A teacher who teaches gifted children needs to be resourceful to offer an educational experience which is outside the normal curriculum. As these children are usually fast learners, teachers must design the lessons in such a way that they can cater to
the needs of normal and gifted children simultaneously. This article provides a list of websites for teachers of gifted students.
Links for Teachers
- Council for Exceptional Children: This website is a source of helpful resources for educators. It has a number of articles on topics related to classroom strategies and resources which teachers can use. Besides that it also provides an overview of the general characteristics to identify gifted students.
- Gifted Source: This is a very useful website with links to other websites which specialise on specific topics like science, arts, mathematics and language. This is a powerful tool for educators of gifted children as it helps them to design added learning activities/exercises for gifted students on each lesson.
- Smithsonian Education: Among other websites which provides lesson plans on various topics this website has a special place as it uses a different approach. It covers unconventional topics which are outside, but related to, the normal curriculum and hence can be used for educating gifted students. Each of its lesson plans are more elaborate with external resources to gather more information on each topic and helpful tips to successfully carry out the activities detailed in lesson plans.
Resources for the Gifted
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page: it is a website which is dedicated entirely to the gifted education. It has resources for educators, parents and students with links to articles, books and other resources. All the information necessary to teach gifted students is complied under one roof and so this is an excellent website to check.
- National Science Resources Center: A joint venture by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academies, this website has a collection of research based lesson plans for students in all grades. This science curriculum based website is an excellent resource to develop lessons plans for gifted students.
- FOSS Web: This website, formed by the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley, has inquiry based lessons for students in grades K- 8. Each lesson is accompanied with online activities which students can control, answers to related topics and helpful hints for teachers. Gifted students will benefit greatly from this resource.
- Arizona Department of Education: This website provides assistance through its complied list of curriculum resources which has links to various useful websites which teachers can use to develop the lessons on various subjects. Besides that it contains information on other topics like national resources and online education classes for gifted students.
- Davidson Institute for Talent Development: This website has a section called educators guild where teachers can find all sorts of useful resources like lesson plans, techniques to educate gifted students and other related topics. Each lesson plan illustrated is unique in content. It also has links to other lesson plan websites which teachers can use for the benefit of gifted students.
- Kyrene School District Gifted Program: It has information on every topic related to the education of gifted students. This website provides links to various aspects like identification and assessment of gifted children, lesson plans, publications and online resources.
- Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted: Unlike other websites mentioned above this website concentrates on an area which is given lesser importance by educators and parents, which is the emotional aspect of gifted children. This website is very useful as it has articles on all the emotional issues faced by gifted students.