ABSTRACT
Today’s public schools are as diverse as ever. Students enter the classroom with a broad and complex range of skills and struggles, diligence, and distractions. Into this rich and challenging mix stands the teacher who is charged with creating relevant and engaging learning opportunities for all students. This chapter illustrates how social studies classrooms premised on inquiry and creativity can support and enhance the inquisitive nature of students who are gifted. Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method in which students work to develop deep and layered understandings of complex questions, problems, or ideas. This method of instruction hits home for many gifted students and is in line with the advanced level of thinking so often sought out. Students investigate, explore, and interpret interrelated themes and concepts parsing out both commonalities and differences. Inquiry-based learning creates classrooms that are alive with curiosity and creativity and rooted in authentic application.
