Re: Gifted Questions

Laura

Posted on 7/02/09

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Wow!! This is great!! Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you
taking the time to answer these! :)

Laura

On 7/02/09, Jamie in MO wrote:
> Okay, I'm giving this a go, but there are a ton of questions
> here. It's really hard to separate my ideals with the context
> of my current job, because a lot of this really depends on the
> students you're working with, but hth.
>
> On 6/28/09, Laura wrote:
>> Hello!! I am working on getting my gifted endorsement this
>> summer and have to have some questions answered by fellow
>> teachers. You do not have to be a gifted teacher to answer
>> these questions. Anyone willing to answer these will be
>> greatly appreciated. I would love to have you answer all of
>> them, but if you just want to answer one or two of them
>> then that is cool too! If you do decide to answer just let
>> me know what grade you teach and the state. Thanks in
>> advance!
>>
>> 1. How do you recognize and identify the outstanding
>> talents and potentials in students?
> Our district uses standardized screeners, plus classroom
> teacher observation, and sometimes parent recommendations, to
> begin the identification process for our GT program. I also
> run an enrichment program which is offered to students who are
> not formally identified for the program, but it can act as a
> pool of students who might be recommended for testing.
>
> Really, with a lot of them, you just know. A lot of these
> kiddos have light bulbs over their heads just blinking "Gifted
> Here!" They are not usually the kids sitting straight and
> quietly in their seats, volunteering to answer the teacher's
> questions. They are usually the kids writing original comic
> books with vocabulary like "the pea-green explosives detonated
> over Lake Toilet, resulting in mass exodus," who can still
> answer the teacher's questions correctly if called on.
>
> I am still working to develop awareness among classroom
> teachers about what gifted behaviors can look like, since they
> have the most consistent access to the students.
>>
>> 2. How do you recognize and identify children and youth
>> having high potential in multiple areas?
>>
> Since our program does not address musical, artistic, or
> athletic talents, we use academic measures, as well as looking
> at things like critical thinking, problem-solving, and applied
> creativity (a muddy field, to be sure).
>
>> 3. How do you define gifted and talented?
> Gifted students are ready for more in-depth and advanced study
> than they receive in their regular classrooms. Talented
> students benefit from enrichment services, and tend to be
> highly motivated in particular domains.
>>
>> 4. What characteristics do you associate with gifted and
>> talented children and youth?
>> Perfectionism, intensity, sense of humor, quick to "get it,"
> preference for complexity and depth. Frequently, dislike
> repetitive work, have sophisticated vocabulary, gravitate
> toward older students and/or each other and/or adults,
> sensitive, logical, make connections that seem unexpected at
> first and then seem inevitable.
>
>> 5. How do you compare historical and contemporary
>> identification of gifted and talented from the perspectives
>> of both theory and research?
>
> Concerns about elitism have continued to be an issue with
> regard to gifted education, and this affects program
> development, implementation, and populations. We've come a
> long way since phrenology. :-)
>>
>> 6. What do you think are the best ways to develop
>> outstanding talents and potentials in students?
>>
> Career awareness, as early as 4th grade; opportunity for
> interest-based learning--NOT just product differentiation, but
> topic and complexity differentiation; opportunity for
> Renzulli's Type III investigations; pursuing problem-solving as
> a process, and not only a means to achieve a correct answer;
> teaching students to reflect, analyze, and listen--rather than
> simply reacting; encouraging citizenship--not only as
> participants in a democracy, but as people with skills to
> contribute (this also includes things like manners, disagreeing
> respectfully, responsibility, and so forth)
>
>> 7. How do you select challenging instructional strategies
>> and materials for your students?
>
> I read an absurd amount of information about curricular
> development and educational research, and then I usually create
> my own stuff based on the needs of particular students. I
> would like to do more things that overlap and connect with the
> classroom learning, but time is a challenge there.
>>
>> 8. How do you choose to implement appropriately challenging
>> instructional strategies, materials, and technologies to
>> meet the unique learning needs of your gifted students?
>>
>
> See above. I reflect almost non-stop, and adjust. I love
> having the freedom to do this. Differentiated instruction
> takes a long time to master, and I don't pretend I've hit my
> ideal, but I know the road I'm on is going in the right
> direction. I guess the key to this (which seems very "duh,"
> but lots of people don't do this) is to have clearly defined
> objectives, and activities which are aligned with those
> objectives, and to collect as much information about student
> understanding as possible as you go. Then you adjust where you
> need to.
>
>> 9. How do you identify teaching models best noted for
>> meeting the unique educational needs of bright learners?
>> What strategies do you incorporate for differentiating
>> content, process, product, and learning environment?
> My master's degree in gifted ed. is from UConn, so I naturally
> gravitate toward pieces from Renzulli, although my school does
> not follow his model. I read often, and pull pieces that will
> work for my students from various resources--Tomlinson, MMM &
