Many gifted and high performing sixth graders in science are bored in the regular class. Because they are able to learn at an accelerated pace and are highly motivated to learn, they are not always adequately challenged in the heterogeneous science classroom. While the teachers can provide some enrichment activities, these activities are often small, and the students perceive them as “time fillers” so that the teacher can work with other students who need extra help. Gifted and high achievers often feel left out and unchallenged by activities presented in the regular science class.
Gifted and high achievers need more stimulating learning opportunities that will keep them challenged and moving at a fast pace. They also need to be held accountable for learning the required objectives and meeting the standards of the science class.
Generally speaking, sixth grade gifted and high performing students are eleven or twelve years old. Most students are white, and there is under-representation in African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and other populations. There tend to be slightly more girls than boys in the gifted program. All of these students have many interests, hobbies, and talents. Most of the students participate in activities outside of school as well as enrichment projects at school such as science fair, geography bee, oratorical contests, and many others. For many of these students, extra activities are self-selected with little teacher or parent pressure to participate. Some gifted underachievers, however, do require encouragement from their teachers and parents to participate in enrichment activities.
Most of the students, but not all, have met the criteria for placement in gifted programs in Georgia. All students in the gifted program must maintain a certain standard of performance to continue in the program from year to year. Thus, these students are usually hard-working, high achieving, and highly motivated, with a few exceptions.
Those students who have not met state criteria for gifted placement have been identified as high achievers based on their grades, motivation to learn, creativity, and teacher recommendations.
These gifted and high performing students are situated in heterogeneous science classrooms in a public middle school. Each class contains the entire spectrum of learners ranging from those who are generally low functioning, students who have learning disabilities and/or behavior disorders, those possessing average abilities, and highly gifted and talented students. This huge diversity in student ability and large class sizes (up to 30 in some classes) make it difficult for the regular classroom teacher to meet all of the students’ needs.
The characteristics of the gifted and high achieving students will have a definite impact on their ability to participate and complete enrichment projects. Because they are hard-working and motivated, it will be easy to take advantage of these traits in planning for and delivering instruction. These students’ hunger for knowledge will also fuel their motivation to complete an evocative project to share with their peers and community.
For this activity, a combination of Project-Based Learning and the Six C’s of Motivation will be employed. These two approaches are very similar; many of their components are exactly the same. Each enhances the other, making learning even more powerful for students.
The models to be used for this activity are Project-Based Learning and the Six C’s of Motivation. Project-Based Learning is an extension of constructionism. In constructionism, learning is created or constructed by the student. Rather than learning from a teacher who conveys information to the student (a “sage on the stage”), the learner finds his own meaning and builds an artifact that represents what he has learned. This type of learning requires the student to create some form of product or to execute a performance based on self-constructed and applied knowledge.
The Six C’s of motivation is a set of instructional strategies that may be used in a classroom to enhance learning. Identified as choice, challenge, control, collaboration, constructing meaning, and consequences, the Six C’s go hand-in-hand with Project-Based Learning.
The Project-Based Learning model and the Six C’s of Motivation provide a perfect solution to the problem of students who need more challenging science instruction in the middle school classroom. Because the identified students are high functioning, independent, and motivated learners, creating a project related directly to their science curriculum will be an excellent solution to the problem. Also, by employing the Six C’s in tandem with Project-Based Learning, students will experience a great deal of personal gratification and pride in their work.
There are several components to Project-Based Learning. The first is that learning is student-centered. The students are the ones who drive the learning, not the teacher. Students choose their own content, methods for learning, and modes of presentation. They are not left completely to their own devices, however. The teacher acts as a facilitator for the students. She provides guidance and keeps the students on the right track as they progress through the learning process. Along the way, the teacher also offers frequent feedback and suggestions for improving student work. This feedback is necessary so that students know they are staying on target, and it helps the students to make appropriate revisions to their work.
Another component of Project-Based Learning is collaboration. Students are encouraged to work with their peers in the development, production, and presentation of their work. Collaboration with peers helps students learn important collaborative skills that will be useful later in life. Shared decision-making, providing meaningful feedback, and planning together are elements that create important partnerships and that facilitate the learning process. Such experiences provide many insights into the way that adults work in “real-life” situations. These experiences become invaluable as students make their way into the work force.
The third component of Project-Based Learning involves curricular content. Students must demonstrate that they understand curricular content. Their work must meet school, district, and state mandated standards. Therefore, students, with the help of their teacher, should establish clear goals at the beginning of the project to ensure that they meet standards. The learning process and the final product should clearly demonstrate mastery over the content.
