Special Needs and the Gifted and Talented

When teaching in the public school system, you have to expect encountering students with varying levels of skill and ability.  This doesn't mean that you have to create different lessons for different groups of students, only that you will have to expect different outcomes.  These different outcomes will be graded according to the student's ability, and the lesson can be modified so that the student isn't working above or below their skill level.

Special Needs

The first group of students that we will discuss today is the special needs group.  Depending on the student, whether they have difficulty with motor skills or difficulty understanding concepts, the lesson can be tailored to their needs so that they will learn the most possible.  This, unfortunately, causes that student to be singled out.  This becomes an even larger problem when there are more than one students with special needs, and it becomes a group that is being separated out.  The best way that I see to counteract this is to not tell the student that they will be held to a different level when the assignment will be graded and allow the student to work on the project in the same manner as the rest of the class.

A great project to use in this manner with students with special needs is a still life drawing.  All of the students will be drawing from the same subject that will be placed in the center of the room.  The students will be given a choice where to sit, so that they will feel comfortable drawing what they can see from the angle they choose.  Along with that, they will not be expected to draw everything that they see, they will be asked to draw a smaller area of the still life.  This will further allow them to draw something that they are all comfortable with.

As far as materials go, they will all be drawing with graphite pencils on white drawing paper.  This lesson can even include some scratch drawing where the students can experiment with different papers and drawing materials to not only learn about different materials, but also do it without the pressure of it being graded.

Grading the work of students with special needs is difficult to talk about hypothetically because each student is unique, and will be graded based on their particular skills and abilities.  Generally speaking, however, students who have motor skill difficulties will not be graded on technical skill the same as other students, and students with difficulty understanding concepts will not be graded poorly for not understanding the goals of the project.

Gifted and Talented Students

For this group the assignment will be drawn in the same manner as above but can be extended to work on a larger portion of the subject, and can even include using different materials and papers.  Their technical ability will be graded at a higher level than the rest of the class and these students can be talked to individually and the teacher can encourage the student to use some compositional strategies as well.

The subject in the center of the room will include some glass objects and some chrome or glossy objects where these students will be encouraged to draw reflections and also focus on some transparent pieces.  It will be up to the teacher to talk with these students before the class decides on their seating and how they view the subject so that the teacher can ask them to challenge themselves and work on the more challenging objects.

This also creates another group that is singled out from the rest of the class and can discourage those who are not as skilled.  One way to avoid discouraging the other students would be to have the gifted and talented group work on an extra assignment that they can work on at home.  Have these students draw a still life at home using a toned paper or have them draw challenging objects as a separate drawing that will be an addition to what the rest of the class is doing.

When dealing with multiple skill levels, it is difficult to avoid singling out students and discouraging others, but these are some easy and effective ways to counteract these issues.  It is always best to challenge your students, no matter what skill level, so that they learn as much as possible.  It is also always best to not hold their level of skill against them when grading their work.  The most important thing is that all of the students are learning at their own pace, and that they are all comfortable doing so.