The act of learning is a tricky thing. Schools and educators have tried for centuries to find the best way to help students learn, but like most things in life, there is no exact science. Everyone learns differently and so there is no one-size-fits-all, as much as educational programs would like you to think. What we do know is that there is sort of a tipping point where students go from knowing about something to understanding it. This is the moment where learning happens, but when does this tipping point occur? It does not happen beforehand; otherwise, the student would have already learned it. Nor does it happen at the end when taking the summative assessment, for rarely does someone sit down with a test and about halfway through, the lightbulb goes off and suddenly he or she has it. The learning happens somewhere during the middle of the process, and yet a summative assessment is often how we determine whether someone has mastered what it is they were supposed to have learned.

Even though we have been in this schooling game for hundreds of years, the way learning is presented in the traditional sense still looks the same. The formula is to expose students to something they do not know, let them practice this until they understand it, and then have them prove to us they have learned it through some sort of assessment.

This goes for something as elementary as basic addition to advanced calculus. There is a fundamental flaw with this structure, however, in that it assumes everyone is learning at the same pace, so when the lesson gets to its appointed end, all students are in a place to show they have learned.

In actuality, we know that students learn at different rates, some getting things before others, and so when you get to the end, some students have had it for days or longer, while others still are not there yet. Most students have learned it in the middle of the process.

It does not make sense that we measure this learning at the end. This would be like diagnosing a patient after they are cured (or have died). Would it not make more sense to measure the learning as it is occurring? Would it not make sense to measure the learning during the process when understanding occurs? To capture that moment when the lightbulb goes off for the student? How inspiring would that be to both student and teacher?

One could make an argument if the student is able to learn during the process, then he or she will display this ability on a summative assessment. Is this a perfect correlation, however? Are all students who understand what they have learned able to display this in a final assessment? Are there students who do not understand what they learned and yet perform well on the summative assessment? How do we get a truer picture of what learning took place? The answer, we assess them during the learning process, not at the end. We also have to realize that some students’ process is going to be much longer than others, but we as teachers have to be ready to determine this mastery when it does happen.

Some would argue this grading of the process is already being done with formative assessments. Formative assessment is defined as:

• A range of formal and informal assessment procedures during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment.

When you read the first part of the definition, it seems on par with what this book is proposing, using formal and informal assessments during the learning process. So far, so good. Where it veers off is in the second half of the definition. Formative assessments are used primarily to modify teaching and learning, not to evaluate mastery. It is a tool used to see where a student is at and allows one to differentiate to meet the student at his or her level. This is an important strategy to use, and this book is proposing that formative assessments still occur. Learning is modified to fit the needs of the student, but what if there were an assessment during the process that evaluates students at the moment of understanding? Is that not more authentic than the artificial construct of sitting students down and making them regurgitate what they have already learned?

Even before this massive school shutdown, some schools and teachers were finding difficulties in coming up with ways to challenge their gifted students. We cannot overlook these students in the virtual classroom either. Here are five things teachers can do to meet the needs of gifted children in a virtual classroom:

1. Don’t just give them more work, make sure there are options for those who are ready for a challenge

One solution a lot of teachers go to is simply giving gifted students more work. “You got that done more quickly than the rest of the class, here are some more of these problems for you to work on to keep you occupied.” When posting an assignment virtually, are there options for increasing levels of challenge? For example, if you assign math problems, give them the five most difficult first. If students can answer those with no problem, rather than making them do 15 more problems of the same ilk, give them a new set of more challenging problems or allow them to create their own problems for others to solve.

2. Find ways to encourage them to enrich themselves

When gifted students do finish early, you would normally have things placed in the room for them to challenge themselves with, whether it be brain teasers, STEM corners, or games. You have to be more inventive in the virtual classroom but you can put things out there that will allow students to enrich themselves. I have created enrichment videos which I send out to the teachers in my district that they can use as an option for students. Teachers provide a link to the video in their Google Classroom and students can decide whether they want to take the challenge on or not. You can find these enrichment videos at www.thegiftedguy.com/enrichment. Other enrichment suggestions can be as simple as providing a link to an interesting online game, providing a reading list with above grade-level choices, or suggesting they learn a new hobby.

