The Challenge of Challenging Gifted Students

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The Challenge of Challenging Gifted Students

• CESA 11 Workshop
• October 19, 2009
• Dr. Stephen Schroeder-Davis
• stephen.schroeder-davis_at_elkiver.k12.mn.us

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Goals for this morning

• Review basic concepts to develop a common
  language
• Examine the emerging definitions of giftedness
• Promote parent teacher dialogue
• Assess needs for workshops 2 3

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2005 Gifted and Talented Definition

• Gifted and talented children and youth are those
  students with outstanding abilities, identified
  at preschool, elementary, and secondary levels.

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2005 Gifted and Talented Definition

• These students are capable of high performance
  when compared to others of similar age,
  experience, and environment, and represent the
  diverse populations of our communities.

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2005 Gifted and Talented Definition

• These are students whose potential requires
  differentiated and challenging educational
  programs and/or services beyond those provided in
  the general school program.

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2005 Gifted and Talented Definition

• Students capable of high performance
• include those with demonstrated
• achievement or potential ability in
• any one or more of the following
• areas

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2005 Gifted and Talented Definition

• General intellectual
• Specific Academic subjects
• Creativity
• Leadership
• Visual and performing arts
• From the MGTDC (MDE) Advisory Committee

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Giftedness is asynchronous development, placing
the gifted child out of phase with

• Self
• Age peers
• At level tests, assessments, expectations
• Much of popular culture (The Columbus
  Group, 1991)

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Two examples of asychronicity

• A kindergarten teacher is explaining how
  dinosaurs are discovered, and states, A
  geologist is a scientist who studies these
  fossils.
• Jenny, age 4 says, I dont mean to be rude Ms.
  Mays, but its a paleontologist that examines the
  dinosaur bones.

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A middle school example

• The majority of the 200,000 middle school
  students who take the SAT and ACT score as well
  or better than high school seniors
• The stronger students from that cohort can absorb
  one year of a high school course in 3 weeks
• The strongest of those candidates can absorb one
  year of a high school course in 10 days
• A Nation Deceived

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Giftedness is Abnormal
Top 3 -10 of population in any given area of
ability
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Gifted People Are Different

• Neurosystem
• Perception
• Behavior
• Environment

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Neurology

• Larger Frontal Lobes
• Faster synapses
• More efficient processes
• See Sanjay Gupta

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My Beliefs About This Topic

• Gifted students exist, are an exceptional
  population, and require accommodations to be
  challenged in school
• Gifted students are the most underserved
  population in most schools (i.e., they learn the
  least)
• Serving them appropriately would benefit them and
  every other student in a school setting

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The four achievement gaps

• Racial
• Gender
• Economic
• Aptitude (between what is being learned, and what
  could be learned with appropriate GT programs and
  services)

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Gifts vs. TalentsF. Gagne

• Giftedness refers to measures of potential, of
  untrained natural ability, while talent is
  reserved specifically for indices of achievement,
  of the performance attained as the result of a
  systematic program of training and practice.
• (Gagne 1995)

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A Common G/T Vocabulary
Gifted Talented

• high aptitude high achievement
• nature nurture
• ability performance
• potential environment
• threshold accomplishment
• endowment output

Differentiation
Rigor Challenge
(Gagne 1995)
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How Much Time is Wasted in a typical classroom
for GTs?

• 140 IQ 50 of their time
• 170 IQ 99 of their time

Hollingworth (1942), Renzulli, Silverman (1991)
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The National Research Center on the Gifted and
Talented Classroom Practices Study

• Approximately 40-50 of traditional classroom
  material could be eliminated for targeted
  students.