Authentic tasks are another important part of Project-Based Learning. An authentic task is one that relates in some way to the real world. Whether the task addresses relevant issues, is presented to a real-world audience, or is created in collaboration with people in other places, the project must have some relevant connection with students’ own lives or those of community members for it to be meaningful. Students may also employ methods used by others in the real world to simulate a realistic work experience. The type of project undertaken will determine which form is most appropriate.
Students using Project-Based Learning have choices in terms of the mode of expression they choose for presenting their projects. This means that students can use a variety of tools in every phase of their project development. Usually, students create some form of multimedia presentation that is appropriate for the content being investigated and for the intended audience. Such multimedia products may include, but are not limited to, web pages, PowerPoint or Hyperstudio slide shows, interactive games, and even interactive CD ROMs or DVDs.
The sixth component of Project-Based Learning relates to time management. Students have some degree of control over the amount and use of time and resources needed to complete the project. Adequate time for planning, design, revision, and reflection must be included within an established project timeline. Therefore, at the onset of the project, the students and the teacher should work out a reasonable time frame with goals for completion of each part of the project. Timelines may be adjusted as necessary.
The final component of Project-Based Learning involves innovative forms of assessment. Throughout the learning process, multiple incarnations of assessment will be provided by the teacher, peers, and students themselves. Students should have frequent opportunities to review the work of their peers and to give constructive feedback. The teacher should also check in with students and provide meaningful feedback and suggestions for the students. Additionally, students should reflect on their own work through journaling, self-checklists, and/or discussion. Rubrics are often used in assessing the final product. Creation of these rubrics should be a collaboration between the students and the teacher to ensure that standards and objectives are met.
There are three main phases in the Project-Based Learning process. These are categorized as planning, creating, and processing. In the first phase of planning, students brainstorm questions, ideas, and possible topics for research. They assign group roles and responsibilities and establish a work timeline. They also investigate what resources are available. Upon consideration of the content, students must also decide together on a mode of presentation. Once they have decided on a topic, students begin gathering information and organizing it via outlines, concept webs, or timelines. Storyboards may also be created during this phase. If design tools need to be learned, this is the time when they are learned. By the end of the planning stage, students should have a topic, information about the topic, and an organizational plan for how they will present their group’s information.
In the second phase, the students begin to implement the project. This is where the project is actually created or drafted. Using organizational tools and storyboards, the learners devise the project using whatever tools were decided upon in the first stage. Reflection and frequent assessment are completed throughout this stage. It is also during this phase that individual students blend their part of the project with those parts of other students. Students must continually ask themselves how the parts fit together and how they might need to be rearranged.
Finally, the project is processed by way of sharing, reflection, and feedback from others. Here is where the project is presented to the intended audience and feedback is sought. This feedback provides suggestions for improvement. From here students may take the suggestions and make changes if necessary.
The Six C’s are almost a reiteration of the components of Project-Based Learning. The Six C’s are recommended strategies for effective teaching. They include choice, challenge, control, collaboration, constructing meaning, and consequences.
Choice involves student input into decisions about content, presentation, and ways of doing things. Giving students choices in their work facilitates intrinsic motivation. When a student gets to pick what he or she will investigate, the topic becomes more meaningful and relevant. The student becomes more involved because she feels that she had a hand in the topic selection. The teacher should provide as many opportunities for student choice as possible to enhance motivation.
Challenge also increases student motivation by giving the learner something to strive for. An assignment that is just slightly above the ability of a student is a challenge, but it is most likely a task that can be completed with a little help from peers. Teacher feedback is critical to maintain a proper level of challenge. The teacher should review student work and push students to delve deeper where necessary or steer them back onto the right track when they stray.
Control is important to student learning. Linked closely with the idea of choice, control encourages student responsibility to get the project done. Control requires that students have a voice in choosing partners, developing grading systems, deciding on content, and any other important aspects of the project.
Motivation is likely to increase when students are allowed to collaborate with their peers. Not only does collaboration teach students the value in experiencing others’ ideas, but it also encourages important social skills that must be developed to function adequately in any work environment. Students learn when they hear each other’s ideas. Collaboration also encourages students to “piggy-back” on each other’s ideas.
Constructing meaning is another important motivational factor. If students feel that what they are learning is valuable, then they will strive to learn more. Constructing meaning involves taking information and transforming it into something that is relevant and significant for others.
