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Title: An integrated-thematic curriculum for gifted learners.
Author(s): Tucker, Brooke
Hafenstein, Norma Lu
Source: Roeper Review; Jun97, Vol. 19 Issue 4, p196, 4p, 2 diagrams
Document Type: Article
Subject(s): GIFTED persons -- Education
Abstract: Describes and explains an integrated-thematic curriculum designed to meet the unique needs of gifted and talented learners. Assumptions about learning; Characteristics of gifted learners; Specific curricular strategies for meeting gifted students need; Incorporation of all areas of study within the chosen topic.
Full Text Word Count: 3462
ISSN: 0278-3193
Accession Number: 9707130196
Persistent Link to this Article: http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9707130196&db=afh
Database: Academic Search Elite
* * *
AN INTEGRATED-THEMATIC CURRICULUM FOR GIFTED LEARNERS

Contents
Assumptions about Learning and Learner Characteristics: An Overture to Curriculum Development
The Curriculum Model
The Curriculum in Practice
REFERENCES
Assumptions about Learning
Characteristics of Gifted Learners
Specific Curricular Strategies for Meeting Gifted Students Needs
Selecting an Overarching Theme
Webbing the Units

An integrated-thematic curriculum is especially appropriate for gifted learners because of their exceptional abilities to see and understand relationships. Shaping course work around integrated themes inspires students to find personal meaning in their study by allowing them to generate their own observations, inquiries, and investigations, paralleling the processes performed by specialists in the field. Gifted learners have different learning needs than more typical learners and a curriculum appropriate for them provides: advanced content that allows for flexible pacing, learning processes designed to promote creativity, higher-level thinking and problem solving; and learning environments that are open and supportive of diverse learning styles and needs. This article describes and explains an integrated-thematic curriculum designed to meet the unique needs of gifted and talented learners. It provides examples of how this curriculum appears in the classroom and a model for developing similar curriculum in other settings.

Upon entering the multi-aged primary classroom, a visitor first notices an enormous hot pink and purple Pterodactyl hanging from the ceiling. The Pterodactyl is covered with "jewels" and wears two necklaces. The windows are painted with murals of dinosaurs. Graphs displaying the different weights of dinosaurs, maps of where the dinosaurs lived, and a chart comparing the lengths of dinosaurs to school objects are posted around the room. Smaller Pterodactyls also hang from the ceiling. Other dinosaurs, some constructed by children in the classroom and some brought from home, are placed around the room.

In this classroom, 18 children, seven and eight years old, are lined up, ready to show their parents what they learned in their integrated-thematic unit on dinosaurs, They wear sweat-shirts, blouses, and pants printed with hand-made dinosaur stencils. On the backs of the shirts, are names such as Johnraptor and Chrisasaurus. Mary (asauras) stands up and thanks the parents and friends for attending and Robbie(asaurus) introduces the first song, Allosaurus. The children sing a song about the Allosaurus, where it lives, and how paleontologists came to find its fossils. In all, they sing five songs.

Afterwards, the children exhibit their research about dinosaurs. Each child chose a topic of interest to study in-depth. Anna, Caesar, and Arthur made a diorama depicting the Ornithosaurus and Compthygnathus. Bobby, Ron, and Seth constructed the skeleton of a Styracosaurus. Serena and George wrote a play in which they travel back in time to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Melanie prepared a traditional research report about the Tyranasaurus Rex. After the children present their independent projects, they guide their parents around the room, showing them the many different experiences and activities they engaged in during the unit study.

These children attend the Ricks Center for Gifted Children, a private school for gifted students located at the University of Denver. The integrated curriculum described, designed to meet the intellectual, emotional, physical, and social needs of gifted learners, has been used successfully for eleven years at the Ricks Center in preschool through sixth grade classrooms.

Assumptions about Learning and Learner Characteristics: An Overture to Curriculum Development
Assumptions about Learning
Curriculum development is based on certain assumptions about how children learn. The curriculum model described above is based on the belief that children are not passive recipients of knowledge, but active participants in their learning, and that the most effective learning occurs when learners are immersed in a study and connections are made to their previous knowledge (Caine & Caine, 1991; Piaget, 1954; Vygotsky, 1978). This curriculum is also based on the belief that students learn in many different ways and need to be exposed to subject matter by multiple methods through complex, real projects and experiences (Caine & Caine, 1991; Dewey, 1965; Gardner, 1985). These underlying beliefs about learning are displayed through the use of integrated-thematic units. Immersing students in a unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. It piques students' interest while tapping into their own background knowledge about a subject. It facilitates the accommodation of new information by building on students' knowledge base. The learning experience becomes meaningful as students connect their new learning to past experiences.

