Help me develop an after school program for gifted students.

Due to the failure of a recent levy, the school that I teach at will be forced to cut many programs, or charge some big bucks in participation fees. One of the first things to go? Our talented and gifted coordinator, and our Interactive Video Distance Learning Lab. This basically means that the kids who qualify as “gifted” will no longer be receiving any services. If any programs are offered, participation fees of at least $100 will be charged.

I have a problem with this. I feel like we are already letting many of these kids down, because they aren’t being challeged enough, or exposed to different types of opportunities.

I have been thinking about volunteering one of two days a week after school for about an hour or so to direct some sort of program for these students. The more I think about it, the harder time I have deciding on what exactly I should do. Obviously there won’t be any funding, and I definitely can’t afford to spend a bunch of bucks myself. I am willing to give my time though, and to put some hard work in to this project.

I have considered doing a current events discussion at the start of each meeting, followed by something lighter, like a trivia contest. I also thought about concentrating on different subject areas each session. For instance, I would come up with an interesting history lesson the first meeting, and then let the kids research on their own so that it could be discussed at the next meeting.

I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions. Please feel free to critique the above thoughts as well. Thanks!

A very cool idea, I’ll see if over the next little while I can’t help you work up a curriculum and/or syllabus.

I remember from my time in gradeschool that the Gifted and Talented program was one of the only things that kept me sane. I’ll do what I can to help y’all.

I’m in! I’d love to help out with something like this :slight_smile:

Current events discussions sound like a great idea. Book readings? Computer sessions? Video screenings?

I remember doing Odyssey of the Mind activities at a school I attended for a year. They do all sorts of creative problem-solving stuff for kids, and I recall there being competitions. I wasn’t around long enough to really get into it, but I found that link on Google, and there are lots of sample problems. It doesn’t necessarily require expensive materials. I remember a challenge to see who could hold up the heaviest weight using a structure made out of spaghetti and rubber bands. You could have one day a week be OM day.

I was in a gifted program from 4th grade on. It was great. I like the idea of games and contests. If you could break the students into teams to solve problems, I think that would be rewarding especially if there was a winner with a small prize. Gifted students tend to be very competitive. You could alternate the type of subject so that everyone gets a chance to show their skills (trivia to math problems to anagrams to word definitions). Choose the team randomly and let the students show their skills.

Wow! Thanks for great response so far. I love the ideas about the book readings, of movie screenings, that would be great fun too. Thanks Kythereia! I do think that these kids would respond to those types of competitions Shagnasty, they are definitely very competitive.

Miss Violaceous, thanks for the link to OM, looks like a definite possibility.

Keep the great ideas coming!

I did this program for smart kids at MIT. ESP I think was the name. One of the coolest classes I took was on gifted children in science fiction and fanasty. We read a lot and had great discussions. We read Ender’s Game, this great book that’s out fo print called Emergence, the Child Buyer, Welcome to the Ark, and Dorsai (I didn’t like that one as much). It was great fun. There are also math leagues, Academic Decatholon, foreign language events and other things like that.

We also have this really cool thing at my college, where we get different professors to give lectures on their work, followed my discussions. Maybe you could work something out at a lower level.

Good luck, your students are lucky to have you.

gfloyd: An MIT program? I was aware of a John’s Hopkins program called CTY… have you heard of that?

Towards the OP: a great game to play is Balderdash. All you need are a few dictionaries. Split the students up into teams, and give each team a dictionary.

Then, each team finds a word and writes down (in no particular order) the correct definition, and then three definition to stump the other teams.

Teams get one point each time another team chooses one of the stumping answers rather than the real one, and a point every time they get another team’s real answer rather than choosing the stumping one. It’s great fun.

Along the same lines as Odyssey of the Mind, there’s Destination Imagination. The two things I like best about both these programs is that they require gifted kids to work together, something that’s often a challenge for children who are accustomed to being “the smart one,” and the kids are expected to come up with solutions on their own, with no input from well-meaning adults aside from some guidance on how to cooperate and think the problems through.

I live right near MIT. This is a very informal thing, a couple of times a year. A weekend in the fall, ten Saturdays in spring, six Saturdays in the summer. I got a thing from my junior high coordinator. It’s really cool, if you live the Boston area. It only cost 20-30 dollars for each “season.”

I did OM, as well. I really enjoyed it. We came in second at regionals and won a medal for extreme creativity.

