Social Studies Middle School Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

Advanced Learners

Dos and Don’ts for Supporting Advanced Learners

Additional Resources

Do

Variable Characteristics of Advanced Learners May Include:

●

Pre-assess your students.

● Design learning tasks that develop students’ areas of strengths in addition to their areas of challenge.

● Enhanced Verbal Ability

● Plan for differentiation. Consider pre-assessments, extension activities, choice boards, and compacting the curriculum.

● High Vocabulary

● Perseverating on Ideas; Excessive Worrying

●

Emphasize DOK 3 & 4 level tasks.

● Highly Perceptive

● Provide opportunities for inquiry and application of learning that center on student voice and choice.

● Unusual Capacity for Informational Processing

● Provide enrichment activities that examine concepts in deeper and more complex ways.

● Ability to Make

Connections Among Concepts, Events, or Disciplines.

● Model and encourage creativity, critical thinking, and metacognition.

● Easily Bored Without A Clear Purpose for Learning ● Focus on Efficiency and Accuracy Over Compliance ● High Curiosity in Areas of Interest

● Promote positive social interactions by assigning clear roles for group work and keeping learning activities open-ended.

● Vary between heterogeneous and homogeneous grouping structures.

● Support regular self-reflection and goal-setting.

● Fast and Sustained Memory Retention

● Incorporate interdisciplinary activities and connections between concepts.

● Sense of Justice

● Strong Imagination

● Provide appropriately-leveled text based on Lexile as well as qualitative text complexity.

● Divergent Thinking