Every student is different, any teacher worth his/her salt knows this. But how are they different and how should teachers adjust their strategies to include students performing at the top of the class while not leaving everyone else behind?

#IRAChat on Thursday will address those questions with Jennifer Marten and Russell Cox. Marten, the Gifted and Talented Coordinator for the Plymouth Joint School District in Plymouth, WI, develops building- and district-level professional learning and maintains her blog, Teach From the Heart. She boils her thoughts on the changing face of education into plain speak and addresses everything from federal mandates to the deep history she has in her home district where she is now seeing the children of former students in the classroom. She is working toward a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction Leadership at Marian university in Fond du Lac, WI.

Russell Cox has taught students in all grades during his 16-year tenure and is currently the sole teacher of gifted students in several buildings spread across a rural area in Missouri. He is heavily active in social media where he taps Twitter and his professional learning network for advice and inspiration.

In addition to be literacy-focused himself, Cox is also married to a library media specialist in his home district.

Marten and Cox are ready to take questions addressing the unique needs gifted students have in the realm of literacy: how to keep them as part of a larger class without being bored, how to let them soar without getting lost, and how to foster a lifelong love of reading that many of these type of students seem to be born with, but still call for encouragement.

The chat will be 8 p.m. EST Thursday, Dec. 11. Don’t miss a tweet by following #IRAChat and check in on IRA’s twitter account.

April Hall is the editor of Reading Today Online.