Characteristics of Gifted Learners
The curriculum design is also based on the belief that there are certain characteristics that differentiate gifted learners from more typical learners. In Comprehensive Curriculum for Gifted Learners, Joyce VanTassel-Baska (1988) delineates three ways in which gifted learners differ: their capacity to learn at faster rates (Keating, 1976); their capacity to find, solve, and act on problems more readily (Sternberg, 1985); and their capacity to manipulate abstract ideas and make connections (Gallagher, 1985). Although these characteristics provide the basis for developing a curriculum for the gifted (VanTassel-Baska, 1988), it is also recognized that not all gifted students have identical characteristics and needs. Thus, curriculum planning begins with these general behaviors and is modified according to the specific interests and needs of individual students (Van Tassel-Baska, 1988).

Specific Curricular Strategies for Meeting Gifted Students Needs
Shaping courseware around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students because of their ability to see and understand conceptual relationships. Each year classroom teachers select an overarching theme, such as systems, as a framework for specific units of study. For example, a class studying systems might include units on geology, architecture, and forest ecosystems providing opportunities to study ideas in-depth as well as to explore connections between disciplines and unit topics. It also allows students to distinguish key ideas, themes, and principles within and across domains of knowledge so that ideas are "internalized, synthesized, and amplified by future examples" (VanTassel-Baska, 1988, p. 14). Moreover, a year of study focusing on a theme gives time for students to address epistemological questions such as "What is knowledge?","What do we know?", and "Why is this knowledge important?" (Jacobs and Borland, 1986).

Because gifted learners tend to learn at faster rates and need less repetition, basic skills are taught as a part of the larger project goals. For example, students may work on basic research skills while developing and completing reports. They may focus on punctuation and spelling while editing books. Besides eliminating unneeded repetition, the children learn skills which have an immediate purpose, connecting studies and information gathering. Learning is relevant and memorable because the various disciplines are applied authentically.

In addition, the integrated-thematic units provide a common curriculum focus which engage all the children while providing flexible pacing and individualization of academic goals specific for each child (Shore, Cornell, Robinson, & Ward, 1991). This is important because gifted children frequently show peaks in performance rather than equally high skill levels in all areas (Passow, 1980; Roedell, 1990; VanTassel-Baska, 1988). Thus, children have their own Individualized Educational Plan (I.E.P.) as a core instructional strategy to guide their classroom work.

An integrated thematic curriculum also permits students to immerse themselves in intensive and accelerated experiences in their areas of special ability (Passow, 1979). One student in a primary classroom may work on multiplication while another student works on addition. A student advanced in math may do math with older students or work in a small group with a math specialist.

The gifted student's ability to find, solve, and act on problems requires that a focus on higher level thinking skills is fundamental to an appropriate curriculum for the gifted because it allows students to learn to think and create independently of texts, materials, and other resources (Maker, 1982a, b; VanTassel-Baska, 1988). The processes of critical thinking, problem finding, problem solving, and evaluating are important to curriculum design and are made meaningful by their inclusion in the study of unit topics. In this way, children generate observations, inquiries, investigations, and postulations, paralleling these processes performed by specialists in the field. Thus, while providing a basis for understanding the intellectual process, integrated-thematic units give students opportunities to critically examine creative products and to be actively involved in the creative process themselves. (VanTassel-Baska, 1988).

The Curriculum Model
Selecting an Overarching Theme
The are several steps involved in developing this type of curriculum (See figure 1).

The first step is selecting an overarching theme to focus the year of study. Teachers begin selecting the theme during the summer, looking into the interests and needs of the students who will be in their room. For example, the classroom described in the beginning of this article had a year-long focus on theme of Evidence. This concept was chosen because the children who were going to be in the classroom were very interested in science. Several of the children's passion area was dinosaurs, while others were fascinated by mysteries. At seven and eight years-old, they had not spent time learning many of the skills that scientists and detectives use to uncover evidence. The Evidence theme provided them an opportunity to learn investigation skills while studying a topic of interest. Higher level thinking and problem-solving skills were infused into the study by having the students solve their own mysteries and creating theories to explaining why certain mysteries occurred. As the teachers of this classroom explain, "Evidence pieces together a picture. It may be of an event, an organism, a culture, or an era. Our thematic units this year allows children to investigate and understand the idea of evidence as it relates to dinosaurs, mysteries, and the Mayan culture."

After the theme is chosen, specific units are selected based on the students' interests and the local opportunities to enrich the unit through field trips and speakers. The dinosaur unit was chosen because of the students' interest and the area in which this school is located has numerous opportunities for field trips to dinosaur quarries and museums at which the students could learn first hand about dinosaurs. The topic of mysteries gave students an opportunity to learn many of the tools and strategies real investigators use when solving real-life mysteries. The Mayan unit was selected because the class could use an excellent series called The Second Voyage of the Mimi (Bankstreet College of Education, 1988) in which real life archaeologists collect evidence in the study of ancient Mayan culture. This unit provided an occasion for the children to apply their investigation skills in examining the ancient Mayan civilization.

