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Gifted Continuum Services

Gifted vs. Renaissance

Gifted Students at Inspiration Mountain will be grouped with a gifted cluster teacher who understands and values the unique academic and emotional needs of gifted students, and will develop a classroom environment that challenges these students in every content area. Mrs. Kujan, Gifted Specialist, will support these teachers as well as push into the classroom and work with small groups to support student needs. Grades 3rd and up will participate in walk up to math where gifted math students will walk up to the next grade level's gifted cluster math class. Gifted clusters allow students to mix and interact with peers in their grade level as opposed to being in a self-contained Renaissance setting. All students will have the opportunity to use our Maker Space to create STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) projects through PBL (project based learning).

Renaissance students who qualify for the program will participate in an all-day self-contained learning experience addressing the individual needs of gifted students. Students acquire a solid foundation in the content areas of mathematics, language and communication arts, social studies, science, and technology literacy. Students work at advanced levels within these content areas at an accelerated pace.

 

Question: What would gifted instruction look like in the classroom?

AnswerAs educators our primary goal is to meet each student where their individual need is. Our gifted students will receive instruction that enhances their critical thinking skills while adhering to the grade level standards. For example, if the math standard requires all students to solve word problems then the gifted students would learn to analyze word problems in order to create their own for their peers to solve. In reading, the gifted students would be asked open ended questions to enhance their train if thought. After reading a story, rather than asking 'who were the main characters' they would instead be asked to think more critically and think about questions such as “What would happen if this part of the story did not happen? Do you agree with the main character's actions? What would you do if you were the character?"

 

If you would like more information on Inspiration Mountain Schools Gifted Program, please email our Gifted Specialist whitney.kujan@dvusd.org