K A T H R Y N P I C A N C O , E D . D .D I R E C T O R , C E N T E R F O R G I F T E D E D U C A T I O N

W H I T W O R T H U N I V E R S I T Y

SERVING HIGHLY CAPABLE STUDENTS IN RURAL

DISTRICTS

WASHINGTON STATE

28A.185.020 RCW (2009)The legislature finds that, for highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction is access to a basic education.

There are multiple definitions of highly capable, from intellectual to academic to artistic. The research literature strongly supports using multiple criteria to identify highly capable students, and therefore, the legislature does not intend to prescribe a single method.

SHIFT IN THINKING

3

FROM Program Centered TO Student Centered

SHIFT IN THINKING

4

FROM considered a separate program not integrated into the regular classroom

TO an integrated range of services as a part of the student’s basic education K-12

GIFTED KIDS ARE GIFTED EVERY DAY, ALL DAY.

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PSYCHOSOCIAL SKILLS THAT SUPPORT TALENT DEVELOPMENT

PAULA OLSZEWSKI-KUBILIUS (ND)TALENT DEVELOPMENT AS AN EMERGING FRAMEWORK IN GIFTED EDUCATION.

• Openness to new experience

• Self-efficacy• Self-confidence• Grit• Growth mindset• Emotional regulation• Coping skills for

failure and disappointment

• Resiliency• Comfort with

intellectual tension• Ability to handle

competition and critique

• Psychological independence from parents and teachers

Some social-emotional attributes seen as enduring characteristics of all gifted individuals and defining of and inherent within giftedness

• Not inherent in being gifted• Needs result from interaction

between gifted individual & environment, influenced by culture and opportunity

• Psychosocial skills are critical to talent development and these change with domain of talent and stage of developed talent

• Emphasizes deliberate cultivation of psychosocial skills to support giftedness and high achievement within domains

Gifted children have unique social, psychological and emotional needs

Psychosocial Development

Traditional View of

Giftedness

Talent Development

Paula Olszewski-Kubilius (ND)Talent development as an emerging framework in gifted education.

OUTCOMES OF GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

• The anticipated social roles that people of high potential will play should be the main rationale for both supporting special programs and designing learning experiences that will prepare today’s students for responsible leadership roles in the future. (Renzulli, 2012)

College and Career

Ready Student

Growth Opportunities and Supports

High Quality Instruction and Leadership

Educator and System Accountability

K-12 continuum of services built on a foundation of standards in the 3 areas.

College/Career training communication and support

CCSSO

MAJOR CHANGES IN WA

• All districts need to submit a school board approved program plan by July 1, 2014

• A K-12 continuum of services needs to be in place for identified gifted students

• All educators require ongoing professional development about the nature and needs of the gifted learner and instructional strategies to challenge them, not just the teacher for the gifted program

• Program evaluation linked to goals

Chapter 392-170 WAC. Retrieved from http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=392-170.

KEY QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS

• Who are “highly capable” students and what are their learning needs?

• What is accelerated learning and what does it look like in a school setting?

• What is enhanced instruction and what does it look like in a school setting?

• What can a K-12 continuum of services include and look like?

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WHO ARE “HIGHLY CAPABLE” STUDENTS AND WHAT ARE THEIR LEARNING NEEDS?

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WAC 392-170-036  DEFINITION OF LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS

As used in this chapter, the term learning characteristics means that students who are highly capable may possess, but are not limited to, these learning characteristics:

1) Capacity to learn with unusual depth of understanding, to retain what has been learned, and to transfer learning to new situations.

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WAC 392-170-036  DEFINITION OF LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS

2) Capacity and willingness to deal with increasing levels of abstraction and complexity earlier than their chronological peers.

3) Creative ability to make unusual connections among ideas and concepts.

4) Ability to learn quickly in their area(s) of intellectual strength.

5) Capacity for intense concentration and/or focus.

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LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT EDUCATING THE GIFTED AND TALENTED: A SYNTHESIS OF THE RESEARCH

ROGERS, K. (2007). LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT EDUCATING THE GIFTED AND TALENTED: A SYNTHESIS OF THE RESEARCH. GIFTED CHILD QUARTERLY, 51(4), 382-396.

• Gifted learners need daily challenge in their specific area of talent

• Opportunities should be provided on a regular basis for gifted learners to be unique and to work independently in their areas of passion and talent

• Provide various forms of subject-based and grade-based acceleration to gifted learners as their educational needs require

• Provide opportunities for gifted learners to socialize and to learn with like-ability peers

• For specific curriculum areas, instructional delivery must be differentiated in pace, amount of review and practice, and organization of content presentation

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WHAT’S NEXT?