Webbing the Units
Once a unit is selected, all areas of study are incorporated within the chosen topic. In Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Design and Implementation, Heidi Hayes Jacobs (1989) writes that a disadvantage of integrated curriculum is that it can suffer from the "potpourri" approach because many units become samplings of knowledge, disregarding the need for integration. At the Ricks Center, this problem is eliminated by employing a webbing structure that integrates the different disciplines, skills, and processes covered in the unit. Attention is given to each of the disciplines in this format, as is supplying the opportunity for students to use high level thinking and problem solving skills in a meaningful context. Including opportunities for creativity is also an important element in the curriculum design. An example of this structure is shown in Figure 2.

As teachers plan activities, they make sure they use projects and experiences from all areas of the web, planning more activities than they will actually use. The shape and focus the unit takes, however, is driven by the students' interests. For instance, when students become curious about a certain facet, the class delves more deeply into that aspect. During the mystery unit, for example, one student brought in a mystery called Eleventh Hour: A curious mystery (Base, 1989) which had many different codes that needed to be broken. The children became fascinated with codes and spent time learning about making codes such as Morris code, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and many different other codes.

Unit activities are undertaken at different ability levels. Students with advanced linguistic skills may write research reports while other children create art projects displaying what they learned. In reading Eleventh Hour, some of the children cracked alphabetic codes, some looked for hidden pictures, while one child worked with a math specialist cracking the complicated mathematical codes in the book.

The Curriculum in Practice
While each unit focused on different content, the concepts taught were related to the theme of evidence. During the study of dinosaurs, for instance, the children examined the different types of evidence left behind by these great creatures as well as the remains of their environment. The children learned about direct and trace fossil evidence as they became paleontologists. They went to actual fossil sites where paleontologists and geologists explained how dinosaur remains were found and studied. They explored the fossilization process through various experiments and model creations including both stone fossils and replicas of amber fossils preserved in ancient "tree sap." Replica digs were established where the children assumed various roles needed on an exploratory team including gridding the location, record keeping and plotting, and preparing fossil finds for transport. The children measured dinosaurs' footprints, stride length, and size of teeth. In a more creative activity, the children devised their own dinosaurs, named them, drew them, and described them.

Their study of dinosaur habitats and lifestyles lead the students to critically explore past and current theories of both lifestyle and extinction as well as develop some of their own theories about dinosaurs. They worked in groups on culminating projects of individual interest which they shared with their parents.

During the Mystery Unit, students were detectives, learning how to gather evidence of different kinds. They examined mysteries through the eyes of scientists, artists, cartographers, researchers, critics, writers, mathematicians, detectives, and keen observers. Through chromatography, a scientific technique for separating mixtures, they figured out who perpetrated a fictitious crime against a fictional Natural History Museum. All suspects, motives, and test results were discussed and carefully logged in casebooks. Theorizing about who perpetrated the crime used both higher level thinking and problem solving skills.

Mystery Powders gave the children further experience in experimenting, observing, and drawing conclusions based on collected data. This time their challenge was to identify, using the scientific method, 11 white powders. Through the use of 10 specific tests, the children were introduced to the chemical and physical properties of familiar substances.

The children also learned how to make valid assumptions and avoid invalid assumptions and generalizations in solving "The Great Chocolate Caper." They analyzed suspects' fingerprints, alibis, and evidence. Using mathematical problem-solving within complex matrix puzzles, they accumulated clues and eliminated subjects. Finally, they used code wheels to break an alphabet substitution code and they found the suspect.

Throughout the Mystery Unit, mathematical problem-solving strategies were introduced and the lines between math and mysteries blurred. The children practiced logic and reasoning with matrix logic problems. Through their search for specific mystery numbers, they learned new mathematical terms and concepts. The terms greater than, less than, equal to, divisible by, square, and multiple were included in their clues. By working on a series of map mysteries, they learned navigating using primary directions, secondary directions, right/left, and grid coordinates.

Literature was also included in the study. Groups each solved a mystery by reading a short book, keeping track of clues, and then assembling a jigsaw puzzle to find the final clues. Numerous mystery stories were conceived and completed in individual writing folders. Students practiced using the story elements as they wrote radio play scripts and recorded them.

The culminating activity of this unit was a Mystery Festival in which the students gathered evidence, examined clues, and did tests on the evidence to solve a complex crime involving the disappearance of Felix Fairchild. The children precisely sketched and recorded the crime scene. Next, they collected and labeled physical evidence and performed numerous tests on it including pH testing, chromatography, fingerprinting, fiber testing, powder testing, DNA examination, and smell testing. With their results, the students created theories about the perpetrator of the crime. They defended their theories to the other students in the class using evidence to support their theories.

