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Logo for the Department of SAGE (Gifted & Talented Ed) with a colorful abstract design.

Sage Overview

  • All children possess gifts and talents. The Framingham Public Schools defines giftedness as students with gifts and talents perform—or have the capability to perform—at higher levels compared to others of the same age, experience, and environment in one or more domains who may also require modification(s) to their educational experience(s) to learn and realize their potential (National Association of Gifted Children). 

    According to the National Association of Gifted Children, gifted and talented children come from all cultural, racial, economic, and linguistic backgrounds. Gifted children also require support in accessing their gifts and talents through multiple learning opportunities through accommodations and modifications. Within the context of Framingham Public Schools, the goal of the Sage program is to utilize intervention services when appropriate to support students in optimizing opportunities to access their school experience academically, behaviorally, and socio-emotional.

Description of Sage Services

  • Since the goal is for every student to maximize their learning potential, it becomes necessary for children who possess needs associated with giftedness to receive adjustments in the teaching and learning environment.  The responsibility for adapting to these student needs may be met in the classroom or through a small group instruction outside of the classroom or both, depending upon individual needs. Therefore, the services of the Sage Department are three-fold based on student needs: pull-out services, intervention, remediation, and collaborative enrichment through collaboration between classroom and Sage teachers as determined by the multi-tiered support system (MTSS) team at each school.

    The Sage pull-out services will provide support for creating project-based learning opportunities with a culminating project to allow students time to present their work to the larger school community. Projects that are completed will be based on Massachusetts frameworks and aligned with the student’s classroom content to support them in making classroom connections while fostering their academic discourse and growth on the student-selected topic. 

    It is important that all students have access to a highly engaging grade-level, standards-aligned curriculum throughout the day that meets the needs of the individual learner. This often requires adapting and modifying the curriculum to include highly cognitively demanding tasks, allowing for student autonomy and students to use their creativity and innovative thinking. Sage teachers will support classroom teachers to help provide standards-aligned depth and complexity to learning tasks that push the thinking of all students, especially Sage students. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Tiered Instruction

    • Tiered Instruction: Beginning the Process

      State and national standards expect that all students master grade-level skills and understanding. Some learners who already know those skills and concepts may be tread-milling instead of learning. Tiered instruction invites educators to rethink traditional educational practices that view students as having similar backgrounds and readiness levels. There are two essential components that make this possible:
       

      • Tiered instruction blends assessment and instruction. Before initiating each segment of learning, the teacher completes a pre-assessment to determine what students know and then plans content materials and learning experiences that promote continued learning for each student. As teachers consider students' assessed readiness levels, it becomes obvious that everyone is not at the same place in their learning and that different tasks are needed to optimize every student's classroom experience.
      • Tiered instruction aligns complexity to the readiness levels and learning needs of students.The teacher plans different kinds and degrees of instructional support and structure, depending upon each student's needs. Tiered instruction allows all students to focus on essential concepts and skills yet still be challenged at the different levels on which they are individually capable of working.

      Framingham recognizes that readiness, interest and learning styles of students differ and tiered instructional units enable students to study materials at their instructional level. For this reason, tiered thematic units in English have been created under the supervision of the Gifted and Talented department in collaboration with twenty-seven ELA teachers representing the three middle schools.  To prepare for this project, teachers engaged in a three-day professional development training during which time they participated in the instruction on the "how to" of differentiation using tiered English thematic units;

      -identification of a thematic unit based on the the following pieces of literature:  Blizzard; Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie; The Giver, and; To Kill A Mockingbird.  Materials and activities used in their thematic units include levels of reading material and cognitively tiered activities. 

      Level 1:
      Basic knowledge, understanding. The student builds on his/her current level of core information. 

      Level 2:
      Application or manipulation of the information learned in the foundation layer. Problem solving or other higher         level thinking tasks can be placed here.

      Level 3:
      Critical thinking and analysis. This layer requires the highest and most complex thought.

      • selection of a pre-assessment tools that will guide instruction and drive the review of existing materials that will be used to tier instruction; training on data analysis of pre-assessment tools for implementation of flexible grouping practices; and
      • instruction in 6 + 1 Trait® Writing.

      Consideration of Multiple Intelligence Theory in the variety of activities selected in order to maximize student productivity.

       
     
 

 

 

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