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Gagnes Metric SystemLevel Label
Ratio IQ SD
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Questions and comments?
These ideas square with my beliefs.
Id like to add. . ..
These are the ideas that are going around in my
head.
Some of the ideas with which I disagreed . . .
This made me uncomfortable!
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Why are GTs Underserved?
Level 1 2 3 4 5 w/o DI
From Get Off My Brain, by Randy McCutcheon.
IllustrationsPete Wagner
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Coercive Egalitarianism

• Forced regression toward the mean through
  indifference or neglect
• Stephen Schroeder-Davis

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Federal Education Budget
Gifted Children 0.03
Drug Abuse Prevention 2
Reading First 3
Children with Disabilities 32
No Child Left Behind 64
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Training, preparation, programming

• No states have comprehensive policies in gifted
  education in all areas.
• only 77 of 3500 HEIs offer GT courses
• 18 states offer no teacher preparation
• Only 11 mandate GT funding
• NAGC National Conference Report, 2007

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NCLB and GTs

• Remedial, deficit-based
• Teach what is tested (narrowing curriculum, which
  homogenizes talent)
• One-size-fits all education to a HIGHLY diverse
  population
• Curriculum reduced to basic skills emphasis
• Goals are statistically impossible to meet
• Adequate yearly progress does not apply to,
  refer to, or even acknowledge needs of- GTs
• No incentive to challenge high ability students
• See M. Gentry

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High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB

• Thomas B. Fordham Institute

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Background

• First two studies of a multifaceted research
  investigation of the state of high-achieving
  students in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era.
• Part I An Analysis of NAEP Data, by Tom
  Loveless achievement trends for high-achieving
  students since the early 1990s and, in more
  detail, 2000.
• Part II Results from a National Teacher Survey,
  by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett reports on
  teachers own views of how schools are serving
  high-achieving pupils in the NCLB era.

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High-achieving students made minimal progress
since 2000

• While the nations lowest-achieving youngsters
  made rapid gains from 2000 to 2007, the
  performance of top students was languid.

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Struggling students command attention

• Teachers are much more likely to indicate that
  struggling students, not advanced students, are
  their top priority.

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• Low-achieving students receive dramatically more
  attention from teachers.

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but that doesnt reflect teachers own views

• Teachers believe that all students deserve their
  fair share of attention.

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Implications

• Languid growth of high-achieving students is
  associated with the introduction of NCLB (and,
  earlier, with state accountability systems).
• Most teachers, at this point in our nations
  history, feel pressure to focus on their
  lowest-achieving students.

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Teachers does the Fordham study reflect your
reality?
So Far...
Yes, in these ways No, because

• Share agreements!

• Share disagreements!

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The nature of the curriculum

• Mass produced, typically at grade-level
• Spirals, with frequent repetitions
• Paced (at best) for the average learner
• Requires a high degree of differentiation,
  flexibility and accelerative options to work for
  advanced learners

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Grouping Definitions Tracking

• Tracking sorting students, usually once a year,
  by ability level and then scheduling all of their
  classes together
• Uni-dimensional
• Inflexible
• Permanent (at least for that year)
• Placement criteria may be invalid or irrelevant

AGE
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What would happen if GTs were challenged
appropriately?
Achievement gap increases due to appropriate
growth for all students
Gifted learners faster learning pace
Challenging, differentiated Curriculum for all
Learners begin here
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What Zone Am I In?

• On Target
• I know some things
• I have to think
• I have to work
• I have to persist
• I hit some walls
• Im on my toes
• I have to re-group
• I feel challenged
• Effort leads to success

• Too Hard
• I dont know where to start
• I cant figure it out
• Im spinning my wheels
• Im missing key skills
• I feel frustrated
• I feel angry
• This makes no sense
• Effort doesnt pay off

• Too Easy
• I get it right away
• I already know how
• This is a cinch
• Im sure to make an A
• Im coasting
• I feel relaxed
• Im bored
• No big effort necessary

THIS is the place to be
THIS is the achievement zone
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The emerging view of talent development focuses
on

• Environment
• Effort
• Coaching
• luck
• The 10,000 hour rule
• Could be misconstrued to discount aptitude

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The four sources of the emerging view on an
aptitude continuum

• Talent is Overrated (Colvin, 2008) essentially
  denies the validity of heritable (intellectual)
  traits focusing on (deliberate) practice, hard
  work and passion
• The Talent Code (Coyle, 2009) reluctantly
  acknowledges, but heavily discounts, heredity
  (aptitude), focusing on deep practice,
  ignition, master coaching, and myelin (!)
• Mindset (Dweck, 2006) overtly acknowledges
  aptitude, but focuses on effort, persistence, and
  risk-taking (a growth mindset)
• Outliers (Gladwell, 2008) overtly and
  consistently acknowledges aptitude,but focuses on
  environment, practice, mentors, and luck

