Curriculum Compacting

highsoaringlearners

** This post is part of a larger post: Developing a Gifted and Talented Program. **

What is Curriculum Compacting?

Curriculum compacting involves pretesting students to see what skills they already have mastered in the specific unit, and then making modifications for the activities of those skills the students have mastered. If a student has met the proficiency requirement from the pretesting, they learn new content through different activities or work on enrichment activities during the lessons of those mastered skills.

There is often a concern that curriculum compacting can have a negative impact on gifted students. According to the National Association for Gifted Children, “Elementary teachers can eliminate from 24%-70% of high-ability students’ curriculum by compacting without any negative effect on test scores or performance” (Curriculum Compacting).

Benefits

  • increases acceleration opportunities
  • motivates students
  • allows for more engagement/less boredom
  • allows students to learn more involving their interests 
  • gain independence and self-motivation
  • decreases the time students need to sit through lessons on materials they already know/skills they already know how to do

Steps

  1. Determine the skills, standards, etc. that students need to demonstrate mastery in for the specific unit.
  2. Determine what the proficiency requirement is (i.e., 90% or higher on the preassessment).
  3. Pretest the students to see where they already demonstrate proficiency.
  4. Throughout the unit, students go back and forth between working independently on extension activities to working on the lesson with the teacher and the rest of the class. They will join the class for lessons on skills they did not demonstrate mastery in, and the skills they did demonstrate mastery in, they complete the enrichment activities.
  5. Students complete a contract that lists required concepts and the different enrichment options they can choose from.

Kinds of Preassessments

There are a variety of different preassessments that can be used. The most common is pretests. Teachers can also conduct observations in the classroom, discussions with the students, checklists, and observations during brainstorming sessions.

What If Preassessments Cannot Be Used?

There may be times when a preassessment cannot be used. This may be in writing, science, etc. In this situation, if a student has shown mastery of previous topics, teachers may offer them the opportunity to learn the study guide material. The teacher gives the students a study guide that has the concepts they will be responsible for knowing at the end of the unit. While learning the study guide material (in whatever way they choose to learn it), students work on the extension activities. The teacher lets the students know the dates of when they will have to demonstrate their mastery in that unit (from the study guide). If they do not demonstrate mastery on that date, then they will join the class for the rest of the unit instead of working on the extension activities.

Finding Enrichment Activities

  • Look in the teacher’s editions of your textbook. Many of them provide suggestions of additional activities for advanced learners.
  • Purchase supplemental books with higher level thinking activities.
  • Ask the students what they would like to do, how they would like to do it, and how they will demonstrate their learning (ex: what kind of product they will create).

Tips

  • The teacher and student should meet together to discuss the enrichment activities and what the student’s plans are for the activities.
  • The teacher should provide the student a timeline showing when they will meet with the teacher and when the activity is due.
  • When putting in grades, use the grade that the student used to demonstrate mastery. Do not use the grade on their enrichment activity, as it may be lower due to being more challenging.
  • Have a folder for every student who the curriculum is compacted for. Within each folder, include the dated pretests, checklists, rubrics, forms, records of activities completed, etc.
  • Schools should provide teachers with training/coaching on how to appropriately challenge the students with enrichment activities related to the unit’s skills.

Resources

  • Byrdseed.TV: Subscribing to Ian Byrd’s website provides you with many enrichment activities that the students can complete.