Hava E. Vidergor Gordon Academic College & Arab Academic College, Haifa, Israel and Carole Ruth Harris (Eds.) G.A.T.E.S. Research and Evaluation, USA This book is a comprehensive study and guide for the classroom teacher, the gifted program coordinator, and the graduate student, who are challenged daily to provide for individual children who differ markedly but come under the umbrella of giftedness. It serves as a wellspring that derives from theory while it offers practical application of theoretical construct in a wide variety of international settings from leaders in the field who demonstrate implementation of proven and field-tested techniques and alternative scenarios to accommodate every classroom situation. Contributors are internationally recognized experts who have come together to provide a sound, reliable source for teachers of the gifted that will be utilized time and time again by practitioners and researchers alike. Among internationally renowned scholars are: Joyce Van Tassel-Baska, Susan Johnsen, June Maker, Belle Wallace, Linda Kreger-Silverman, Dorothy Sisk, Gillian Eriksson, Miraca Gross, Gilbert Clark, Enid Zimmerman, and Rachel McAnallen. Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners Hava E. Vidergor, Ph.D., is lecturer of innovative pedagogy and curriculum design at Gordon Academic College and Arab Academic College of Education and holds a Ph.D. in Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education with specialization in Gifted Education from the University of Haifa, Israel. ISBN 978-94-6300-002-4 SensePublishers DIVS Hava E. Vidergor and Carole Ruth Harris (Eds.) Carole Ruth Harris, Ed.D., formerly Director of G.A.T.E.S. Research & Evaluation, is a consultant in education of the gifted in Central Florida who holds the doctorate from Columbia University where she studied with A. Harry Passow and A.J. Tannenbaum. She has served as Associate in International Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Teachers College Columbia University, lecturer at University of Massachusetts, Lowell and University of Hawaii, Principal Investigator at Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, and Director of the Center for the Gifted in Ebeye, Marshall Islands. Spine 33.782 mm Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners Hava E. Vidergor and Carole Ruth Harris (Eds.) Foreword by Ellen Winner Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners Foreword by Ellen Winner Edited by Hava E. Vidergor Gordon Academic College & Arab Academic College, Haifa, Israel and Carole Ruth Harris G.A.T.E.S. Research and Evaluation, USA A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-94-6300-002-4 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-003-1 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-004-8 (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2015 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. This book is dedicated to my parents: Dov Horowitz and Ruth Horowitz You have been the source of unconditional love, encouragement, and inspiration throughout my life. Thank you for the emotional and practical support in undertaking this project. Hava E. Vidergor This book is dedicated to the memory of my beloved husband, John Nathaniel Harris. His support, his encouragement for all my endeavors, and most of all, his love, will be with me always. Carole Ruth Harris TABLE OF CONTENTS Forewordxi Prefacexiii Acknowledgementsxvii Section 1: Curriculum for Gifted and Able Learners 1. Characteristics of Able Gifted Highly Gifted Exceptionally Gifted and Profoundly Gifted Learners Miraca U. M. Gross 3 2. Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners Linda Kreger Silverman, Linda Powers Leviton and Steven C. Haas 25 3. Who Is the Best Teacher of Gifted and Able Students? Hava E. Vidergor 43 4. The Role of the Gifted and Able Coordinator Hava E. Vidergor 57 5. Putting Together the Puzzle: The Logic of Design and Development of Curriculum for Gifted Learners Joyce VanTassel-Baska 6. Culturally Derived Program Development for Gifted Students Carole Ruth Harris 77 87 Section 2: Units and Lessons Based on Curricular Models 7. Using the TASC Thinking and Problem-Solving Framework to Create a Curriculum of Opportunity across the Full Spectrum of Human Abilities: TASC – Thinking Actively in a Social Context Belle Wallace 8. Developing Real-Life Problem Solving: Integrating the DISCOVER Problem Matrix, Problem Based Learning, and Thinking Actively in a Social Context C. June Maker, Robert Zimmerman, Maria Paz Gomez-Arizaga, Randal Pease and Edith M. Burke 9. The Integrated Curriculum Model Joyce VanTassel-Baska 113 131 169 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS 10. The Multidimensional Curriculum Model: Preparing Students Today for Tomorrow’s World Hava E. Vidergor 199 Section 3: Teaching Strategies 11. High Order Thinking, Problem Based and Project Based Learning in Blended Learning Environments Hava E.Vidergor and Michal Krupnik-Gottlieb 217 12. Creativity in the Gifted Child: A Kaleidoscope of Abilities Carole Ruth Harris 233 13. Practical Strategies for Teaching Independent Study Susan K. Johnsen 251 14. A Comprehensive Plan for Authentic Integration of Technology in the Gifted Curriculum Gillian Eriksson 15. Incorporating Alternative Assessment Hava E. Vidergor 273 307 Section 4: Differentiation Part 1: Adapting or Creating Units Derived from Models 16. Arithmetic Is Answering the Question Whereas Mathematics Is Questioning the Answer Rachel McAnallen 325 17. Language Arts for Gifted Students Carole Ruth Harris 339 18. Social Studies for Gifted Students Carole