Mary Ruth Coleman Academic Strategies For Gifted Students
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In the professional journal, Teaching Exceptional Children, a Senior Scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mary Ruth Coleman wrote the article “Academic Strategies That Work for Gifted Students with Learning Disabilities”. There are students identified as twice exceptional. These students have areas of strengths and needs. The article discusses how these students learn and how learning theories can be applied to support gifted students who have learning disabilities. There are basic strategies that can maximize their strengths and support them in their areas of need. I selected this article because I have an identified, twice exceptional student. My middle son, is identified…show more content… These strategies are to benefit gifted students with learning disabilities, yet all students in the classroom benefit from the implementation and application. The ideas the author presents in the article are based on knowledge about learning. They can be applied to all students, not just those who are both gifted and have exceptionalities. Mary Ruth Coleman (2005) states “Even our most gifted students with learning disabilities need us to teach with clarity to make ideas explicit, and to build the relations across ideas to anchor learning (p. 32). The drive behind the development of the strategies was to meet the needs of twice-exceptional students, and to increase the rigor to reach all students…show more content… After reading the article, I believe these strategies would be successful in the classroom. Reflecting on my experiences with my child and other students in my classroom, I would consider implementing these strategies. I understand the benefit to all students, not just those who are gifted and exceptional. Coleman (2005) states “each of these variables operates like a rheostat, with individual students requiring differing levels of intensity for each variable to enable them to be successful” (p.29). The author refers to time in the classroom being a teacher’s most flexible resource, but feels it is not used flexibly to optimize learning. I feel that is an accurate statement in many current classrooms. There is a lot of pressure on testing, performance and coverage of the materials. As we have discussed in class, “the twin sins”, assigning activities without meaning and teaching to cover materials, can produce rote memorization of facts, little opportunity for deeper cognitive development. I believe dynamic assessments would be a successful strategy for many students, and I believe it is a very constructivist approach. I believe using the dynamic assessments that lead to tiered assignments would use the students’ and the teachers’ time