How to Use Thinking Skills to Differentiate Curricula for Gifted and Highly Creative Students

Andrew Johnson

How do we meet the special learning needs of our highly creative and gifted students? Weekly pull-out sessions are often seen as the most common programming option; however, in terms of faculty resources and the overall educational impact on students, this option is the least efficient and effective. Finding ways to differentiate the regular classroom curriculum provides more direct programming and is very economical in terms of additional resources. Tomlinson (1999) suggests that the content, process, and product of a curriculum may be modified. The content is the information, concepts, or skills students are to learn. The process is the activity students use to manipulate the content or practice the skills. The product is the way students demonstrate their knowing. Tomlinson outlines several strategies that a classroom teacher might use to differentiate a curriculum, including stations, agendas, complex instruction, orbital studies, centers, entry points, tiered activities, and learning contracts. A strategy not suggested by Tomlinson, but one that might also be included in this list is the integration of thinking skills into the curriculum. This article will (a) define thinking skills, (b) describe three common approaches used to teach them, and (c) demonstrate how they can be embedded in any curriculum at all levels.

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