This document discusses gifted education programs and policies at XYZ High School. It defines giftedness and talent, outlines the school's vision and philosophy of gifted education, and describes various programs and strategies used to identify and serve gifted students, including clustering, acceleration, enrichment, and differentiation. The school adopts Gagne's Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent and aims to maximize learning outcomes for all gifted students regardless of background through its gifted education policy.
A proposal for gifted program in xyz school shanti
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Concept Gifted education is not an elitist
education because it does not address a small
percentage of the scholar population but
through its programs of enrichment,
acceleration, pull-outs and mentoring all
categories of children are promoted, and
supported to develop their natural abilities and
potentials.
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Vision -Help gifted learners to learn and develop individual talents into
potentials.
Mission - The mission of the XYZ High School is to provide Gifted and
Talented program, that caters for Year 7- 12, (start the program by Year 7
and slowly integrate into other year groups. We recognize the academic and
affective strengths and needs of all gifted learners, and to actively support
their growth.Â
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Philosophy â What we believe inâŠ
Gifted and Talented students are a diverse group with a
range of strengths and needs. It is our responsibility to
provide intellectual challenge and academic support for this
distinct group.
Talented and gifted programming is integrated within the
educational system through collaborative efforts among
administrators, GT teachers, classroom teachers, support
staff, parents, and community.Â
Gifted learners develop skills and talents, self-direction,
and life-long learning through exploration of their passions
and interests.
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Clark (2002) defines giftedness as âonly a label that society
gives to those who have actualized their ability to an unusually
high degree or give evidence that such achievement is
imminentâ.
Gifted students learn in a different manner and at an
accelerated rate compared to their peers in the classroom and
therefore require gifted programs to develop and apply their
talents.
Rationale, therefore involves in providing a service for gifted
students that identify their abilities and cluster them into
groups or allocate differentiation in lesson for students benefit.
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In regards to talent development, it is considered as a two way
process:
Talent exists across all strata of humanity, and we must provide
opportunities for it to surface and flourish. Just as it is
unconscionable to fail to provide opportunities for talent to
develop, it is equally unconscionable to ignore talent that has
surfaced. We must ensure that every child has an opportunity
to learn something new every day. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
said, âOur lives begin to end the day we become silent about
things that matter.â
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First, in order to stand up for gifted, we need to do a better job
of defining it. Some of you know that our convention city of
Minneapolis was home to Charles Schultz.
One of his Peanuts comic strips featured someone asking
Peppermint Patty whether she was gifted. She replied, âI think
Iâm gifted. I receive a lot of presents at Christmas!â As this
example shows, there is much confusion over the term gifted. It
means different things to different people.
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At our school, we base our policy on the quote that encourages
studentâs inquisitives and provide a learning environment that
is highly challenging and equally motivating for students to
develop their talent.
âMy mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work,
give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate
analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense
then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of
existence. I crave for mental exaltation.â â Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle
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At XYZ school, we follow the policy that caters for all
students who are gifted and talented, as well as
maximizing their learning outcomes in the school
environment. This policy applies to all students
regardless of their ethnic, cultural or socio-economic
background.
Gifted underachieving and disabilities students are
equally catered for with special provision, depending
on funding.
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XYZ School follows the NSW Department of Education
and Communities decision to adopt Gagneâs (2003)
Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent
because it is internationally recognised for its strong
research base and accessibility.
This was discussed with all relevant staffs prior to
coming to this decision.
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Gifted Students are those whose potential is distinctly
above average in one or more of the following domains
or human ability: intellectual, creative, social and
physical to a degree that places an individual in the
top 10% of their age peers.
Talented Students are those whose skills are
distinctly above average in one or more areas of
human performance within any domain to a degree
that places an individual in the top 10% of age peers
who are or have been active in that field or fields.
12. âąÂ Clustering-
withdrawal programme of students in a stage group.
âąÂ Public Speaking
âąÂ Debating
âąÂ Choir
âąÂ School Band- Junior and Senior
âąÂ Strings Group
âąÂ Maths Olympiad
âąÂ University of NSW competitions
âąÂ Student Leadership
âąÂ Sport- PSSA
âąÂ Acceleration for individuals in different KLAâs
âąÂ Curriculum Differentiation in classrooms.
âąÂ Invitations to enrichment activities.
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Parents can also consider bringing their children to holiday
program s such as :
UNSWÂ http://gerric.arts.unsw.edu.au/
CSIRO holiday program    http://www.csiro.au/org/DoubleHelix-events.html
NSW Gifted and Talented Association-(parents can join as a
member)Â Â Â http://nswagtc.org.au/
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Using Differentiation by modifying the
curriculum for gifted students in order to
accommodate their specific needs. This may
include changing the content or ability level of
the material.
Acceleration, Enrichments, Grouping and Pull
out programs
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Compacting the curriculum
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The regular school material is compacted by pretesting the
student to establish which skills and content have already been
mastered. Pretests can be presented on a daily basis (pupils
doing the most difficult items on a worksheet first and skipping
the rest if they are performed correctly), or before a week or
longer unit of instructional time. When a student demonstrates
an appropriate level of proficiency, further repetitive practice
can be safely skipped, thus reducing boredom and freeing up
time for the student to work on more challenging material.
(NAGC)
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Pupils are advanced to a higher-level class covering material
more suited to their abilities and preparedness. This may take
the form of skipping grades or completing normal curriculum in
a shorter-than-normal period of time ("telescoping"). Subject
acceleration (also called partial acceleration) is a flexible
approach which can advance a student in one field, such as
mathematics or language, without changing other studies, such
as history or science. This type of acceleration is usually based
upon achievement testing, rather than IQ.
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(adapted from NAGC)
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Rogers (1991) believes that gifted and talented
students should spend the greater part of their school
day with others of corresponding abilities and
interests. Gifted students benefit from learning
together and need to be placed with similar students
in their areas of strength so that they can understand
their learning differences in gifted classes.
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None of the [acceleration] options has been shown to
do psychosocial damage to gifted students as a group;
when effects are noted, they are usually (but not
invariably) in a positive direction. â Nancy M.
Robinson, University of Washington
Acceleration levels the playing field of opportunity
because any cost to the family or school is minimal.
â A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back
Americaâs Brightest Students
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No other arrangements for gifted children
works as well as acceleration â James A. Kulik,
The University of Michigan
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Identification strategies-nomination, screening and monitoring
Choose areas to serve- subject like English, Maths, Science
Match identification to areas
Use multiple criteria- Standardized tests, projects, school
grades, classroom teacher comment, parentsâ comment,
interest, creativity, motivation and many more elements which
teachers accepts to be useful.
Identifying underserved population
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Definition -Evaluation is a form of disciplined
inquiry , the purpose of which is to produce
information to assist in making informed value
judgments about some phenomenon.
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According to Carol Ann Tomlinson (1997) in her article "What It Means to
Teach Gifted Learners Well, âWhat it takes to teach gifted learners well is
actually a little common sense. It begins with the premise that each child
should come to school to stretch and grow daily. It includes the expectation
that the measure of progress and growth is competition with oneself rather
than competition against others. It resides in the notion that educators
understand key concepts, principles and skills of subject domains, and
present those in ways that cause highly able students to wonder and grasp,
and extend their reach. And it envisions schooling as an escalator on which
students continually progress, rather than a series of stairs, with landings
on which advanced learners consistently wait."
Hinweis der Redaktion
As the picture illustrates young minds are always curious and being inquisitive to explore more, if schools and teacher can provide this opportunity, then the gifted students can enjoy life as everyone else, without having to endure boring lessons in class. Thus, with this noble idea, our school has decided to implement this gifted and talented educational program for the beneficial of studentsâ academic and social development. This is a new learning curve for many of us and I am sure everyone in this room is excited as well as having some uncertainty how to integrate this program into everyday teaching activities. My answer is âworry notâ as help and support is always available. We can work together to achieve the goals and aspirations of
As emphasized through the concept, it is a universal acceptance that gifted education is not an elitist program. It actually involves in helping and encouraging all students, irrespective of their cultural, socio economic and disability. This is an inclusive program that caters for individual natural abilities by providing differentiation in the curriculum. At our school, we are particularly looking at enrichments and acceleration during the beginning of this program and slowly venture into other options of programming.
Vision is connected to what we aspire to do, in this case, the above statement says clearly our mission is to help gifted students by providing engaging and challenging everyday activities And this we have to do it for them to utilize their optimal learning.
The philosophy aspect forms what we believe in and how are we going to follow these values to promote fair and equal opportunity for all. As we can see that collaborative with teachers, administrators, support staffs, parents and community are all important for the successful of this project.
Iâm sure, teachers would agree that the rationale for providing this program involves in ensuring that the brightest and talented are not being left out, but encourage and motivate them to achieve excellence and potential. This should be an all rounder concept, such as subsuming all the other relevant elements of social and emotional aspects of gifted students, since we know that these students possess unique characteristic. Rationale provides an explanation or justification for having gifted program curriculum and we are to abide by this when implementing the program.
Before moving on with program design, I would like to bring to your attention of a particular person, who had made difference in his world; how can an individual like Martin L. King can provoke a sentiment and awareness for making a change, if he can do it, so can we, in the field of gifted education. The reason to establish gifted program in our school is to make sure that gifts and talents can be cultivated and nurtured without having to follow the normal routine lessons in classrooms. The concept of âone size fits allâ is not applicable in modern times, when in fact, the world that we are living in is fast evolving with technological advancements and other creative aspects of everyday life. Why should the gifted students need to waste time learning the things that they have already knew? As a teacher who has been exposed to the beneficial application of this program in students schooling life, it is a waste for teachers not utilizing this opportunity. I believe that gifted education matters and as such recognizing these talents and developing them matters. If special education is being advocated for the benefit of some disability students, I canât see why it is not possible to advocate for the gifted education to be established in schools. If we are looking forward to make a difference, wants to see the young gifted children prosper and progress in cognitive, emotional and social domains, teachers have to stand up and support gifted education. It is easy and satisfying to see every child learning something new everyday.
While going through some literature reviews on the gifted programming implementations, the NAGC presidentâs editorial review prompted me to share these idea about giftedness and how it was used humorously in the âPeanutâ cartoon column by Schulz really creates a kind of wake up call, for all of us in the teaching industry. Is gifted to be regarded as some kind of amusement, I want to ask you all to have a thought about it. Letâs get some answer now.
We begin with this quote of Arthur Conan Doyle as a basis for our introduction for integrating a gifted and talented program in this school. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. Choosing his quote deemed suitable for this school as we are creating opportunities for all to excell. In High school settings, especially with adolescents facing many different pressures from home, physical and mental changes, schools should be able to cater specifically a program that can stimulate and expose them for challenges whilst maintaining their enthusiasm in lessons or subjects. So, it the same line, we are going to introduce and implement the G & T program with enthusiasm.
As a guidance, we are adhered to the guidelines proposed by DEC. And as you can see the policy applies to all students irrespective of their cultural or socio economic background. Most importantly, it also depends on the funding allocation from the DEC or if we can secure any other type of funding from the private sectors with the recommendation by Department to form partnership with local stakeholders; this kind of forging a partnership with local bussiness enterprise is being considered by the committee of G & T program.
As many of us knows that definition is important prior to establishing the G & T program, this is for making sure that we are aiming our goals and aspiration by closely matching the definitions towards gifted students talent and gifts. The decision to employ this definition of course, lies in the core concept of our program that highlights variety of talents. It surely, will allow us some grounds to connect all the cognitive, social and emotional aspects involved in teaching the gifted students.
Here, we can see how Gagne has categorize the gifts and talents, separately. According to Gagne, the gifted students can become talented and schools and teachers can become an important catalyst if this to happen. By providing the gifted programs, the aspiration of seeing gifted student to transform their gifts into talents quite likely. Furthermore, Gagne suggests that a student can be gifted and yet can perform above his peer age group in any of the several human domains. Gagneâs suggests that intellectual, creative, socio affective and sensory-motor domains works equally well if gifts were to be transformed into talent.