Callahan, C. (September, 2010). Lessons learned from evaluating programs for the gifted. Presented at the Highly Capable Program Technical Working Group Meeting. 17

SERVICE DELIVERY MODELS

• Integrated classroom support• Cluster grouping• Pull-out program• Special classes• Special schools

Schroth, St. (2013). Service delivery models. In Plucker, J. and Callahan, C. (Ed.s), Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says (p 577-591). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

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DIFFERENTIATION

A teaching philosophy where

teachers strive to meet the needs of their students by intentionally planning the curriculum and/or instruction based on student interests, learning profile, readiness levels and/or affect.

-Tomlinson

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DIFFERENTIATION FOR HIGHLY CAPABLE STUDENTS

Acceleration

Novelty

Complexity

Depth

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Kaplan

WHAT IS ACCELERATED LEARNING?

“Progress through an educational program at rates faster or at ages younger than conventional.”

Pressey in Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. and Gross, M. (2004). A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students, Vol. 2. The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

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A NATION DECEIVED

• Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration, The Ohio State University

• http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/Get_Report.aspxhttp://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/Get_Report.aspx

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TYPES OF ACCELERATION• Early Admission to

Kindergarten• Early Admission to

First Grade• Grade-Skipping• Continuous Progress• Self-Paced

Instruction• Subject-Matter

Acceleration/Partial acceleration

• Combined Classes• Curriculum

Compacting• Telescoping the

Curriculum

• Mentoring• Extracurricular

Programs• Correspondence

Courses• Early Graduation• Concurrent/Dual

Enrollment• Advanced Placement• Credit by Examination• Acceleration in College• Early Entrance into

Middle School, High School

Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. and Gross, M. (2004). A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students, Vol. 2. The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

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WHAT IS ENHANCED INSTRUCTION?

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Enhanced Instructio

n

Depth

Complexity

Novelty

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Differentiated Quality Curriculum for Highly Capable Students

• Higher level of abstractness (3.1.4)

• Greater depth and complexity of content, process, and orproduct (3.1.4)

• More rapid pace of learning or task completion (5.1.1)• Problems with many facets; products or outcomes from

ill-formed and open-ended problems (3.3.3; 3.4.1; 3.4.2;3.4.3))

• Mastery of content that requires greater leaps of insight or more indirect applications or transfer of learning (3.4.4)

• Use of more advanced and sophisticated resources

• Match to each student‟s developmental level and culture- based learning needs (1.2.1)

Callahan, C. (September, 2010). Lessons learned from evaluating programs for the gifted. Presented at the Highly Capable Program Technical Working Group Meeting.

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KEY POINTS

• Curriculum is developmentally appropriate

• Creativity and problem solving are integrated into the disciplines rather than taught as isolated skills or only as part of competitionsCallahan, C. (September, 2010). Lessons learned from evaluating programs for the gifted. Presented at the Highly Capable Program Technical Working Group Meeting. 27

ENHANCED INSTRUCTION IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

Traditional Values in Rural Communities• Importance of family and

community• Strong work ethic• Deep ties to the land• Stewardship

Lawrence, B. (2009). Rural gifted education: A comprehensive literature review. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 32(4), 461-494.

Enhanced Instructional Strategies that Align• Service-Learning• Place-based

Learning• Problem-based

Learning

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF GROUPING FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

Approach Effect Size Growth beyond the regular academic year

E = Elementary and S=Secondary

Full time ability grouping .49 ( E ) and .33 ( S )

Within class ability grouping .34 ( E and S )

Regrouping for specific instruction

.34 ( E ) and .79 ( S )

Cluster grouping .59 ( E ) and .44 ( S )

Multiage classroom .49 ( E ) and .46 ( S )

Like ability cooperative groups

.28 ( E and S )

Mixed ability grouping 0

29Rogers, K (October 2011). Presentation at the Washington Association for Educators of the Talented and Gifted conference.

WHAT DOES A K-12 CONTINUUM OF SERVICES INCLUDE?

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GENERAL CLUSTER GROUPING

Common gifted education practice that places a group of high achieving, gifted, or high ability students in a classroom with other students and with a teacher who has received training or who is willing to differentiate curriculum and instruction for the identified cluster students.

Gentry, M. and Mann, R. (nd). Total school cluster grouping and differentiation: A comprehensive, research-based plan for raising student achievement and improving teacher practices. Powerpoint companion to the book.

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EXAMPLE OF A CLASSROOM COMPOSITION FOR THE TOTAL SCHOOL CLUSTER GROUPING MODEL

30 students in two classrooms

Group 1: High Achieving

Group 2: Above Average Achieving

Group 3: Average

Group 4: Low Average

Group 5: Low

Class A 6 0 12 12 0

Class B 0 6 12 6 6

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GETTING STARTED: WHAT ARE YOU ALREADY DOING?

