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Growing Gifted Learners: Through the

School/ClassroomNorth Carolina AIG Coordinators’ Institute

Julia Link Roberts, Ed.D.Mahurin Professor of Gifted studies

Western Kentucky Universityjulia.roberts@wku.edu

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?

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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 21st 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?