The Teacher Scramble

Quick Question…

 

How many times have you had a student finish something early because it was too easy for them?

 

How many of those times have you answered:

 

“Read a book”

“Help a friend”

“Log onto the computer for XYZ activity…”

“Work on an early finisher activity.”

 

Ive been here more times than I would like to admit before being a Gifted Teacher. And I am sure every teacher on this planet has. But…

Scrambling doesn’t feel good…

 

Sure, after your students do one of those things, they are busy…but did they learn anything RELATED to the topic you were teaching? Typing computer activities sure help them type! But is that the objective of your lesson? Quick finisher activities are great for keeping busy and thinking skills! But was that the objective of your lesson? Helping a friend allows them to teach the skill! But are they trained teachers getting paid?

 

Cue: The Teacher Scramble

 

When students finish something early and we do not have anything planned, we quickly scramble. 

 

As teachers, we are great at thinking on our feet. We make decisions all the time. When things aren’t planned, we know how to handle the situation flawlessly. So flawlessly, that we sometimes forget the activity isn’t actually impacting our students.

 

We need to plan.

 

We need to plan for students who already know the content. We need to plan for students who might finish early. They deserve to continue to learn the content at their level, not do something else.

 

How do we plan ahead to avoid the scramble?

 

Here are a few suggestions of ways to avoid the teacher scramble…

1. Unit Planning

 

When we plan units, there are a few ways we can make sure to plan for gifted learners. The first is through objectives. After exploring the standards, teachers write objectives of what they want their students to learn. Well what if students already have met those objectives?

 

Create deeper level objectives.

 

For example, if a student has already mastered “I can add and subtract 2 digit numbers within 1,000”, we can create a deeper level objective. Rather than giving the student something different to work on, allow them to work on the same objective but at a different level.

 

That deeper objective may look like: “I can analyze patterns when adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers within 1,000”. Or maybe “I can create generalizations and rules for addition and subtraction of 2 digit numbers within 1,000”

 

If we do not plan these deeper objectives for the unit, we do not know where we want students to go after.

 

2. Pretesting

 

If you are teaching a lesson and do not check in with what your students know BEFORE teaching the lesson, you are doing everyone a disservice. Yourself for spending time creating lessons your students don’t need, and your students for having to sit through lessons of content they already understand. Pretesting helps you avoid having to scramble later!

 

Just because its a 3rd grade standard, doesn’t mean your students might already know most of it from 2nd grade or previous experiences. Find out what they know!

 

P.s. pretests don’t need to be long and painful – it could be a quick sticky note, an anchor chart, an interview, etc.

 

3. Activities

 

Connected to the last two suggestions…have activities planned for students that do well on the pretests or finish early! These activities should CORRELATE and BUILD UPON the standard and objective of the lesson…not reading a book or doing a computer game…

 

4. Small Group Lessons

 

One of my favorite ways to meet each students’ needs is through small group lessons. When teaching in a small group, you are better able to understand what each of your children already know. Many times when I taught gifted students, they would not show their prior knowledge in whole group lessons because they were embarrassed. In small groups, I quickly was able to assess their knowledge and alter lesson objectives (when I had them preplanned!)

 

Also, I have found through small group lessons, I am able to have much more meaningful, deeper conversations that ALL students actually interact and engage in.

 

What would you add to this list to avoid the teacher scramble?

 

Thanks for reading this post, and join the conversation below in the comments, on instagram (@giftedwithgoldens) or by emailing me ([email protected])!!

Find other related topics here:

 

Gifted Back to School Planning: 3 Reading Strategies

 

Gifted Back to School Planning: Depth of Knowledge

 

Differentiating for Math K-1