I read this article, Don’t Give More Work…Give more challenge when I was getting my gifted and talented teacher and coordinator license. The article looks at how gifted and talented students feel in the classroom. One of the feelings they portrayed was feeling bored, which then turned into unwanted behaviors from the student. Over the last three years of running the gifted and talented program within my school, there have been multiple students who used to get in trouble at school often for inappropriate behaviors. After joining the GT program, there behaviors subsided, demonstrating the fact that if students are showing unwanted behaviors, they may be bored within in the classroom.
Another feeling students experienced was that they were given a lot of busy work because they finished their work in a short amount of time, and so the teacher gave them more work to do. One thing I like to do when a student finishes work before their peers is have them work on a Passion Project. This allows them to continue learning, and they are not working on things just to keep them busy.
This article, Don’t Give More Work…Give more challenge, mentions how teachers can change their teaching methods to help their gifted and talented students. I suggest you check it out if you are struggling with keeping your students engaged within your classroom.