Talent Development

Talent Development Meeting the Needs of ALL Students

Why Should We Develop Talent? Top Ten Reasons 10. The Iowa Code says we must. 9. My school district says we must. 8. Parents like to say my child is gifted. 7. Talent may be lost or hidden over time. 6. Students whose needs are not met may drop out of school.

Top Ten (con’t) 5. Students from diverse or at risk environments may never reach potential. 4. All children deserve an education that meets their needs. 3. The US needs a highly educated workforce and leadership brain trust. 2. The world job force is now our students’ competition for jobs.

Top Ten (con’t) 1. America must rely upon many of its top performing students to provide leadership in mathematics, science, writing, politics, dance, art, business, history, health and other human pursuits. From USDE. “National Excellence: A Case for Developing America’s Talent” 1993.

Cost of Drop Outs For each student that stays in school the benefit to society is: • $139,000 in tax revenue • $40,500 in health care savings • $26,600 in prison and law-enforcement savings • $3000 in welfare savings Total savings: $209,000 per student

Gifted Drop Outs? • 5 % of gifted students drop out of school. • The same percent of nongifted students drop out of school. • Gifted drop outs came from low SES families and racial minority groups. • Females cited personal reasons and males cited economic reasons more often. • From Renzulli, J.S. (2000) Gifted Dropouts: The Who and the Why. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44,261-271.

Alternative Programs • 86% of teachers in alternative programs believe they have gifted students in their programs. • 49% expressed dissatisfaction with their attempts to challenge those students. • 52% of the students nominated for gifted alternative programs plan to continue education.

Being Gifted: The Gift TASK: Describe a “gifted” child. THINK-PAIR-SHARE: • Write your own thinking. • Share with a partner. • Draw a line under your initial thoughts. • Watch video and add to your thoughts.

Name Card Method • Minimizes blurting • Ensures nearly total participation • Greatly improves listening • Eliminates teacher behaviors that may communicate bias

Try This! • Write names on note cards. • Explain you will call on students from them. • Establish discussion buddy for each student. Change every two weeks or so. • Ask a question for each student to think first. Then talk it over with buddy. • When you pull their card, they will have to answer. No repeating what others said and no passes! • Do not comment on what is said.

ANXIETY TASK DIFFICULTY FLOW CHANNEL BOREDOM SKILL LEVEL

Providing for Affective Needs Students have special affective needs: • Recognition of differences in people regarding learning styles and preferences. • Being aware of passions and identify areas of interests through inventory or survey. • Form counseling groups to address perfectionism, asynchronous development, over-extending, etc.

Effective Teachers of Gifted • High degree of intelligence • Expertise in a specific area • Love of new, advanced knowledge • Emotionally stable • Interest and fondness for gifted learners • Strong belief in differences and individualization

High Levels of Learning for Each and Every Student.

Ideas for Addressing the Needs of All Students From Karen Rogers, Ph.D

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Daily Challenge in Talent Area • Requires grouping options • Results: Can expect 1/3 to ½ additional year’s growth in the talent!

Rigorous Challenge in All Academic Areas • Quadrant D lessons consistently offered • May need resources for this: Iowa Core and gifted personnel should help Results: Positive academic self esteem, more motivation to learn, less stress from boredom

Double or Triple Time Pacing • Train teachers to deliver content in condensed forms using technological or other resources for gifted. Payoff: Achievement gains of 3/5 -4/5 of a year’s growth

Eliminate Excess Drill and Review • Students do not need more than 2-3 spaced repetitions to learn something. Pay off: Greater accuracy in retaining information, more focus on learning new information, rate of learning matched to student needs will motivate them to continue to learn.

Opportunities to Work Independently • Gifted students need to learn how to work independently to allow options in the classroom for self-study. There are models for teachers to use. Pay off: Improved resilience and self-efficacy to suggest ideas for learning.

Teach to Big Ideas • Gifted learners like to break apart ideas and analyze parts. Start with complex and abstract content. Pay off: Greater critical and creative thinking which is motivating for students.

Using a Study Guide • Allows compacting in literature, science, social studies, problem-based learning and thematic units. • Allows students to proceed at a faster pace and spend more time in more in-depth analysis. From Susan Winebrenner. Teaching the Gifted Kid in the Regular Classroom.

Use a Study Guide: Option 1 • Use this: • American Wars • Tall tales • Ancient Civilizations • Human Body systems • Beverly Cleary Books • Instead of this: • Civil War • Paul Bunyan • Ancient Rome • Human Digestion • Ramona The Pest

Use a Study Guide: Option 2 • Students become experts on a topic related to whole class topic. • Students are accountable for assessments. • Students sign a contract for independent work behavior. • Work is shared with an audience when completed.

Ideas to Try Curriculum Compacting Questioning Techniques Super Sentences

Compacting • Identify the learning goals • Pretest volunteers • Plan instruction and allow students with 60-80% mastery of content to opt out of some instruction using a compactor • Create a learning contract for times when working independently. • Eliminate drill and practice

Most Difficult First • Star the five most difficult problems. • Anyone who wants to do the most difficult first and can do them neatly, correctly and without serious error is done practicing. • Must be completed and corrected in the next 20 minutes.

Questioning So learners have the opportunity: …to think in different ways …to ask different kinds of questions To apply what they know in different ways.

Quantity Questions Productive • List all the feelings you get when you see a rainbow. \ • List ways to put Humpty Dumpty together. Reproductive • How many colors are there in a rainbow? List them. • List three important things that happened in Humpty Dumpty

Compare/Contrast • How is _____ like ________? • How is ______ different from ______? Left/right hand Seeing/believing Landfills/time capsules Building a building/building relationships

Young Gifted • Stimulate creative thinking with content • Taxonomy of Creative Thinking

Creative Activities • Imagine environmental solutions • Imagine you lived 300 years ago and came to a land you didn’t know (Pilgrim story) • Create a culture • Ask students to add, improve, complete ideas • Fluency • Flexibility • Originality • Elaboration and Evaluation Examples Creative Thinking

Talent Development