Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion G & T presentation ideas

I have been given the task of making a presentation about gifted education to a group of college students who are studying to become teachers. I have tons of information and need to pare it down to a manageable amount. The presentation is only supposed to be 15-20 minutes.

Given the time constraint, what do you think is the most essential thing to communicate to this group of future educators?

Thanks for any input!

I think the most essential thing is to communicate that gifted kids are not necessarily happy, productive, achieving kids. Many teachers and administrators think that gifted kids "will be fine" in a regular classroom, and many of us know to our regret that they are wrong. Making sure that teacher understand the difference would be my number one priority.

Here's a couple of thoughts. I don't know how useful they are.

Work with the parent, work with the kid, if they say they need something they do. Take charge so they feel confident in your plan. It's their education . It's your class. A warm and capable personality goes a long way.

They go to school to learn. You go to school to teach. Have high expectations. If they don't reach those expectations don't lower the bar, figure out what the hinderance is.

I've read that writing is something that would improve if it was assigned more but they longer to read and give feedback on so it is assigned less. I've read that parent voulenteers can help with that load if you give them a clear ruberic.


also: google this:
"davidson gifted for teachers"

there's a variety of topics.

someone posted a link to share with the school about giftedness. I don't know what thread it was in.

I thnk the concept of asynchrony is big. As is the notion that a gifted 3rd grader amongst age mates would experience and react in ways similar to a regular 3rd grader forced to sit through kindergarten again. And that it's crueler to give busy work than nothing at all, but the kindest is more challenging work.

Yes! I second this.

I am currently back in school to become an Educational Assistant, and our literacy instructor was formerly the district gifted coordinator. One of my fellow students (a future EA!) asked her if gifted kids actually have problems. This student is an intelligent lady in her own right who's had an abundance of experience with atypical kids.

LOL my face went "O.M.G.!!!" It was pretty funny. The coordinator said "CCN that's part of the problem, though, isn't it? A lack of awareness of the struggles that accompany giftedness."

BINGO.

My approach for your presentation would be to describe it as a problem of curriculum mismatch: it is equally damaging no matter who is involved.

Here's one of the many many examples out there: a friend of a friend of mine has a gifted 9 year old son, who is currently in anger management counselling because his school won't grade skip him. Nice. If he had cognitive delays, on the other hand, the school would be happy to put together an IEP and lower the level of his curriculum. But a gifted kid? Nah, he'll be just fine. (sigh)

A gifted kid is at least 2 standard deviations above normal, whereas a kid 2 standard deviations below normal is considered developmentally challenged.

Ask them if they would try to teach a kid 2 SDs below normal with the same curriculum they use for normal kids? Then, ask why it would make sense to use that same curriculum for kids 2 SD above normal?

Maybe a graph to give them a picture.

There are great points here already, but for my one essential I'd go for: all children need to experience finding something daunting, working hard at it, and succeeding. Most children can get that with the ordinary curriculum. Often, gifted children can't: they succeed at the normally expected tasks without effort, and the "enrichment" activities they're then given are often fun but not challenging, so they don't help either.

You could tie this in with the previous point about 2SDs above/below by pointing out that children who are working below expectations often have the other version of this problem: they don't get the "and succeeding" part unless someone adapts the task to be appropriate. Gifted children don't get the "finding something hard, working hard at it" part. Both parts are essential.

Thanks for the suggestions! Lots of good stuff here.

I just wanted to add that, if a child wants to learn something, teach them! If they want to learn algebra and the other students are just learning multiplication, figure out a way to teach that one interested student algebra! And if you don't know how to do it or don't have the time or resources to do it, help them find someone who can teach them. A child isn't going to ask for harder work unless they are truly interested and likely ready for it.

So many times we've heard, "It's great that your child loves math and is desperate to learn more, but she'll have holes; we don't think she's ready." But encourage that love and desire to learn more in every way that you can. An interested child will fill in the holes easily. And if it turns out that said child was not, in fact, ready to learn the new material, no harm done. The worst case scenario is that you've shown the child that you respect them and believe in them and will nurture and mentor them and encourage them in something they love and are eager to learn.

Why so many teachers tell children, "No, you can't learn that yet" is beyond me.

That gifted kids don't "look" a certain way. You can't always spot them with the naked eye!

I think one of the most difficult issues I've encountered in advocacy is the unwillingness to accelerate/give more appropriate work at the kid's readiness level based on social reasons. "We are concerned about his social development, and if we push him, he will be negatively impacted." I would give them links to free Nation Deceived download, which has tons of studies showing no negative social impact in acceleration. http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/nation_deceived/

Another big issue is that teachers will sometimes think that a kid cannot be ready for higher level stuff if they can't _____ (write well enough, e.g.). We were told that our kiddo couldn't move up another year in math because he couldn't keep up with the handwriting. But then we transferred him to a school where he was given that higher level math, and the experienced teacher said it wasn't a problem if he couldn't write all the answers, he could show that he understood it in other ways (verbally, e.g.), and eventually his handwriting would catch up.

In my opinion, many GT kids will rise or sink to the social level they are placed in. After my kiddo skipped a grade, we heard more than once when talking about his handwriting issues "Oh, I forgot he skipped a grade."

So many things, but I think the best thing that we encountered was flexibility and willingness to try different things for these kids who are outside the norm.

I haven't done the math to make this consideration completely accurate, but it would be nice to explain to people that there is as much variation in ability among those in the top 3% as there is in the next 47%. (Adjust the numbers for accuracy).

Ah, yes. Forgot about levels of GT. Thanks DAD22. Very important! Not all GT kids are the same.

Good point, DAD22, I forgot to mention that the tails are even more extreme. I didn't even realize it for my son until I saw a graphic with him on that teeny, tiny far end of right.

happyreader,

Would you please let us know what you decide to include? I'd like to see it and it might be useful for some in advocating. Good luck with it. I can't imagine having only 15 minutes for this.

I've seen several people say that teachers think that because kids weren't eager to do "more of the same work" when they were finished that it meant they were getting enough education. Explain the concept of cirriculum compacting, that if a kid can do several of the hardest examples if a problem that you should offer them something with a different concept rather than more of the same. That's not counting review. If it's been awhile since they've seen something you can offer them a few pages for review. But try to change it up a little with some new content. This is where you can move laterrally by giving them trivia factoid content that the class doesn't cover if you don't want them getting ahead of the class.

If this were my presentation, I'd start it out with an object lesson, by making them very, very uncomfortable. Because a gifted individual is just as different from a normal one as the normal one is to one with mental disabilities, I'd begin my presentation by lecturing to them as if they were all disabled. Once they've all begun to get frustrated and tuned out, I'd snap their attention back (dropping something heavy is pretty effective) and then let them know that the last five minutes of their lives is like what an unchallenged gifted child experiences for every moment of their school day.

Open discussion for the next several minutes, looking for responses from the audience as to how they felt and how they wanted to react which are commonly observed in gifted kids.