 Growing Gifted Learners: Through the School/Classroom North Carolina AIG Coordinators’ Institute Julia Link Roberts, Ed.D. Mahurin Professor of Gifted studies Western Kentucky University

What does a child not learn? If during the first five or six years of school, a child earns good grades and high praise without having to make much effort, what are all the things he doesn’t learn that most children learn by third grade?

 What is academic success for intellectually and academically gifted students?

Levels of Academic Success LEVEL 3 Learns with satisfaction and joy (becomes a lifelong learner) LEVEL 2 Earns high grades on assignments that challenge (completes assignments that require effort) LEVEL 1 Gets good grades with ease (completes assignments with little effort)

What is Academic Success Parents Elementary Teachers Middle School Teachers High School Teachers Decision-Makers

The goal of school is for children to learn.

 Differentiation  Why do it?  Why not?

The goals of differentiating are to ensure continuous progress and to create lifelong learners.

Revised Bloom Taxonomy  Create  Evaluate  Analyze  Apply  Understand  Remember

1.Students write a poem about the seasons. 2.Students create a poster demonstrating the water cycle. 3.Students write and give a speech about local history. 4.Students predict the next pattern in a sequence. 5.Students draw a political cartoon.

Teach students what they don’t already know! Can’t learn “it” if you already know “it.”

Preassessment

Challenges in Your School  Making the mission statement real  Grouping to provide idea-mates for students  Offering appropriately challenging instruction for all children  Providing a range of services to develop talents

Strengths don’t look needy.  How do you convince other teachers and school administrators that children with gifts and talents have needs?

The guiding mission of the North Carolina State Board of Education is that every public school student will graduate from high school, globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21 st century. What should that look like for academically gifted students?

Ponder in your group  How can you ensure that intellectually and academically gifted students are prepared to graduate globally competitive for work and postsecondary education?  What plan could you make to encourage parents to support academic challenge (continuous progress)?  What barriers do you face in getting children to show academic growth in your school – classrooms, too? What can you plan and with whom to minimize the problem?