5.5.1 Engaging Our Gifted Students Using Authentic Learning

What this session aims to do is to provide teaching strategies that allow you to give gifted students an authentic learning experience they can apply to their lives. It will start with a justification for authentic learning and how this will help gifted students achieve Domain D of the rigor/relevance chart as well as how it teaches 21st century skills including collaboration. It also looks at the many benefits to authentic learning such as: ♣ Relevance ♣ Preparation ♣ Critical thinking ♣ Multidisciplinary nature ♣ Evaluation ♣ Interactive (Windham, 2007) In working with gifted students, the creative thinking and relevance are big keys for engagement.

Then it will look at three specific strategies, providing an explanation of the strategy and how it allows for authentic learning. Strategies include project-based learning, problem-based learning, and case-based learning. All of these strategies fall under inquiry-based learning. There will be examples provided to illustrate each of these methods and how teachers can employ them in their classroom in order to engage their gifted students.

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