Ruth Harris 361 19. Developing Leadership through Global Awareness and Global Learning Dorothy A. Sisk 391 20. Theory into Practice: Teaching Talented Visual Art Students in Hong Kong Gilbert Clark and Enid Zimmerman viii 429 TABLE OF CONTENTS 21. Teaching Music to Gifted Children Laura M. Schulkind 441 22. Interdisciplinary Units Hava E. Vidergor 455 Part 2: Unique Courses and Projects 23. Excellence 2000: Nurturing Scientific and Mathematical Thinking Skills among Excelling Elementary and Secondary School Students Avi Poleg 24. Physics and Medicine in Industry: A Unique PBL Model that Combines Science, Medicine and Entrepreneurship for High School Gifted and Talented Students Michal Krupnik-Gottlieb and Amos Cohn 477 527 25. Teaching a Second Language: Using Biographies of Eminent People to Enhance Creativity Hava E. Vidergor 543 26. Relate-Create-Donate: Promoting Social Responsibility in Second Language Teaching and Learning Hava E. Vidergor 559 27. Young Radio Broadcasters Moshe Kastoryano and Hava E. Vidergor 573 28. The Ambassador: Leadership for Gifted and Able Students Hava E. Vidergor 587 29. Individualized Programs for Gifted with Various Talents Carole Ruth Harris 603 About the Contributors 619 Index631 ix FOREWORD This is a book that will greatly help parents and teachers of gifted children, and it will also be of help to parents and teachers of many other kinds of children as well. Let me explain why. Ever since my book, Gifted Children: Myths and Realities, appeared in 1996, I have received countless emails, letters, and phone calls from parents of highly gifted children desperately seeking answers about schooling. I heard stories of principals who denied the concept of giftedness with the pat phrase, “all children are gifted.” I heard stories of skeptical teachers asking parents whether they had “trained” their child through rigorous drill with flash cards. I heard stories of children bored in school, hating school, begging to stay home, and feeling isolated and different from their peers. I tried my best to advise these worried parents. I told them that there was no perfect solution because schools are made for the typical child, and their child was not typical. I discussed with them the pros and cons of each approach, including advocating for an advanced curriculum for their child so he or she could go at her own pace in the classroom; grade skipping, and home schooling. Since most schools resist grade skipping, and since most parents do not have the means to home-school, the most obvious solution seemed to me to advocate for an advanced curriculum. But most parents had no idea how to push back after being told that all children are gifted. And at this point I usually referred the parents to Carole Ruth Harris, Director of Gifted and Talented Education Services. Carole could help the parents negotiate with the school and she could develop just the kind of curriculum that the child needed. I knew of no other service like this, but I often wondered why there were not hundreds of GATES’s all over the country! This volume, edited by Hava Vidergor and Carole Ruth Harris, is a rich sourcebook for parents, teachers, and administrators filled with case studies and examples. There are 29 chapters covering a very wide range of educational issues along with practical suggestions for how to implement the changes recommended. You will find guidance on developing intellectually challenging lesson plans and how elevating standards and teaching to the top can benefit all, not only those identified as gifted; how to teach to every child’s strengths; how to teach by having children solve openended real-world problems; how to develop meaningful and authentic assessment measures that do not just measure but also enhance learning. There are also chapters on enhancing specific kinds of gifts, including giftedness in mathematics, language arts, leadership, technology, and creativity, even when the child has a profound gift in one of these areas and weaknesses in others. I believe that the recommendations in this book could also serve teachers of all children, not only the gifted. Teachers could adapt these lessons for any kind of xi FOREWORD child. After all, we want all children to be intellectually challenged, to solve realworld problems, to learn mathematics conceptually rather than by rote, etc. And alternative forms of assessment that enhance learning are what all children need so that we can go beyond standardized tests which assess learning narrowly and certainly do not enhance learning in any deep way. Ellen Winner Department of Psychology Boston College xii PREFACE This book concentrates on practice with a view to maximizing the potential of every gifted learner. It addresses many aspects of giftedness and can be applied in a variety of settings using a flexible approach to accommodate the complex issues that arise in planning, developing and carrying out successful programs. Intended to serve as a resource and a guide for teachers, graduate students, counselors, parents, and administrators, it is designed to assist and support educators in the difficult task of providing opportunities for the gifted to find fulfillment in discovery and to reach for the attainment of excellence in their endeavors. The book does this by drawing from a variety of resources and takes the educator of the gifted through applications that are grounded in theory and useful in practice with attention to their interlocked nature. The book encompasses both the how and the why of effective program development and application, along with provision of the rationale for utilization