WHAT IS THIS THING

DISTRICT/STATE DEFINITION

• Between age 5 and 21
• Ability, talents, and/or potential for accomplishment
• Exceptional or developmentally advanced
• Need special provisions to meet their educational programming needs
• All cultural, ethnic, linguistic and socioeconomic background may demonstrate giftedness
• Some will also have disabilities. (Twice exceptional)

AREAS OF GIFTEDNESS

• General or Specific Cognitive Ability
• Specific Academic Ability
• Creative Ability
• Leadership Ability
• Specific Talent Aptitude

GENERAL OR COGNITIVE ABILITY

• Intellectual activity or potential recognized through cognitive processes
• Good memory, reasoning, rate of learning, spatial reasoning, ability to find and solve problems, ability to manipulate abstract ideas and make connections
• Rare identification (most have academic areas)

SPECIFIC ACADEMIC APTITUDE

• Exceptional capability or potential in an academic content area
• Strong knowledge base or ability to ask insightful questions within the discipline
• Academic areas: math, reading, writing, science and social studies
• Can be identified with or without cognitive test

SPECIFIC TALENT APTITUDE

• Visual Arts
• Performing Arts
• Music
• Dance
• Psychomotor (body awareness, coordination, and physical skills)
• Rubric or juried performance for identification

CREATIVITY

• Highly productive thinking
• Exceptional capability or potential in mental processes
• May show critical thinking, creative problem solving, humor, independent or original thinking, and/or products.

LEADERSHIP

• Exceptional capability or potential to influence and empower
• May have social perceptiveness, visionary ability, communication skills, problem solving, inter-/intra-personal skills, and a sense of responsibility

IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

• Step one: Screener test to determine talent pool (2nd and 6th grades)
• Step two: Nominations outside talent pool
• Step three: GT team collects a body of evidence
• Step four: GT committee makes decision
• Step five: Parental notification
• Step six: Development of ALP (Advanced Learning Plan)

TRAITS OF GIFTEDNESS

• Motivation
• Interests
• Communication skills
• Problem solving
• Memory
• Inquiry/curiosity

TRAITS OF GIFTEDNESS (CONT.)

• Insight
• Reasoning
• Imagination/Creativity
• Humor
• Intensity/Overexcitibilities
• Sensitivity

AFFECTIVE NEEDS/CONCERNS

• Perfectionism to Procrastination
• Motivation/Underachievement
• Flip side of the coin (creativity and disorganization)
• Self doubt/depression
• Social challenges/like-minded peers
• Learning style/abstract vs concrete
• Overexcitibilities/asynchronous development
• Teacher or parent expectations

TOP 10 MYTHS

Which of the myths have you believed in the past?

Which myth do you need more evidence to believe?

What new questions do you have?

HOW WE MEET NEEDS

• Differentiation and/or enrichment (in regular classes)
• Acceleration (e.g. taking 8th grade math as a 7th grader)
• Affective (social-emotional) counseling
• After school activities (Spelling Bee, Brain Bowl, Robotics)
• GT Enrichment class (Student interest based projects)
• Acceleration (e.g. 8th grade math as a 7th grader)

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP?