Gifted and Talented

1. Gifted and Talented Mark Johnson, Tanner Hoffmann, and Trescha Kay Ed 351

2. Definition “Children and, whenever applicable, youth, who are identified at the preschool, elementary, or secondary level as possessing demonstrated or potential abilities that give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, specific academic, or leadership ability, or in the performing and visual arts, and who by reason thereof, require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school” As provided by the book

3. Laws & Funding • No special federal laws that require special programs • Jacob Jarvis Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1988 • Provides limited funds • $10,000,000/yr in recent years • 30% set aside for National Center • Direct grants-not leveraged funds

4. State Laws • Most States Have Definitions for Gifted and Talented • Many States Mandate Services for Students who are Identified

5. Gardener’s Multidimensional Model of Intelligence • Musical • Body-kinesthetic • Logical-Mathematical • Linguistic • Spatial • Interpersonal • Intrapersonal • Naturalist

6. IQ Classifications 125-130 Gifted 131-144 Moderately gifted 145-159 Highly gifted over 160 Exceptionally gifted

7. Typical Characteristics Skills: • Generalize • Analyze • Synthesize new ideas • Understanding of exceedingly large quantities of information • Broad and varied interests • High level of verbal ability • Flexible thinking skills • Unusual intensity • Heightened ability to generate original ideas and solutions

8. Emotional-Social Characteristics • Anxiety • Perfectionism • Heightened sensitivity • Loneliness • Social Isolation • Depression in the exceptionally gifted

9. Causes • Both nature and nurture • Depends on both the genetic predisposition of the individual and on the experiences encountered in that individual’s environment.

10. Evaluation • Use multiple tests • IQ • Creativity • Behavior rating scales • DISCOVER • An approach uses problem solving • Tasks get harder as the test progresses.

11. Possible Adaptations • Acceleration • Compact the curriculum • Curriculum extension • Cognitive taxonomies • Autonomous learning model

12. Inclusion • Cluster grouping • All-school enrichment programs • Accelerative method • Magnet schools, charter schools, self-contained classes, special day schools, and residential schools

13. Some Questions to Think About • Does expanding the identification criteria result in the identification of a greater number of students from under-represented groups than traditional identification criteria? • Do identified students who receive the model-based curriculum outperform identified students who received their school’s general education curriculum on the extended standard-based assessments, the structured performance assessments, and/or standardized achievement measures? • Do students identified by traditional criteria outperform students identified by the expanded criteria on standardized measures of reading and math achievement and performance-based measures? • Are there any interactions between treatment condition and identification criteria on standardized measures of reading and math achievement and performance-based measures?

14. Cont. • Does the delivery of the model-based intervention enhance or hinder the achievement of the non-identified students in the treatment classes? Do non-identified students in the treatment classes perform as well as non-identified students in non-treatment classes on standardized measures of reading and math achievement? • How do personal and environmental factors shape teachers' implementation of model-based curriculum units in reading and math? How do teachers' personal characteristics shape understanding and implementation of the curriculum? How do grade, department, building, or district level factors shape teachers' understanding and implementation of the curriculum? http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html