of these methodologies in practice. The content offers examples and models that function as blueprints, with frameworks built upon solid, field-tested foundations. The intention is to furnish the tools for constructing a comfortable and lasting learning environment appropriate for gifted students to enable them to mature and grow as effectively as possible in a rapidly changing world. Section I provides guideposts for curriculum development through theory, practice, and models. In Chapter One Miraca Gross connects the differing characteristics of students with multiple levels of giftedness across a broad spectrum and includes able, moderately, highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted students. Utilizing theoretical constructs from Bloom and Williams the chapter demonstrates applications and outcomes through the delineation of case studies and subsequent discussion of potential problem areas in heterogeneous learning environments. In Chapter Two Linda Kreger Silverman, Linda Powers Leviton and Steven C. Haas discuss problems associated with the learning styles of different types of gifted learners, such as visual-spatial learners and culturally different and diverse learners and offer applications of methodology for engaging such students. Hava E. Vidergor addresses the question of that which constitutes an appropriate set of requirements for effectiveness in teachers of the gifted in Chapter Three and in Chapter Four outlines specific expectations and responsibilities for the gifted coordinator’s role as an enabler. In Chapter Five Joyce Van Tassel-Baska describes the development and design of curriculum for the gifted and the processes necessary for implementation of that design. The ethnographic approach for program development for children identified as gifted in a poverty-stricken area with multiple complexities related to cultural conflict is offered as an exemplar by Carole Ruth Harris in Chapter Six. Section Two is devoted to units and courses based on curricular models. Belle Wallace describes the methodological approach used in TASC – Thinking Actively xiii PREFACE in a Social Context in Chapter Seven and takes an inclusive viewpoint through the provision of offering stimulating and challenging opportunities for exercising discovery through practice and adaptation that creates opportunities for involvement and adaptation by utilizing thinking skills. In Chapter Eight June C. Maker, Robert Zimmerman, Maria Paz Gomez, Randal Pease, and Edith Burke target the desire of the gifted student to bring about change and provide lesson plans and activities that have been field-tested and proven successful for immediate application in the classroom using real-life problem solving and problem based learning. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska presents an integrated curriculum model in Chapter Nine that incorporates advanced content and higher level thinking and derives from research-based curriculum units of study. In Chapter Ten Hava Vidergor describes the construct of a multidimensional curriculum model that portrays how experts think through many lenses and points of view that provide dimension and fullness for exploratory activities for the gifted to ponder and apply in the 21st century. Section Three is concerned with teaching strategies. A review of the literature on Higher Order thinking Skills is provided by Hava vidergor and Michal KrupnikGottlieb in Chapter Eleven, followed by delineation of specifics in academic areas and concludes with practical guidelines for curriculum expansion. Susan K. Johnson, in Chapter Twelve, outlines and guides the educator into strategic areas of independent study that has as its focus proven models that utilize steps within the process. The chapter also presents examples of these models in actual use and suggests evaluation tools appropriate for determining effectiveness. Chapter Thirteen is directed to the creatively gifted child. Carole Ruth Harris discusses the multiple aspects of creativity in the gifted population including attributes that mimic exceptionalities and social difficulties that stem from the unusual perspective of the creatively gifted original thinker. The chapter includes case studies and provides practical guidelines for nurturing creativity and strengthening self-esteem. The case for urgency of designing a plan for integrating technology in the gifted curriculum is presented by Gillian Eriksson in Chapter Fourteen. The chapter reviews current research along with usable strategies that focus on integration of technology in the gifted classroom and provides examples of workable lesson plans for the practitioner. Chapter Fifteen is devoted to incorporating alternative assessment. Hava Vidergor recognizes the need for utilization of other means of assessment that encompass evaluation which reflects the real progress of the gifted learner and goes beyond superficiality and number crunching. The chapter offers guidelines and templates that help to guide the teacher to make use of meaningful and authentic assessment tools in the gifted classroom. Section Four of this book presents units derived from models with attention to specific areas of learning in academic areas and in the arts. This section is a rich resource for design and implementation of an educational setting that embraces challenge and optimizes learning for gifted students. Chapter Sixteen utilizes a creative approach to mathematics. Rachel R. McAnallen leads the student into mathematical thinking through a conceptual rather than a procedural base with a xiv PREFACE view to understanding