Differentiating Instruction for Gifted Learners: A Case Studies Approach is an excellent book for Gifted/Talented teachers at any level looking for specific ideas on how to meet the needs of their gifted students. After reading the reviews for this book, I decided that I would capture the parts of the book that resonated the most with me. Here are some of them:

- Quote: "The speed with which students' progress through the curriculum must be accelerated or decelerated according to student need. Students must be encouraged to delve as deeply into content as is challenging for them and then try and delve even more deeply."

- Pages 17-18: Reflectively questioning our teaching practices as a means of improving. The reflection questions posted on these pages remind me of the questions I answered during my National Board Certification process and really got me to think about why I taught the way I did.

- "Things to Consider" boxes are scattered throughout the book with great background knowledge helpful to each case study.

- "Discussion Questions" end each case study and help focus our attention on what was important. There are also "Activities" and "Extensions" that many teachers will find useful.

- Pages 141-142 NGSS Connections that can be used in our classrooms. I plan to use these as I plan science lessons moving forward. ( )

This is a solid resource for gifted teachers. The case studies included are realistic and fantastic. This book provides the latest research in the field and highlights the most effective practices. Would definitely recommend for teachers of higher education. ( )

This is a tough book to review.

The sheer range of knowledge and information, plus the depth of the research combines with the case studies to form a totally impressive, comprehensive, and formidable paperback tome.

Yet, great minds, from Thoreau ("Simplify!") to Tolstoy to Morrie Morgan would be bamboozled just trying to master the implications for teaching, much less the new "twice exceptional" vocabulary.

Teachers from DEVELOPING MINDS and THE LION TREES would be stunned by the minimal expectations.

For any of us ordinary overworked teachers daily preparing for and facing classrooms of high risk, highly gifted (or not), multi cultural, physically, mentally, socially, & hormonally challenged, multidiscipline needing, sometimes sick, etc. students and attempting what appears to be the creation of a differentiated IEP for each of those 20-30 individuals, the challenges may well seem mythic.

Retired TAG teachers should be kept on the payroll to team teach and so avoid immediate burnout.

Some things in the book seem odd, like an evaluation team (page 27) meeting with a young student for 75 minutes without asking him to read.
Similarly, teachers might want to rethink using a slice of watermelon as the suggested activity on page 73. It's still more than a metaphor.

Much praise goes to those three authors for sparing the rest of us interminable meetings to define what we already know and what others have learned. Time can now be better spent generating activities, asking students what they want to do, and making month of August pre-assessment Home Visits.

...And, let's all join hands and go read Ivan Doig's THE WHISTLING SEASON for gifted teaching inspiration... ( )

This book is very helpful to the classroom teacher. There is so much information for differentiating for struggling students. Glad to see a book with great ideas for the gifted student. ( )

I had trouble assessing how I felt about this book for a good chunk of my reading - but I think I know now:

The first few chapters (and intro) are basically an open letter begging the reader to understand the justification for the existence of such a book (one that "analyzes" case-studies), which started me off on a bad note with it. It sounded more like the authors were trying to justify their thesis to their advisers (not very attractive).

After that, it delves into case-study after case-study. It gives you demographic info of the school/district/classroom, a brief biography of the individual students you're asked to examine, outlines of the teachers' units/lesson plans, then asks you to analyze certain aspects of the lessons (is it appropriately differentiated? does the teacher use higher-order thinking skills? does the lesson align to the planned objectives? etc).

As a singular reader, these case-studies are more interesting than useful. For the most part, they will simply reinforce pre-existing notions (for example, a poor teacher will read a poor lesson presented in this and use it to justify/defend their own weak lessons).

This book is best used in a CIA/PD/conference atmosphere where small groups can bounce responses off of each other then share out with a bigger group. ( )