ElementaryWaKIDs readiness

assessmentMAP Tests

Math grant- Developmental approach,

flexible grouping

MiddleHonors courses

Flexible grouping through blended learning

environments in math, transferable to other

content areas

High School

Honors and specialized courses

College in the High School

Advanced Placement

Program goals could focus on academic specific domainsProgram evaluation tied to student growth in the identified areas

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K-8

K-8 Gates Grant focused on algebraic readiness• Examining materials that will develop algebraic reasoning

and differentiate math instruction• Flipped and blended learning environments

• WaKIDS - Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills

SECONDARY

• Technology grant for high school to create online courses to share specialized instructors across districts• Collaborative with Eastern Washington University for the

platform and training

• College in the School and Advanced Placement• Piloting AP Capstone program in 2014-2015

TRANSITIONING SERVICE IDEAS

Current Considering

Instructional Coach

Flexible grouping in classrooms

Guided reading

Professional development focused on struggling students

Differentiation Specialist

Cluster grouping if numbers demonstrate need

Walk to read/math across grade levels

Professional development focused on differentiation strategies that will encourage the growth of all students

New: Project/Place/Problem based learning enrichment for identified gifted students based on local values

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EXAMPLE

Philosophy: All students require the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Students identified as highly capable are to receive a qualitatively different and differentiated educational experience.Goals: 1. Highly capable students will receive accelerated and enhanced learning opportunities to advance academic achievement and growth 2. Enrichment opportunities will be provided to foster gifted behaviors.Identification:• CogAT Screener, MAP tests, Rezulli Scales in specific

areas, parent/teacher/peer nomination

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EXAMPLE: SMALL DISTRICT

Elementary Middle School High School

Accelerate

and Enhance

Site based services including differentiated and enhanced instruction

Site based services including differentiated and enhanced instruction

Site based services including differentiated and enhanced instruction

Flexible grouping across subject areas

Honors and accelerated courses

Honors and accelerated courses (AP, College in the High School)

Early entrance/dual enrollment and/or grade skipping

Dual enrollment and/or grade skipping

Dual enrollment/Running Start

Enrich

Extracurricular activities/groups

Extracurricular activities/groups

Extracurricular activities/groups

Academic competitions

Academic competitions

Academic competitions40

FLEXIBLE GROUPING ACROSS CONTENT AREAS

• Group by readiness flexibly in the classroom to target instruction• Pre-assess• Group by ability/readiness• Teach in small groups

• Group by readiness across grade levels • Pre-assess• Group by ability/readiness• Teach in small groups or whole class of similar readiness

• Multiage classrooms• Grades 1-3, 4-6, 7-9• Rotate core curriculum on a three year cycle, not one• Students move progressively through and meet

standards/benchmarks by end of three year period 41

SITE BASED SERVICES: DIFFERENTIATION FOR HIGHLY CAPABLE STUDENTS

Curriculum: Add depth and complexity to tasks when appropriate, inquiryInstruction: • Compact the curriculum and replace with either

accelerated or enriched curriculum. • Independent, interest-based projects available

and facilitated by the teacher• Project-based learning• Place-based learning

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ACCELERATION POLICIES

• District policies for:• Early entrance to Kindergarten• Grade skipping when deemed most appropriate option

for the student• Dual enrollment • Ability to take advanced coursework out of grade level

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DUAL ENROLLMENT

• Can occur at any time during a child’s K-12 education

• A child that is significantly advanced in a particular content area may require instruction at then next level of schooling• Example: A fourth grader advanced in math may need to

take Algebra at the middle school to be appropriately challenged.

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EXTRACURRICULAR

• Academic competition preparation• Optional interest based experiences run by

community members to share expertise• Creative writing• Dance• Biology• Chess club

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Universal Options

Options provided to all students through core curriculum,

differentiated instruction, progress

monitoring.

Enhance success and

reduce barriers for vast majority

of students.

Selected Options

Supplemental options provided for small groups

who meet benchmarks

early or quickly to increase

likelihood of continued progress.

Targeted Options

Individually designed

interventions for students who have a

high likelihood of academic

failure.

Selected Options

Supplemental options

provided for small groups who have not

met benchmarks to

reduce the potential of long term

failure.

Targeted Options

Individually designed

interventions for students who

exceed expectations

and need extensions or acceleration

0 +1-1 +2-2 +3-3

Mean = 0 Deviations + or -

1-2% of Students:

10-15% of Students:

10-15% of Students:

1-2% of Students:

70-80% of Students:

Amy Miller – Oregon, WI

RtI Response to Intervention

TEACHER/PRINCIPAL EVALUATION PROGRAM

8 Criteria, 26 Standards

Instructional Frameworks• CEL 5D+ Teacher Evaluation Rubric 2.0• Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (2011)• Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model

Washington State Teacher/Principal Evaluation Project (2013). Criteria and definitions. Retrieved from http://tpep-wa.org/the-model/criteria-and-definitions/.