We had a program during lunch block (although it could be done after school) called Think Tank for Super Thinkers. Although this is an incredibly corny name, I’m sure the kids could manage to come up with something better. Anyway, we chose topics to discuss- current events, issues that were important to us, whatever. We then assigned these topics to people, who researched them and presented them seminar-style.

Thanks again to all of you for the incredible ideas. I think I am going to go with something split up into several different areas. We will discuss current events, play a challenging game like Trivial Pursuit or Balderdash or Cranium, then end with a discussion of a book, movie, or magazine article that I have picked in advance for them to preview. I am going to use this for the remainder of this year as a test run, then make more permanent plans for next year, in which I will give more consideration to Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination.

Thanks again, I’m sure the students will be grateful as well.

I was a PEGS (Program for Exceptionally Gifted Students) kid all though school. The way it worked at my school was we had a day out a week from normal classes (and therefore had to catch up on our own time, which was not a problem at all), and in that day we did research. You could easily adapt that to an after school type thing. Generally speaking, we would have a theme for the year/term (depending on the scope), and while we were provided with guidance if we requested it, we were able to take it any direction we wanted. At the end of the program, we submitted essays, which were not graded, but were distributed to the other students in the PEGS class, and we spent a couple of days discussing the issues we all raised and debating any points that were controversial. Typically we would also have a presentation to our parents, where we presented what we had researched and waht we had learned (in any form that we felt was appropriate, so very few were lecture style presentations - often we did little plays to discuss our issue etc etc). Sometimes they were solo research, sometimes in pairs and sometimes in groups.

Over the course of the program we covered “knowledge through music”, environmental issues, the abortion debate, the place of international law and the UN and heaps more.

The reason I loved it was that it challenged my mind, and it gave me somewhere to go - I could take it as far as I liked or in any direction I liked - for example when we did environmental issues, one group arranged for tours of local water treatment plants and based their whole thing on sewage and treatments, one team looked at alternate fuels for cars, and another team looked at fast food packaging and how to reduce waste in that area. I also loved that, although it wasn’t graded, it was shared with everyone in the class and debated - my chance to show off, as it were.

The research skills that we learned, as well as the ability to analyse an issue with more than one side (often the topics were picked to be deliberately controversial) and put forward a persuasive opinion stood me in excellent stead, for my other subjects at school, but also for university and life.

Wow, you were fortunate to be involved in such a program. Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of letting the students take the issues wherever they wish, and then having the debates after the research is complete. That would definitely be something to consider to start next year with, so that I will have more time to plan topics and the such.

I am getting more and more excited about this idea as the suggestions role in. I can’t wait to tell my students tomorrow!

You’ll have to let us know how you get on.

One thing I forgot to ask - how old are these kids?

Well, this is where I can add something. About a program for “gifted learners” gone astray. Granted, I did it in the 80’s, but lessons learned are lessons learned.

As robinc308 has detailed, I as well was in such a program in grades 4 - 13 (of course now I’m dating myself for those in Ontario). From my experience, what you need to keep in mind is to encourage the student to learn and explore. For myself, being told by parents and teachers that I was “gifted”, “a fast learner”, “took information in quickly”, and the absolute worst thing “didn’t really need to study because I’d just take it all in” completely erased my work / study ethic. It took several years of failed higher education and dead end jobs to rediscover myself, and realise that, yes, I do learn quickly, but I must be interested in what I’m learning. Actually ten years of aimless wandering, and now I’m happy.

In short, find something that the student is interested in, play to their strengths, don’t coddle them, and for Og’s sake, be honest.

Sorry for the long winded 2 cents worth.

I am going to open it up to 6th-8th grades.

I’m glad you brought this up actually. I do love working with these students, but I am also very tough on them. I think some teachers are afraid to really challenge these students, because if they don’t get all A’s, then someone gets upset. I don’t have a problem with that.

I want this to be fun, for sure, but my focus is on learning and retention. If it will not be worthwhile, then I won’t be involved.

Just wanted to comment that I think you’re a special person for taking this on of your own initiative.

I recommend that you also work on getting other teachers and relevant parents at the school to help you. Don’t be afraid to ask for volunteers to buy supplies, etc.

Thank You, that really does mean something to me.

I am trying to work on a few teachers for help, but it looks like I may have to rely on parent volunteers. This won’t be a problem, but it is dissapointing that the other teachers don’t want to be involved unless there is some pay included. I haven’t talked to everyone, so maybe I will find a few good souls yet.