> PCM, and so forth. I love Carolyn Coil and Dodie Merritt's
> stuff from Pieces of Learning, because they're set up to be
> applied in many different contexts. I could be a lot more
> specific with strategies, but it would take forever.
>>
>> 10. How do you use major programs and prototypes developed
>> to provide differentiated instruction for gifted students?
>> Um, I think the above pretty much speaks to that.
>
>> 11. How do you synthesize the major learning realms
>> (thinking skills, communication skills, and research
>> skills) to optimize development of gifted students across
>> the various curriculum realms?
>
> Well, that is the million dollar question, right? I love
> Understanding by Design, so I make sure I have worthwhile big
> picture questions to explore, and then I craft activities which
> will guide students toward the objectives. I lean toward
> social studies/writing kinds of things as a personal
> preference, so I'm always looking out to be sure I add in a
> balance of other types of experiences. I also think about
> places to incorporate elements of Systems Thinking tools, or
> things like Thinking Maps. I think the work I do on my own
> with students is reasonably effective, but it would be so much
> better if it were more clearly aligned with the regular
> classroom activities. However, I wouldn't want to sacrifice
> the freedom we have to explore independently, either.
>>
>> 12. How do you plan, implement, and evaluate the teaching
>> of gifted students?
>>
> Planning is non-stop, but the big picture stuff happens in the
> summer, and I pull together or create the major pieces then.
> As the units progress, I am often tweaking or subbing things,
> based on assessments, student enjoyment, time, etc. We have
> parent surveys about our program, and we have standardized
> assessment data. I also collect as much information from
> students as I can, to keep improving and making instruction as
> effective as possible.
>
>> 13. What multiple strategies do you use for assessing
>> gifted student learning and program effectiveness?
>
> They pull state testing data on the older students, and figure
> we contribute to that in some way. They also have Tungsten
> data in math and reading. The survey data above and the
> informal information I get from students is the most valuable
> piece for me, but I do look at standardized test data to see if
> I can address and support specific skills within a larger
> context of our theme units.
>>
>> 14. How do you provide qualitatively differentiated
>> curriculum for the gifted/talented/creative learner?
>>
> We have a pull-out program. Each grade level comes once a
> week. It's not ideal. I'm still working on developing
> networks and systems to support students while they learn in
> their regular classrooms. If schools were structured the way I
> think they ought to be, I wouldn't have a job, because all
> teachers would be differentiating and attending to gifted
> needs, but that doesn't happen.
>
>> 15. How do you synchronize the curriculum of gifted
>> education with the general education curriculum?
>>
> I have very little, if any, common planning time, and my
> students come to me from different classrooms--so the same 4th
> graders could come from three different teachers who are not
> always studying the same things at the same time. Most
> synchronization happens with regard to affective concerns about
> the students, although I would like to increase the amount of
> communication and co-planning with regard to curricula.
>
>> 16. Respond to this quote from Felix E. Schelling,
>> "Pedagogically Speaking", 1929. Do you believe that we have
>> made great strides in the education of the gifted? Why or
>> Why not?: "True education makes for inequality; the
>> inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the
>> glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality,
>> not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization
>> is the measure of the progress of the world."
>
> I would love it if our society really embraced the idea of
> being unique and different, but for all our pomp about "be
> yourself," and "I'm expressing myself so you can't argue with
> that," we tend to be much more comfortable with sameness than
> with differences, so that's an ongoing journey. I would not
> use that quote in any gathering, because gifted educators are
> constantly walking a tightrope to explain why our students need
> different content delivered at a different pace with more
> freedom and choices as they encounter information, without
> offending people by talking about talents and genius. I can't
> ever fathom why it's okay to accept that some people throw
> better or run faster, but it's not okay to describe someone as
> smart, because it might suggest that other people aren't. I do
> believe all children have gifts, and as educators, it's our job
> to develop them in every child. I wish I didn't have to even
> say that, because it should be obvious. It's also obvious that
> some people learn faster and know more, and if school is about
> educating students, then those students need to learn new
> things, too.
>>
>> 17. Note the impact you feel that the following concepts
>> have on giftedness: Perfectionist, underachievement,
>> stress, gender related issues, motivation, visual/spatial
>> learners, gifted with ADD/ADHD, profoundly gifted, gifted
>> students with learning disabilities, gifted students with
>> Asperser's syndrome, gifted students who are culturally and
>> ethnically diverse, linguistically different, and
>> economically challenged, High Intellectual-Low Creativity,
>> Low-Intellectual-High Creativity
> Each of these is a dissertation or more. Really, it comes down
> to seeing a child for the person he is, and providing the best
> learning experience possible, given where he is and what he's
> ready to do.

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