Project Arrow - Gifted Education

"Project Arrow--The Thinking Connection" is the District's gifted program. Program goals include: provide direct instruction to identified gifted students, expand services to a larger proportion of the school population, integrate with regular curriculum, minimize elitism (label the services rather than the students), and promote excellence throughout the entire school.

Project Arrow focuses on grades 2-5. Identification is completed on three different levels. We identify 5% of the district population using the California Achievement Test scores for Reading and Math, the Test of Cognitive Skills score, and the rating scale of student characteristics completed by the teacher. All items are converted to a weighted scale of points. A cutoff point has been established to yield the top 5%.

Direct contact time with a gifted resource teacher is provided 200 minutes per week in grades 3-5 and 150 minutes for grade 2. Differentiated curriculum units based on a taxonomy of process skills are part of the identified gifted students' instruction in the areas of Language Arts and Math. Also included are research, reference skills, and cognitive and affective domain development. Curricular enhancement for grades K-5 is available for students in all academic areas per classroom teacher request.

Classroom teachers use curriculum compacting as a teaching strategy for all students. Curriculum compacting allows students to be pre-tested in order to determine what they already know. If mastery is demonstrated, students are given the opportunity to work on alternate activities instead of completing work already known. Curricular enhancement opportunities are available for all students. Instruction takes place individually and in small groups.

• District 204 Gifted Education Curriculum SubWeb