill that pushes students to find patterns and create rules to explain a certain concept or idea. An inductive reasoning task allows students to make observations, make a hypothesis, and test out these theories until they can create a rule that defines the concept being observed.
Low to no prep is needed with inductive reasoning. It’s as simple as showing 3rd graders a well constructed paragraph and having them come up with rules as to what makes this paragraph good. Or giving 4th graders the opportunity to explore with attribute shapes to discover angle measurement BEFORE teaching anything about angles.
Check out this FREE multiplication strategy inductive reasoning task from my Think Like a Detective series.. Also check out the brief how-to tutorial video.
In Conclusion…
I hope these no or low prep strategies get you ready for the upcoming school year. Thank you to Megan from Gifted with Goldens for letting me share some of my go-to strategies that we use with our students.
If you have any questions or want to share how these strategies worked in your classroom, send me note at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.
Also, follow me on TPT or Instagram to get news about my latest resources and tips on adding critical thinking into your every day lessons.
Good luck with the new school year.
Happy planning.
Gifted 365
One more tip: Check out my critical thinking B2S resource.
Happy planning and stay tuned for the final Blog #5 in the Back to School Series tomorrow!!
Check out the other blog posts in the series:
Blog 1: Depth of Knowledge
Blog 2: Critical Thinking
Blog 3: The 4 C’s
