Math Education for Gifted Students

Book excerpt: For the first time, the "Gifted Child Today Reader" series brings together the best articles published in "Gifted Child Today", the nation's most popular gifted education journal. Each book in the series is filled with exciting and practical classroom ideas, useful summaries of research findings, discussions of identification and classroom management, and informed opinions about educating gifted kids. Anyone involved in education will benefit from the practical, research-based ideas this unique series has to offer. Given gifted students' accelerated and intuitive thought processes regarding mathematics, teachers need to design differentiated curricula and use strategies that increase the complexity and pace of instruction. The authors provide some specific strategies for both organizing a gifted program and teaching mathematically gifted students in either the general education classroom or in special settings. "Math Education for Gifted Students" offers information about how to differentiate for mathematically gifted students, as well as tried-and-true instructional strategies to employ, including tiered lessons, distance learning, and activities combining architecture and math.