GATE at Monterey Ridge

 There is more to being GATE than having a label written next to the student’s name on paperwork and records.  In fourth grade, GATE is an attitude; a motivation; the willingness to put forth effort to go beyond and extend; with quality in both the work process and product that surpasses that of the typical fourth grader.  GATE students are expected to employ higher level thinking skills – analysis, inference, application, evaluation, reflection – in all subject areas.  There are higher expectations on GATE students for quality, depth, originality, and creativity in their thinking and performance.

In order to be given higher level, extended, differentiated assignments the students need to show they are ready for it.  The teachers need to feel confident the student has a good grasp of the basic skills first.  Careless errors, sloppy handwriting, little or poor effort, only doing the minimum on an assignment will not show the teachers the student is ready to move on to more challenging tasks.

Work will not have a big red GATE stamped on it, nor will the teachers say, “I want the GATE students to…”  With the utilization of a variety of approaches, all children are provided with differentiated instruction based on their grasp of basic skills and their need for challenge.  Some techniques and activities utilized in the classrooms that are directed toward meeting GATE students, as well as all students, needs include, but are not limited to:

• Cluster grouping

• Varying the pace of instruction

• Compacting the curriculum

• Student-centered discussions

• Higher level questioning during discussions specifically directed to the GATE students in the classroom

• Allowing time for expressing and exploring own ideas / areas of interest

• Open-ended activities to allow learning to take place through discovery and the exploration of more than one “right” answer

• Opportunities (and expectations) for independent work and projects

• Goal setting

• Self evaluation

L.H.