Discussion Post #5, Gifted and Talented

[Eleanore Tiehen]

One area of exceptionality that I would like to explore further is the
area of gifted and talented, sometimes referred to as “twice-
exceptional.”

The Federal Definition of Gifted and Talented in NCLB (US) The term
“gifted and talented”, when used with respect to students, children,
or youth, means students, children, or youth who give evidence of high
achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative,
artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and
who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school
in order to fully develop those capabilities (Title IX, Part A,
Section 9101(22), p. 544).

Note: States and districts are not required to use the federal
definition, although many states base their definitions on the federal
definition.

Personally, I feel that students who are achieving at or above grade-
level receive less attention because they are where they need to be.
More attention, resources, accommodations, and differentiated
instruction go to students who are below grade level. Below is a link
to resourceful article from the NEA, titled, “The Twice Exceptional
Dilemma” (2006).

http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/twiceexceptional.pdf

Do you think the area of gifted and talented needs to be given more
attention? How can we as educators raise the profile of the issue?
What strategies are you currently using to identify and educate gifted
and talented students in your class?

[Emily Brooks]

I think that the area of gifted and talented does need to be give more attention in my classroom and in general. It is really hard to offer enrichment to students because I feel that my students who need remediation need that "more" than students who need enrichment. However, that is not true. As teachers, we need to always be pushing all of ours students to their limits, even if those limits are above their current grade level.

A way that I offer more enrichment that I find effective is giving my most advanced learners project based activities, and activities that are more independent. I also will set them up in groups so that they have peers to check each others work and give each other feedback. This allows them to work on above grade level skills, while I am able to give more instruction to my students who are below grade level. I am not saying this is an ideal solution because my advanced learners are not getting as much instruction time, but it is a way to challenge them and build on their levels of independence.

Also, I work at a school that has a co-teaching model. We have two teachers in every classroom. For every lesson there is a small group occurring. That small group was almost always a remediation group. However, recently, we have decided that once a week the small group will be an enrichment group so that we can push the level of rigor for all of our students. 

  How can we as educators raise the profile of the issue?
What strategies are you currently using to identify and educate gifted
and talented students in your class?

[Meredith Blunda]

This is such a great question, and something that I think about a lot.
My class has a huge range of learners, and includes a lot of gifted
and talented students. My lead teacher and I spent a lot of time at
the beginning of the year worrying that we weren't focusing enough on
those students. I believe they deserve to have just as much attention
as our other students. I have seen too many advanced learners become
bored in the classroom and turn to goofing off - this shouldn't be
happening! If those learners are consistently challenged, I believe
those behaviors would be lessened and we would see continued growth.

So in our classroom, we have broken up both our Language Arts and Math
teaching into differentiated small groups. Reading is based on reading
level, so our higher readers are with similarly-leveled students so
they can read text that is more challenging and exciting for them. We
can ask higher-level questions and get into deeper conversations about
texts. In Math, we always do a pre-test before each unit so we can
properly group them by skill level. The highest group meets after the
whole group lesson with a teacher (as do all the groups, but each
group does something different) and does enrichment work so they can
be challenged. We didn't always use this model and I have seen my
higher Math kids become a lot more excited about Math than when we
used to work as a whole class, now that they get an extra challenge
each day.

To raise this issue, I have just started at the school level. My lead
teacher and I are always trying to share ideas with the other teachers
in the building and inviting them in to show them how our
differentiating works so they can see how easy and successful it can
be. By starting small, hopefully these great ideas will spread and
continue to pass on.