GATE Strategies in the Classroom

    Each year I like to start with a focus in hopes of seeing improvement in my teaching.  In years past, Literature Circles, writing, and Socratic Seminar have been focus areas in the classroom. It seems when I have an area of teaching to analyze it helps not only myself but the students too.  This year I’d like to look at my GATE strategies, and how students are being served to the best of my teaching ability. This school year I shifted from a being a middle school Language Arts teacher, but to a self-contained 5th-grade GATE class, so this focus is going to be helpful for my class.  The goal is to dig deeper into novelty, acceleration, depth, and complexity.  I want to offer my students a truly GATE education as well as teaching the 5th grade standards. I found this website during GATE strategy research, and it has a lot of helpful information. For someone who is just starting this could be a helpful place to start; however, I recommend being trained, so you can ensure you are using the prompts correctly and effectively.   Our district is offering training sessions this January, and I would highly recommend it because when a teacher can interact with the strategies the more comfortable it is when using them in the classroom.       

    

 One strategy I am excited to use is Concentric Circles.  As I read more about the activity, it is a way to include acceleration, depth, complexity, and novelty.  My group of students this year are 

not only GATE students but high achievers, so challenging and keeping them engaged throughout the day can be a struggle.  The unfamiliarity of Concentric Circles paired with how the strategy pushes the kids to go deeper into the content will offer the productive struggle that is appropriate for the students.  The way the strategy works: the content or focus goes in the middle circle, then the surrounding circles are linked to the topic, but students will go into more depth and detail with the use of Depth and Complexity prompts. The students will be asked to record their findings within the circle.  The pictures show several ways to use Concentric Circles during classroom instruction.  Afterward, I would like for students to write a short response showing what they learned about the content. 

  The overall plan is to try a variety of GATE strategies, and then share my experience, mistakes, successes, and student products.  Next time, I will be sharing out about how the students responded to learning through the use of Concentric Circles.