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Posted By: Amy v Positives/negatives about gifted program - 06/29/11 03:34 PM
I am a parent of an advanced little boy heading to a brand new school this year (regular public elementary--wanting to implement a gifted/talented program). I have been asked to serve on the "gifted and talented committee" where we are going to be putting together the basics of the gifted and talented program for this new school. I am SO excited to be part of this! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with gifted education--please tell me the things you have seen work well in regards to programs and things you don't like as well. I want to create a great program not only for my son but for all kids we're trying to accommodate. Please address topics such as identification, acceleration, compacting, enrichment, etc. Thank you!
Posted By: Iucounu Re: Positives/negatives about gifted program - 06/29/11 03:44 PM
In my opinion this sort of self-education is best started with research by you, not by everyone putting their unstructured life experience into a single discussion thread. You're just bound to miss out on too much useful information.

Here are some links to get you started. Hopefully others will come along with more.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/edguild/
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_articles.aspx
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_resources.aspx
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/forums/4/1/Recommended_Resources.html
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/educators.htm
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_books.htm
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org
http://www.prufrock.com/
http://www.criticalthinking.com/

I'm not trying to shut down your thread in the slightest, I just don't see how it can work well. I think initial research (a good deal of it) is in order, then people here can give you much useful insight on more specific questions. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong. smile No matter what, welcome and good luck! I would be interested to hear about your progress as you assemble your new program.
Posted By: Amy v Re: Positives/negatives about gifted program - 06/29/11 03:59 PM
Thank you thank you! This is perfect information! I really just didn't know where to start (I have read a lot from our state's gifted education resources and their entire manual on starting up a program, but didn't know where to go from there). Thank you so much for all the links!
Posted By: Iucounu Re: Positives/negatives about gifted program - 06/29/11 04:07 PM
It's nothing, but you're certainly welcome. I'm hoping people will come along and give you useful information on top of those links. It's just hit me what a huge number of books and other resources those sites give you, so I'm hoping that people come along and mention which they've found most useful so that you can narrow your search and not waste too much time.

One book that I found most useful because of my particular situation with our son was Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, by Susan Winebrenner. Developing Math Talent, by Susan Assouline, seems to be well-regarded here, but I haven't read my copy yet. blush I can't provide much first-hand experience on developing a curriculum, as I've sort of just skipped around with DS5, but hopefully someone here can.

It would be cool if this thread eventually turned into a history of the assembly of a wonderful gifted program from scratch. It will take regular updates by you for that to happen, but of course you should not feel obligated.

We need a big thinker to start a wiki on gifted education. (Calling La Texican! or I could do it.) It could contain a bunch of sample curricula, links to resources, and all kinds of stuff. Information in discussion boards is too scattered and unstructured, though it is user creatable. The Hoagies and Davidson websites have some structure and useful resources and links to such, but are not user creatable or editable except for the discussion boards. (Besides, I've broken my scrolling finger trying to get past that ginormous gray box on the Hoagies page lately.)
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