3. Stop putting ceilings on work

In the 23 years that I have been in education, I have seen a lot of educational reform come and unfortunately go. Some of them are really good ideas like the small school reform headed by Bill Gates. Others are disasters such as No Child Left Behind, which spent lots of money but made zero improvements. Even currently, the standards movement seems to be buckling under its own weight, and I’m sure by the time I have grandchildren in school, it will be gone.

What do we need in order to bring about wholesale reform in our schools? Cue the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic, as horrible as it has been with the number of lives lost, is education’s wake up call to make a change. Due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders, there will be no year-end high stakes testing, and yet students will still learn. Students are not physically in school and have to try and learn with only our guidance. Is it working perfectly? No, but some kids prefer to learn on their own.

School districts and teachers are having to build the plane as it’s flying, figuring out a way to educate children without children actually being in our schools. Teachers are stepping up to the plate, figuring out ways to flip their classrooms, and provide meaningful educational experiences on-line. We have to innovate, and we are getting good at it. Why not continue this innovation and change the way we have done things for seemingly 100 plus years?

Here are five areas where COVID-19 has shown us we should have school reform:

1. Personalized learning for everyone

We talk about differentiation as being a solution all of the time, but what we really need is personalized learning. Personalized learning means that every student gets an education that is significant and useful for them. No longer is it the teacher telling the students what will be learned. This calls for the kids to have some say in this process and to be learners rather than students. This can be done with such teaching strategies as inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, and problem-based learning. It lets children explore things for themselves and discover learning. In many cases, with virtual learning, students are getting to pick and choose what they are going to learn and with what effort. Why can’t that continue?

2. Ban homework and grades

We have been under this sticks and carrots philosophy for many years, and although it works for some students, there are a large number of those it does not. Let’s start with homework. We are grading a child on his practice. It would be like going to the football practices and evaluating those for points, and then when the game is played on Friday, one team starts 15 points ahead because they practiced better. The other message it sends to students is it is not OK to make mistakes. If you make mistakes during practice you will be penalized. We should be teaching students to learn from these mistakes, not taking off points for doing so.

Grades have always been a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, but what ends up happening a lot of times is we allow compliance to have a huge effect on them. If a student turns in their work on time, does what the teacher asks, and stays out of trouble, he will stand a far greater chance of getting a good grade than a more intelligent student who is not as compliant. Many schools during the COVID-19 shutdown have elected to go to Pass/Incomplete for their final grading quarter. Why couldn’t it be that way all of the time? A student either masters the class or does not. Why do we have to assign different levels of passing?

3. Stop putting children into classes based on age

COVID-19 has hit the world like a mack truck and we are having to reinvent school, building the plane as it is flying so to speak. As bleak as the situation is, there is an opportunity here. The opportunity is to teach students to learn for themselves and to love learning. That students don’t need to receive an assignment from their teacher in order to learn something. Learning doesn’t have to end just because school as we typically know it has.

What I have included here are 19 learning opportunities that students can consider while they sit in their homes. We have a lot of time on our hands and being productive with our minds is going to be essential to fighting the quarantine blues and prevent us from going stir crazy. You should not think of these as assignments, rather they would be learning opportunities that students can choose to engage in or not. I have broken them into four categories:

1. Challenge

2. Recreational

3. Thinking

4. Academic

Challenge

Learning Opportunity #1 – start a new hobby

Is there a hobby you always wanted to do but never got around to doing it? It could be teaching yourself to play tennis, taking up photography, it could be gardening, or something like knitting. Pick a hobby that doesn’t involve you having to leave your house and would take minimal materials. You don’t want to be taking up skydiving. Keep it simple.

Learning Opportunity #2 – learn a new board game

Time spent with family is a good opportunity to play games as a group. Better yet, play a game you have never played before and learn it together. There are tons of board games that will stretch your thinking and challenge you. Blockus, Qwirkle, or even the very appropriate Pandemic. Here is a list to generate some ideas for games you might try https://myedexpert.com/item/board-games-that-teach/. It is also easy to order these on Amazon and have them delivered.

Learning Opportunity #3 – do a passion project

I love to learn through reading books and so over the course of my 22-year career in education, I have read lots of them; some good, some bad, and some that are so important that everyone should be reading them. There are some general education books that fall under this category, such as "Most Likely to Succeed" by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith, "The Courage to Teach" by Parker Palmer, or "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. What follows are the 5 books that not only educated me, they enlightened me to a whole different way of thinking about gifted education.