As we can see on the slide, there are numerous options for gifted students to cultivate their talent and interest. It is up to the school and teachers in charge for introducing these options. I am sure, we will be able to provide all these options in few years time. At this stage, we are planning to start with enrichments, acceleration and grouping.
Our program design follows the recommendation of DEC by using differentiation and many other forms of gifted education. Enrichments would be introduced and followed by acceleration, this has to be decided upon studentâs capacity in their academic performances after taking into consideration all other factors such as students unique characteristics. Teachers and parents observation is important feedback for this to happen. Counselors too, plays an important role here. For pull out programs, it has to be decided at a later stage.
Curriculum compacting and differentiation is the important aspect that we are aiming at the core course, since this type of modification is essential for ensuring that gifted students are not bored and can participate actively in lessons, when they realize that the subjects gives meaning and challenges. Teachers will be given ample of opportunity for improving their teaching skills by giving in service training and teachersâ developmental training. Both will increase teachers knowledge and compatibility in this area of expertise.
As you can see, the above explanation on acceleration is useful for teachers to understand the meaning of acceleration.
This strategy of allocating grouping for students who possess higher abilities in a particular subject is advisable as we know that in education the aspect of âlike abilityâ criteria serves significant implication for gifted studentsâ emotional and social developmental. This is considered the best approach for allowing them to work together and form friendship.
After going through the literature reviews, as a teacher I believe introducing gifted program in our school is the best option to increase students motivation in education overall. As we can see positive research based outcome that shows acceleration as one of the programming option gives more advantage than otherwise.
More positive reviews on acceleration
While deciding to design the program, it is crucial to look into the identification strategies. Providing many choices for students to recognize their natural abilities since Gagne has introduced five different domains. Choosing area to be covered in this case, the subjects that students can perform better or the talents that emerge in particular field, music or arts. Using multiple criteria for identification is known to be fair and equal and finally, identifying underserved population is also important for the equity purposes.
The fundamental role of evaluation is to provide information that can be used to improve and advance the gifted programs. The purpose is to document the program is being implemented. Question like - Does the program exist in fact as well as on paper? Becomes important because the purpose of evaluation is also to be accountable to many different stakeholders, such as parents, DEC, communities, and other funding/government agencies. To assist in the identification program of strengths/weaknesses; Say if we want to find out about what parts of the program appear to working or what parts not working? These are essential elements to consider prior to implementation process.
When deciding to differentiation in lessons as part of the G & T program in our school, the first thought that I reflected was on an article that I read in the National Association of Gifted Childrenâs website (NAGC) during my masterâs program undertaking the Gifted and Talented course in UNSW. This article by Tomlinson (1997), elaborates uniquely of the need and reason to differentiate lessons. As it says above, the common sense factors makes a huge difference for teachers to include differentiation as part of the teaching practice. Each individual learner has the opportunity to expand and grow in knowledge while being in school. School experiences for gifted students should mirror towards the idea that Tomlinson is making here; expectation in academic achievement should measure the progress and growth by competing with oneself rather than competing against others. I believe this is a far sighted view that will surely uplift the differentiation strategies in schools. More meaningful for gifted students to achieve better performances and for those who are on a mainstream class will equally benefit from this option.
Looking at the cherry blossom in a tree, reminds us that every child deserves to be educated in the way their learning needs require. By allowing talents and gifts to blossom, we are merely assisting students to develop according to their normal or natural developmental capacity. As what we have listened about the advantage of gifted program, there is little doubt that this can harm students academic or emotional wellbeing. Just as what Gagne has envision in his models of giftedness. I as an executive member of this school, are keen to participate and establish this program for mutual benefit, both for students and teachers. After all, as a responsible teacher, this is the best option that we can give our young budding talents to prospers productively. Thank you for your support and participation in this program.