• Criterion 1 : The teacher sets high expectations and challenges each student by asking questions of all students with the same frequency and depth by probing incorrect answers of all students in the same manner.

• Criterion 2: The teacher helps students effectively interact with practice and deepen their understanding of, and generate and test hypotheses about new knowledge, through various methods to engage students.

• Criterion 3: The teacher has knowledge to design instruction for individual student learning needs and provides interventions to meet those needs.

• Criterion 4: The teacher has a comprehensive understanding of the subject(s) and standards taught, and skillfully uses the adopted curriculum while developing and communicating clear learning targets (daily) and clear learning goals (longer term) to students.

• Criterion 5: The teacher fosters and manages a safe, positive learning environment by managing physical space, creating clear and consistent expectations, monitoring and responding to student behavior, and building positive relationships.

• Criteria 6: The teacher uses multiple data elements to guide students in self-reflection and goal setting, to modify instruction, and to design and modify appropriate student assessments. In addition, the teacher shows that students have made growth and/or met course or grade-level standards using multiple measures.

• Criteria 7: The teacher communicates and collaborates with the school/community and families in a timely and professional manner.

• Criteria 8: The teacher collaborates with colleagues about student learning and instructional practices, displays dependability through active participation, and pursues professional development.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Ongoing Professional Development

.Observation of peer classrooms, peer coachingBook study, planning groups

Sample formal evaluations

Initial Professional DevelopmentReview initiatives and background

information

Staff presentation on the analysis of student work and planning for

differentiation

Grade level teams/bands work together to analyze student work and create differentiated lessons

School Initiatives: Criterion 3 of TPEP, RTI, CCSS Identify individual student learning needs through

the use of formative assessment.Develop effective curriculum/instruction based on

identified needs.

RURAL AND SMALL SCHOOLS STUDY

• The purpose of the study was to determine:• The resources districts need in

order to develop or expand their highly capable programs

• Examples of existing programs for districts around the state to learn from one another

Professional Developmen

t

• Program development

• Teacher Training

Collaboration

• Share funds and resources

• Network

Streamline Process and Requirement

s

• Modified process

• Flexibility

Recommendations

Professional Development

• Program development: OSPI, ESD and university institutes

• Teacher Training: WAETAG/ESD Cadre

Collaboration

• Class Two districts may pool funds and share resources

• Regional network meetings to discuss program development are being formed

Streamline Process and

Requirements

• After the first plan is created, Class Two districts only need to submit a plan when changes are made (not necessarily annually)

• Adjusted administrative requirements

Progress So Far

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

• Rural communities are unique in their composition and structure. The program of services developed should reflect the shared values of the community.

• Creating a continuum of services for students with identification starting in Kindergarten will result in more students being served appropriately.

• Early intervention for all exceptionalities is essential for students to reach their potential and remain engaged in the learning process through school.

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES AND PROMISE!

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

• Baum, S. M., Reis, S. M., & Maxfield, L. R. (Eds.). (1998). Nurturing the gifts and talents of primary grade students. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.

• Coleman, M. (2003). The identification of students who are gifted. ERIC Digest.• Cooper, D. (nd). Professional development: An effective research-based model. Houghton Mifflin

Harcourt.• Gentry, M. Peters, S. and Pereira, N (2010) Gifted and talented student identification using behavior

checklists, nominations, and rating forms: What’s out there? Presentation at the 57th NAGC Convention, Atlanta, GA.

• Johnsen, S. (2009). Best practices for identifying gifted students. Principal. Retrieved from http://www.roe11.k12.il.us/GES%20Stuff/Day%203/Best%20Practices%20for%20Id%20Gifted%20Students.pdf

• Lawrence, B. (2009). Rural gifted education: A comprehensive literature review. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 32(4), 461-494.

• Purcell, J. and Eckert, R.(2005). Designing programs and services for high ability learners: A guidebook for gifted education. Corwin Press.

• Rogers, K. (2007). Lessons Learned About Educating the Gifted and Talented: A Synthesis of the Research. Gifted Child Quarterly, 51(4), 382-396. Rural Education Resource Center http://www.ed.gov/rural-education

• Washington Administrative Code (2013). Chapter 392-170 WAC: Special service program – highly capable students. Retrieved from http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=392-170. 

• Washington State Teacher/Principal Evaluation Project (2013). Criteria and definitions. Retrieved from http://tpep-wa.org/the-model/criteria-and-definitions/.