The Curriculum

The Able Learner Program curriculum is research-based and provides opportunities for gifted students to expand their thinking, research, time management and social skills. The program also provides depth and breadth to "big" concepts in the Ohio State Standards.

The daily curriculum addresses these main areas: critical thinking and research topics, logical reasoning, divergent thinking, problem solving, affective/social emotional skills, and time management.  The ALP staff has been developing curriculum maps for the main areas of instruction in order to improve communication. These will be posted and updated periodically, and links can be found below.

Curriculum Maps

Critical thinking enables students to make rational decisions when facing choices. Using analysis, evaluation, and synthesis thinking skills allow students to base their decisions on fact and create new uses for old ideas. Using interest-based research topics and simulation, the students engage in projects that stimulate self-directed learning, independent research and presentation skills.

Bloom's taxonomy is a hierarchy of thinking skills that can be used to add depth to activities. In the ALP curriculum, the lower levels are used to focus on note-taking and research skills. The majority of time in this area is spent exercising the analysis, evaluation, and synthesis levels.

Resources for critical thinking materials: Interact Classroom Simulations,  Sample Questions, and Free Spirit Press.

This is the science of distinguishing between correct and incorrect reasoning and arguments.  The subject matter is reasoning, arguments, and the drawing of inferences (Halverson, 1984).  Logic is the tool of rational thinking. Logic provides a systematic method based on the principles of reasoning, which enables gifted students to avoid fallacious reasoning, to form and evaluate persuasive arguments, and to recognize and make logical inferences.  Specific periods are scheduled during the ALP day to instruct students in strategies and practice in the use of these skills.

Divergent thinking is the process of developing and exercising the ability to differ from or to expand on a standard. The development of divergent thinking techniques are essential for gifted students as they continue their education and move on into college and future careers. Opportunities for practicing these techniques may take place during specifically scheduled time periods or may be integrated into the critical thinking units.

Activities include drawing prompts, brainstorming games, list-generation thinking, forced-association, SCAMPER, and other creative tasks. Skits with open-ended prompts also allow students to practice improvisational thinking and presentation skills.

Students are taught multiple strategies for attacking many kinds of problems, both created and real-world. Activities include hands-on and engineering problems that address spatial thinking. One main strategy taught is the Creative Problem Solving model, which utilizes teamwork and creative thinking to provide multiple solutions and to evaluate the best choice through criteria.

Research involving gifted children indicates that they have speical needs regarding friendships, perfectionism, underachievement, peer influence, and other social issues. Activities and discussions are regularly scheduled to address these needs.

One good resource for books on this topic is Free Spirit Press. Our favorites include: Up From Underachievement by Diane Heacox, When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers by Jim Delisle and Judy Galbraith, Freeing Our Families from Perfectionism by Thomas S. Greenspon, and the various Survival Guides by Sally Yahnke Walker.