The final unit of the year provided students the opportunity to explore in great detail the ancient Mayan culture. Building on the skills developed earlier, they used archeological evidence to piece together a story which described the daily lives of the Maya, the evolution of their culture, the climate and geography in which they established their civilization, religious customs and practices, and the eventual disappearance of the Maya from their mighty cities. During the Mayan unit, students became archaeologists and saw the ruins of the Mayan civilization with the crew of the Second Voyage of the Mimi. They discovered how archaeologists are like detectives using evidence to solve the mysteries of the past. Local speakers and informational texts supplemented this information.

The children investigated the customs, ceremonies, art, writing, and games of the Maya. They discovered how the Maya's use of the zero impacts our number system today. They experimented in using the Mayan math system in completing math problems. They explored the complex Mayan calendar and created their own calendars. Upon discovering that the Mayan written language was symbolic rather than representational, they created their own personal name glyphs which demonstrated some special passion or element of their lives. They also created their own art using different techniques perfected by the Maya, painting figurines that mimicked Mayan sculptures in style and color, and creating masks and life sized Mayan figures.

The students participated in archeological digs, both through the Second Voyage of the Mimi tapes and in the classroom. They used the techniques of archaeologists to construct an understanding of the past and to fabricate their own artifacts. With the help of a music specialist, the students created their own songs describing the daily life in ancient Maya.

This integrated-thematic curriculum was especially appropriate for use with gifted learners because it addressed gifted students heightened capacity for seeing patterns and relationships. The final celebration of this unit was a traditional Mayan feast for which the children prepared Mayan foods. During this feast, the children shared the information they had learned about the ancient Mayan civilization with their parents.

Manuscript submitted June, 1996.

Revision accepted February, 1996

DIAGRAM: Figure 1 Steps in Designing an Integrated-Thematic Curriculum

DIAGRAM: Figure 2 How to Design an In-Depth Integrated-Thematic Unit

REFERENCES
Base, G. (1989). Eleventh hour: A curious mystery. New York: Abrams.

Bankstreet College of Education (1988). The second voyage of the Mimi. Pleasantville, NY: Sunburst Communications.

Caine, R., & Caine, G. (1991). Making connections: Teaching and the human brain. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Dewey, J. (1965). Experience and Education. New York: Collier.

Gallagher, J. (1985). Teaching the gifted child, Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Jacobs. H. H. (1989) Design options for an integrated curriculum. In H. H. Jacobs (Ed.), Interdisciplinary curriculum: Design and implementation (pp. 13 - 24). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Jacobs, H. H., & Borland. J. (1986). The interdisciplinary concepts model: Theory and practice. Gifted Child Quarterly, 30(4), 159-163.

Keating, D. (1976). Intellectual talent. Baltimore, MD: Hopkins University Press.

Maker, C. J. (1982a). Teaching models in the education of the gifted. Austin: Pro-Ed.

Maker, C.J. (1982b). Curriculum development for the gifted. Austin: Pro-Ed.

Passow, A. H. (1979). A look around and a look ahead. In A. H. Passow (Ed.), The gifted and the talented: Their education and development. Seventy-eighth yearbook of the National Association for the Study of Education: Part I (pp. 439-456). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.

Roedell, W.C. (1990), Nurturing giftedness in young children. (Report No. EDO-EC-90). Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 321 492).

Shore. B., Cornell, D., A. Robinson, & V, Ward (1991). Recommended practices in gifted education: A critical analysis. New York: Teachers College Press.

Sternberg, R. (1985). Beyond IQ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

VanTassel-Baska. J. (1988). Curriculum design issues in developing a curriculum for the gifted. In J. VanTassel Baska, J. Feldhusen, K. Seeley, G. Wheately, L. Silverman. & W. Foster (pp. 53-76). Comprehensive curriculum for gifted learners. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Brooke Tucker, Norma Lu Hafenstein, Shannon Jones, Rivian Bernick, Kim Haines

Brooke Tucker is past chair of the Early Childhood Division of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and a graduate assistant at the Ricks Center for Gifted Children at which she also teaches in the early primary classroom. Also at the Center is Norma Lu Hafenstein, founder and director and present chair of the Early Childhood Division of NAGC; Shannon Jones, is Director of Admissions and the lead-teacher in the classroom described in this article; and Rivian Bernick, is the co-teacher in the described classroom and Team Leader of the primary team. Kim Haines recently left her position as a teacher in the primary classroom at the Center.

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Source: Roeper Review, Jun97, Vol. 19 Issue 4, p196, 4p
Item: 9707130196

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