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Gifts ? ? ? ? ? Talents

• 10,000 hour rule
• Daniel Levitin, Michael Howe, Malcolm Gladwell,
  and Many, many others

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Gagnes Talent Development Model

• Motivation
• values
• interests
• efforts
• persistence
• work habits

• TemperamentPersonality
• Physical attributes

Developmental Process K-12
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Another interpretation Talent is Overrated
(Colvin, 2008)

• Deliberate practice is difficult. It hurts.
• Deliberate practice is focused, intense,
  specific practice designed to increase
  performance ( hard work passion) talent
• How are gifted students to engage in deliberate
  practice and hard work, let alone develop
  passion, without challenging school experiences?

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Another interpretation Mindset Dweck, 2006)

• Those with the growth mindset found setbacks
  motivating. Theyre a wake-up call.
• How are gifted students to experience setbacks
  and mistakes without challenging school
  experiences?

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Another interpretation The Talent Code (Coyle,
2009)

• Deep practice . . . takes events we would
  normally strive to avoid-namely, mistakes-and
  turns them into skills.
• How are gifted students to experience deep
  practice without challenging school experiences?

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Another interpretationOutliers (Gladwell, 2008)

• What does the Hamburg Crucible and the 10,000
  hour rule imply for gifted students and talent
  development?

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The Beatles Hamburg Crucible

• From 1960 - 1962 the Beatles played in Hamburg,
  Germany
• Five trips
• 270 nights
• 8 hours per night, 7 nights a week
• 1,200 live performances in 18 months

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The Beatles Hamburg Crucible2

• Does this mean that any four musicians playing
  1,200 live performances, could equal the Beatles
  legacy?

NO?
Yes?
What do you think?
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The Beatles Hamburg Crucible3

• Lennon We had to try even harder, put our heart
  and souls into it . . . we had to play for 8
  hours and so we really had to find a new way of
  playing.

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The Beatles Hamburg Crucible4

• Biographer Philip Norman, They learned not only
  stamina. They had to learn an enormous amount of
  numbers-cover versions of everything you can
  think of-not just rock and roll, a bit of jazz
  too. When they came back, they sounded like no
  one else. It was the making of them.

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The Beatles Hamburg Crucible5

• Author Gladwell The Beatles are undeniably
  talented. Lennon and McCartney had a musical gift
  of the sort that comes along once in a
  generation.
• Have you ever heard of Rory and the Hurricanes?
  They too were in Hamburg for a long time - but
  didnt become the Beatles.

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GTs should succeed by learning, not by
exceeding an arbitrary standard
Work ethic

• Passion and Persistence

Developmental Process K-12
10,000 hours
Luck
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Gagnes Formula from 1995 (!)

• Aptitude Catalysts Practice Achievement

High Aptitude/Catalysts/Practice
Less Aptitude/Catalysts/Practice
Virtually everyone can improve significantly in
virtually any endeavor, but that does not mean
everyone is gifted. It does mean that all
students need an appropriately challenging
education to thrive!
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Related questions

• If you were to practice with the same intensity
  and for the same duration, could you eventually
  equal
• Tiger Woods?
• Maya Angelou?
• Steven Spielberg?
• Could you become an Olympic swimmer?

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My Conclusions Recommendations

• Heritable differences are real, and need to be
  accommodated from grade K - College graduation
• Gifted students are an exceptional population,
  requiring specialized programs and services if
  they are to optimize their development
• Appropriate teacher training and classroom
  differentiation work, but need to be applied to
  all students
• Teachers need to understand and practice
  high-end differentiation if schools are to work
  for GTs (our afternoon session)

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On to the NAGC proposal

• This fall, a select committee of GT experts
  submitted a new, expanded definition of
  giftedness to the National Association for Gifted
  Children (NAGC) in the hopes of gaining more
  federal funding and expanded support for gifted
  children. That (unpublished) definition follows.