Math Contracts for Gifted Students

For Free Contracts Click Here.

Sometimes teachers ask me how to differentiate in math.  One of the ideas I suggest is to put that student on a contract.   What this means is that students can test out of a unit of math, or a part of a unit in math, if the teachers administers a pre-assessment and the student passes certain domains.  

Contracts are documents that ask the students to do a few of the problems in the problem set rather than the whole problem set.  Sometimes if a teacher notices that a student knows the majority of the content but needs work in an area or two, they can ask a student to stay with the class on those particular lessons and work on extensions at other times.  

For example, I am working with a fourth grade teacher at Creekside right now who used to teach gifted students with me.  She gave the end of module test to her class before the unit even began to see where all students were at and what their prior knowledge was.  This pre-assessment showed her that all of her gifted students already knew the content.  She also learned that an unidentified student also knew all the content for the upcoming fraction module.  

My teacher friend was able to "put them on contract," so those students could work on extension resources on fractions, while other kids were following along the Eureka lesson.  The gifted kids were able to expand their thinking by applying their knowledge of fractions to a project, in depth problem solving problem, or more complex task.  The rest of the class was able to follow the lesson planned in Eureka.

Now, I am checking in with those students in SAGE (our gifted pull out program) regarding their project and the homeroom teacher checks in with them as well. We are differentiating our content to meet the needs of all students and making sure all kids get what they need to be successful.

That said, it is also important to acknowledge the Practice Standards in math as well.  All students need to be able to engage in mathematical discourse, debate, kindly questioning ideas, developing strategies and finding patterns in math and explaining them.  Sometimes it is necessary for students who contract out to also engage in some math discourse in the lesson to deepen their understanding and push their math behavior forward. 

 I see it as an intricate dance, balancing the needs of all students, which can be done with precision and care.

Here are some free Eureka contracts.