Instead of deciding what should be taught, music educators should allow students to discover what they know about music. A project that requires students to compose musical commercials and a project that requires students to invent a notation system for writing music allow students to discover answers instead of memorizing them. (Author/AM)

Ideas are offered for in-depth projects that foster individual creativity and production in elementary and middle school gifted students. The projects cover various topics in the areas of charting, essay writing and theme writing, journalism, graphing, politics, speech, government, biography, history, state history, investigation, and industry.…

How to use elementary school children as curators of a classroom museum is described. The teacher decides the concept or unit to be showcased in the museum. As curators students are responsible for many tasks including writing descriptive paragraphs for the artifacts and arranging the artifact display. (RM)

College-level student inquiry projects are not easy to evaluate within the parameters of the academic grading system. One form of rubric-guided assessment has specific advantages in addressing both performance and product by allowing weighting of criteria, flexibility of criteria and standards based on the project, defining the major aspects of…

The gifted education model described here provides elective "talent pool" classes--within the standard class schedule--that integrate enrichment activities with the academic curriculum in any given subject area. (MCG)

Due to increasing energy demands and decreasing supplies, it is important for teachers to provide students with a solid foundation for energy decision making. Activities are presented which offer hands-on experiences with four sources of energy: wind, water, sun, and fossil fuels. (JN)

This unit uses a learning center approach to helping elementary students learn about Israel. Following a rationale for implementing an interdisciplinary approach to global education, the unit discusses methodology and management of the program, which consists of seven independent learning centers and one library research center through which…

Presented are four mathematical discoveries made by students on an arithmetical function using the Fibonacci sequence. Discussed is the nature of the role of the teacher in directing the students' discovery activities. (KR)

Presented is an example that allows students to investigate trigonometric ideas in a simple and practical way. (PK)

The guided design approach to teaching theatre history encourages active participation in decision making while applying knowledge and learning subject matter concepts. The theatre history course at Rutgers University, New Jersey, uses this approach. With guided design, classroom time is not used for lectures, but is instead reserved for small…

Independent study is an instructional approach that can have enormous power in the classroom. It can be used successfully with students at all ability levels, even though it is often associated with gifted students. Independent study is an opportunity for students to study a subject of their own choosing under the guidance of a teacher. The…

Projects are in-depth studies of a topic undertaken by a class, a group, or an individual child. Projects are intended to strengthen children's dispositions to be interested, absorbed, and involved in in-depth observation, investigation, and representation of worthwhile phenomena in their own environments. This Catalog on the Project Approach, the…

A case study is presented of a science class for 10 underachieving gifted intermediate grade students. The paper describes how a focus on overcoming underachievement might conflict with the need for active, hands-on science activities. Suggestions are offered for integrating the goals of raising self-concept while developing skills of inquiry and…

Reports that students from fourth and fifth grades, along with middle and advanced history students acting as mentors, planned and executed a five-month historical research field project. Student research teams carried out at a local site a two-week archaeological dig uncovering artifacts and discovering how their predecessors lived. (NL)

This guide describes development of the problem-based approach of GED as project. It is Volume 1 of a proposed four-volume series. Section 1 describes the concept of GED as project, thinking and problem solving, successful intelligence, and integration of content and skills. Section 2 covers GED as project implementation using learning projects…