Gifted and Talented

• Identification•Characteristics•Programming• Fun Facts•Interesting Statistics•Final Thoughts

IDENTIFICATION FOR GT

Gifted and Talented

Ability or IQNNAT 95th percentile

or CoGAT 95thpercentile

Academic Achievement95th percentile

MAPS or CSAPS

Behaviors/CharacteristicsOutstanding or Exceptional

Factors

Teacher and Parent Checklists are completed and the student is referred.

GT specialist evaluates data, special needs, IEP, ELL, etc.

May administer Ability Testing. CogAT or NNAT

BEHAVIORAL

ACHIEVEMENT Student meets achievement criteria if

they score in the 95%tile or above in the following areas on either MAPS or CSAPS:

ReadingWritingMathScience

NNAT-Naglieri Non-verbal Ability Test Picture Analogies (1-30 minute session) Less culturally biased

COGAT-Cognitive Abilities Test (Given in 3 approx. 50 minute sessions.)

Student meets Ability or IQ criteria if they achieve 95%tile or above in any of the categories: Verbal (3-10 minute sessions) Quantitative (3 sessions-8, 10, and 12 minutes) Non-verbal (3-10 minute sessions)

ABILITY OR IQ TESTING-95%TILE OR ABOVE

Characteristics of the GT•Acquires and retains information quickly.•Inquisitive attitude, intellectual curiosity, intrinsic motivation, searching for significance.•Ability to conceptualize, abstract, synthesize, enjoys problem-solving and intellectual activity.•Can see cause-effect relations.•Love truth, equity and fair play.•Enjoys organizing things and people into structure and order, seeks to systematize.•Large vocabulary and simplistic verbal proficiency; broad information in advanced areas.•Thinks critically, has high expectancies, self-critical and evaluates others.

Characteristics of the GT cont’d.

•Keen observer, willing to consider the unusual, open to new experiences.•Creative and inventive, likes new ways of doing things.•Intense concentration, long attention span in areas of interest, goal directed behavior, persistence.•Sensitivity, empathy for others, desire to be accepted by others.•High energy, alertness, eagerness, periods of intense efforts.•Independent, prefers individualized work, reliant on self.•Diverse interests and abilities, versatility.•Strong sense of humor.

GT Programming

Differentiation Model◦ Content, Process, and Product

Depth and Complexity Model◦ HOTS, Sophistication, Concepts/Big Ideas, Extended Enrichment

Enrichment Model◦ Opportunity for students to work and interact with their GT peers◦ Curriculum based on students’ interests, strengths, and learning

profiles

◦ Time to address affective needs

The National Research Center for GT advocates using a Balanced Approach with GT Students

CDE distinguished designation includes: “Regular, ongoing, opportunities to learn and work with peers are provided. (i.e. cluster grouping, magnet program or classroom)”

NAGC National Conference: ◦ PEGS-full time program, mainstreamed for specials◦ “Regular Gifted”-full day pull out program, flexible

grouping in content areas. Our district vision is to develop a program

based on the recommendations from: NAGC, CAGT, and CDE.

A distinguished program…

Fun Facts•Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read.

•Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.

• When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teachers

told him he was too stupid to learn anything.

•F.W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his employers would not let him wait on a customer because he “Didn’t have enough sense.”

•Wernher Von Braun flunked 9th grade Algebra.

•Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the navy, as, “Unfit for Service” until he flew over both poles.

• Louis Pasteur was rated as mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College.

•Abraham Lincoln entered The Black Hawk War as a captain and came out a private.

• Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college.

•Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.

GT students can know up to 80% of the curriculum prior to it being taught.

GT students typically need 1-3 repetitions while the average student may require 9-12.

35% of gifted children compared to 5% of the general population have sensory processing disorder features such as unusual challenges with frustration, pain, noise, and emotional hypersensitivity that significantly impacts quality of life.

60% of high school dropouts are highly intelligent/GT.

GT percentages are typically 1-3% of a populationSPE: 3rd-7%, 4th-15.6%, 5th-11%

Statistics Warranting GT Advocacy

How can you get GT students to work when they only want to pass or have a negative attitude?

Gifted students can not be MADE to do anything. They are intrinsically driven and only engage in things that have purpose and meaning to them. It is not uncommon for gifted students to be so turned off by school work that they have figured out exactly what they need to make on a given test or assignment to keep from flunking and do no more than the minimum. These are the students we need to talk to and try to find out how to make school more meaningful for them or how to get them out of the school situation at a faster pace.

Gifted, Talented & Highly CreativeQuestions (from Jan 24, 2004) & ResponsesJoyce E. Juntune, Ph.D., Texas A&M University

Giftedness is not elitist. It cut across all socio-economic, ethnic and national groups. In every culture, there are developmentally advanced children who have greater abstract reasoning and develop at a faster rate than their age peers. Though the percentage of gifted students among the upper classes may be higher, a much greater number of gifted children come from the lower classes, because the poor far outnumber the rich. Therefore, when provisions are denied to the gifted on the basis that they are “elitist,” it is the poor who suffer the most. The rich have other options. Linda Silverman, Ph.D, Director Gifted Development Center

What We Have Learned About Gifted Children-1979-2009