Finally, consequences are important for increasing motivation. If students know that their creations will be shared with their peers or community, they become more motivated to produce quality work. It is important to establish the audience for a project early on so that students can work toward “impressing” that audience.
In an effort to provide more open-ended learning prospects for science enrichment, Mrs. Huelsman-Bell is piloting a new program called “Science Workshop.” Every nine weeks, gifted and high achieving students will be given the opportunity to complete a project outside of the regular classroom that will involve Project-Based Learning. All students who participate in the Workshop track will, with the help of their teammates, create an original computer-based artifact that transcends the boundaries of the science curriculum.
Students will be pulled out of their regular science classes two or more days per week to work with a team of four or five students in the media center or computer lab. They will not be held responsible for the work they miss in the regular class. Work on the project will take the place of regular instruction for the entire grading period.
During the first three weeks of the project, students will establish group roles and responsibilities, develop guiding questions for their projects, and create a project timeline with benchmarks establishing goals and target dates for completion. Some possible roles might be team leader, writer, editor, designer, or graphic artist. They will also spend time gathering information, organizing data, and planning their projects.
Students will work with the gifted facilitator to establish fair guidelines and rubrics for assessment purposes. They will have access to media center and technology-related resources. Using available print, non-print, and human resources, students will collect information about a specific sub-topic related to waves. The teacher may also arrange for field trips and guest speakers if these options are feasible.
Students are required to show evidence of detailed and thorough planning related to their projects. Once all information has been gathered, the team will develop an organizational plan using Inspiration, Timeliner, or another relevant tool. Storyboards or any other formats that illustrate organization and thought will then be created before actual development begins.The rest of the time spent on this project will involve student collaboration to develop the multimedia product about waves to be shared with their peers in the form of an interactive learning tool. The gifted facilitator will be available during all project development sessions to help students with their projects. She will also provide frequent critical feedback to keep the students on track. The students will also review their own and each other’s work regularly and provide feedback through written critiques and open discussion.
Team members are expected to revise their work on the project frequently. The first draft should be very different from the final draft of the project. Regular self- and team-assessment and revision will undoubtedly improve the project. Ideas for revision should also derive from the critiques provided by peers and the facilitator.
Individual students will be required to keep a written log of their experiences in the Workshop. Students must submit to the facilitator at least one reflection per week. The reflection should be thoughtful and must integrate the content being studied. The minimum length of a reflection is 150 words. Students should talk about things they are learning as they complete the project, obstacles they faced, their perceptions about the team and collaborative work, and changes that they decide to make to enhance the project. Students may include a description of what they have completed on the project to date.
At the end of the nine weeks, the final product will be displayed in a museum setting, and community members, parents, faculty, and students will be invited to view the projects and to critique them.
In short, the following procedures will be followed by students throughout the course of the project. Students will:
While the facilitator will make informal assessments of student and team progress on a regular basis, the “grade” for the project will come from the rubric that the students develop at the onset of the project. If necessary, the facilitator will encourage students to consider including elements such as relevance and appropriateness of content, design, organization and navigation, consistency, use of color and space, use of appropriate graphics, sounds, and videos, interactivity, creativity, overall usefulness of the product for helping others learn, collaboration, and appropriate grammar and spelling in the rubric. The facilitator will create the rubric based on student suggestions, and each student will have a copy for reference throughout the design and development process.
Project-Based Learning used in combination with the Six C’s of Motivation is the best approach to the problem of students being bored in the regular science class because these methods address every need of the gifted and high performing student. By their very nature, gifted learners require student-centered, collaborative activities. They also need relevant content, authentic tasks, choice in mode of expression, time management control, and innovative assessment. The Six C’s of choice, control, collaboration, constructing meaning, consequences, and most importantly in this situation, challenge, also successfully address the needs of gifted learners. Those gifted students who have little intrinsic motivation can also benefit from the challenge and collaborative nature of the Workshop project.
Other instructional approaches might have also been worthwhile, but in this situation, Project-Based Learning seems to fit best because of the extreme needs of the learners involved. Problem Based Instruction would be more appropriate for a whole class project, but in this instance, only a few students needed something different. Cognitive Apprenticeships could also be integrated into the learning process, but it would take a great deal of time, energy, and money to arrange for frequent guest speakers and field trips for a very small group of children.
By integrating the strategies of Six C’s within the instructional approach of Project-Based Learning, teachers can effectively meet the needs of gifted and high performing students in a regular science classroom. The end product will be one that demonstrates mastery of the science content, and it will be a source of pride and accomplishment among the members of the team who produced it.