Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments enrichment for all

Thank you all so much for your responses! I have a few more questions...maybe you can help! Do you believe there are certain characteristics that are associated with gifted and talented children and youth? If so, what do you believe those are? Secondly, how would you compare historical and contemporary identification of gifted and talented? I know in GA creativity plays a key role. Is it like that in other states? Has creativity always been a primary focus?

Characteristics of my DD7 are

Likes to learn, more intense than her peers, school does not end at 2:30
sensitive to changes and stimulation
intense imagination and fears
Rules and fairness are VERY important

For regular school purposes, creativity does not play a role in GT identification in Florida.

epainter,

I think it is wonderful that you and your fellow teachers are willing to learn and adapt your classrooms to include the needs of gifted kids. My district does not have a gifted program and the few around here who do offer only occasional pull-out classes starting at 4th grade. My dream is to have a team of special education teachers (in this case educated in giftedness) who work with the regular classrooms teachers to help them differentiate the curriculum same as the more traditional special-ed teachers.
We put a lot of unreasonable expectations on classroom teachers these days in having them meet the academic/social needs of such a wide range of abilities and then add the pressure of high stakes testing into the mix. I really do applaud you for your efforts!

My ds's school provided books in a "browsing box" for kids to read. The books offered corresponded to the topics they were studying in science and social studies at the time. When kids had extra time, they could read about Egypt when they were studying Egypt. Books at different levels allow the kids to read at their own level. Even if the higher-level readers started with the easy books, they would quickly move on to the harder ones.

Also, the school allows the kids to test out of material they already Words Their Way. For math, they provide extra materials for the ones who tested out to work on independently. They used Contental Math League questions for this. In order to do the extra math, the students and parents had to sign a contract (I will not brag about doing extra math, I will not disrupt the class to ask about what I am working on, etc).

Has anyone ever used the William and Mary Observation scale out there or have any knowledge about it? I have found a classroom scale and a student scale and both are used to evaluate teachers on their methods of delivering instruction...I think.

Another question...how do you evaluate the gifted programs? I have talked to several teachers and they say the only evaluation currently used is an end of the year questionnaire given to the studnets-sort of asking them how they benefitted from gifted services. I also talked to one teacher and she said the midterm and final evaluations she gives to students are how the program is evaluated...any other ideas?

Keet,
It sounds like your school is using a lot of techniques from the Susan Weinbrenner materials (I know her work has been cited in other threads). It's nice to hear that it's being systematically incorporated somewhere. Is it a classroom specific implementation or is it used school wide?