And Still We Rise – Miles Corwin

Even though this book is over 20 years old, it still remains very powerful and relevant. It follows the journey of 12 inner-city gifted students and how they must contend with much more than just grades and school. I cannot tell you how many times my heart broke while reading this book, knowing that the only way for these students to have a better life was to stay in school, but dealing with issues that your average person is not burdened with. It really gives you a glimpse into the lives of smart kids who, because of the environment they live in, are not provided the same opportunities as others.

The Overachievers – Alexandra Robbins

Over winter break, I had the privilege of teaching in Beijing, China. I was working for a company called Delight and Diligence Center and students attended an academic camp, taking a single course from 9am to 4pm for 7 straight days. I was teaching an Academic Writing course with the end goal being that students would write a developed essay analyzing the book The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. It was a pretty intense course as these were 5th and 6th graders, they had to read the entire book in five days, and English was not their primary language. Needless to say, this was going to be a challenge, but then again it was a challenge program.

When I came into the Beijing airport, nearly everything was in a form of writing of which I did not recognize. Then I was taken to a hotel where no one at the front desk understood me. And when I had my first meal, there was a lot I could not fully recognize and thus was not necessarily comfortable consuming. To say I was out of my comfort zone was a serious understatement, but the second I stepped foot in my empty classroom, I instantly felt at ease. The desks looked familiar; the board was at the front of the room where I was used to it, and there were posters on the walls inspiring learning. Even though I was several thousands of miles from my school, it was like I was in the next room over. I could not control the unfamiliar environment around me, but this was an environment I could control.

The next day was my first with the class, 18 Chinese students with varying abilities. Some of them spoke and wrote English better than my students back in the states. Others were difficult to understand and could only write in very basic sentences. Out of the 18 students, it was split pretty evenly between boys and girls, and much like middle schoolers in the US, the girls sat at tables together while the boys only sat with one another. 7 of these boys I would come to learn all came from the same school and knew one another. This meant I was not going to have the awkward unfamiliarity that kept students quiet and focused the first couple of days. These students were coming into the room, pushing one another, teasing each other, and not able to keep their hands to themselves. My classroom management skills were going to be put to the test these 7 days…

In the September edition of Parenting for High Potential, Jen Zatchey, a parent of three gifted children, provides advice on how parents can be an advocate for their child.

• Assess the current needs and interests of your child first.

• Research policies, programming, and processes in your district.

• Craft your message.

• Find effective ways to articulate your message.

• Who are the decision makers and who influence those decisions?

• Offer help to find a solution

• Do your homework.

These are all great pieces of advice. Focusing their child’s needs and doing their homework can go a long way in bringing about change for the betterment of gifted students. I especially like how Mrs. Zatchey took the approach of involving the classroom teacher in the process. So much more can be done when working together than by putting people on the defensive.

This is great advice for those parents who know the system well enough to understand how to play it to their advantage, but what about the parents who don't have that foundation? What if a parent does not have the resources Mrs. Zatchey had after attending the NAGC convention and talking with experts about advocacy? How do you teach them how to advocate for their child?

Often times people overlook the fact that gifted students can be just as at-risk as students we traditionally concern ourselves with. In fact, I would make the argument that gifted students are actually more at-risk because they have so much potential, and helping them reach that potential can be a challenge. One could argue that it is actually easier for a gifted student to underachieve than say one that has been identified in special education. After all, to achieve does not mean to succeed, it means you reach the level that you were expected. If a student with a learning disability scores a basic on the state assessment, this, in fact, might be an improvement from the year before when she scored in the limited range. A gifted student, on the other hand, may have passed the test at the accelerated level, but this is actually lower than the expectation of this student who should have been at the top of the scale in the advanced range. Even though the gifted student scored better on the test, he did not reach the level he was expected to and thus is viewed as having not met his potential.

Underachieving gifted students are at risk of not reaching their potential. Children identified as gifted do not always make for the best students. There are other factors that play into good grades, such as motivation, effort, interaction, participation, completion of work, being organized, and test-taking/study skills, among others. Just because someone is intelligent does not mean he will apply this to his academics either. In fact, he may use his intelligence to avoid schoolwork, getting by on his natural ability rather than developing the skills needed to be successful in a school setting. This type of student can be seen as underachieving.

The number of underachieving gifted students may be even higher as, in some cases, underachievement can be overlooked. An example would be a gifted student in a regular education classroom. The teacher typically focuses most of her attention on two areas; discipline and low performing students.