and applying principals in lieu of rote learning. In Chapter Seventeen Carole Ruth Harris presents language arts through genre with emphasis on depth in analysis along with critical interpretation that utilizes hands-on methodology and includes sample lesson plans that demonstrate differentiation for the gifted according to developmental age and ability. In Chapter Eighteen Carole Ruth Harris emphasises a global view for planning and developing Social Studies units that focus upon adaptable thematic unit themes and exemplary lesson plans coupled with suggested activities for outreach that are inclusive of cultural points of view. Dorothy Ann Sisk creates a template for developing leadership through global awareness and global learning in Chapter Nineteen through description of the model developed by Sisk and Roselli for intermediate and high school students with emphasis on key concepts and student self-assessment. The chapter illustrates the model with units and lessons that are connected to definitions and theories of leadership. Gilbert Clark and Enid Zimmerman delineate seven stages of art learning and art making in Chapter Twenty by providing a description of their field-tested model for teaching visually talented art students in Hong Kong. The chapter describes and demonstrates how integration with the Kaplan Curriculum Model and academic subjects promote sustainability and identity for gifted art students. Chapter TwentyOne by Laura M. Schulkind emphasizes the role of music in arts integration with reference to theoretical constructs. The chapter utilizes music from diverse cultures to illustrate strategies for developing units leading into outcomes that demonstrate excellence and mastery, along with suggestions for refinement and evaluation of instructional effectiveness. In Chapter Twenty-Two Hava Vidergor guides the reader through the development of interdisciplinary units that encompass advanced content as well as higher order thinking following a short theoretical overview. The chapter demonstrates various curriculum models and outlines derivation of units that utilize a process-product approach illustrated by exemplary lesson plans. Avi Poleg, in Chapter Twenty Three, discusses Excellence 2000: Nurturing Scientific and Mathematical Skills among Excelling Elementary and Secondary Students, a unique enrichment program developed and implemented in the Israel Center for Excellence through Education. The chapter provides a detailed description of the program’s implementation, including principles, and elaborates these with examples. A complex study unit is included in the Appendix. Physics and Medicine in industry along with entrepreneurship are presented in Chapter Twenty-Four. Michal KrupnikGottlieb and Amos Cohn here present field-tested, highly successful curriculum and planning structured to operate in a real world context that encompasses hightech industry and medical imaging in a health care setting. Chapter Twenty-Five addresses methodology of teaching a second language to gifted students through biography. Hava Vidergor utilizes the stimulation of introducing role models with authentic language in this chapter to motivate the gifted to use research as a vehicle to understand and absorb the meaning of greatness. Social responsibility is the central focus of Chapter Twenty-Six by Hava Vidergor, with change as an outcome for second language students to realize their potential by becoming leaders and xv PREFACE role models through actions that produce a better society. Chapter Twenty-Seven details the aspects of a program that gives gifted students and opportunity to become radio broadcasters. In this chapter Moshe Kastoryano and Hava vidergor present a rigorous plan of study that results in an actual product, a live broadcast produced entirely by the gifted learners who meet success as its own reward in carrying out the project. Entitled The Ambassador: Leadership for Gifted and Able Students, Chapter Twenty-Eight describes a model that is focused on developing leadership through practice of widening spheres of influence from school to community to country and to the world. In this chapter Hava Vidergor builds upon theoretical models and presents sample lessons along with alternative assessment that culminates in students’ reflections. Carole Ruth Harris, in Chapter Twenty-Nine, recognizes that there are students who have extraordinary strengths in one area while demonstrating weaknesses in others. The chapter demonstrates how teachers can plan for these students by pulling the weakness through the strength and integrating the factors that influence talent development. The chapter provides exemplary units and lesson plans that can be applied in a variety of settings, along with approaches to refinement for use with cases that require customization for an individual student. This book is intended as a practical model to introduce and assist educators to understand and use the multiple aspects of gifted education in actual practice. It is our hope that what is presented here will give educators of the gifted the means to optimize the innate abilities of gifted students and serve as a vehicle for creation of an environment that stimulates growth, love of learning, and a rewarding life trajectory. Hava E.Vidergor and Carole Ruth Harris xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to express our gratitude to the internationally renowned scholars who have supported us in our long and difficult journey, and contributed their knowledge and insights, offered comments and assisted in the editing and proofreading of the book. We would like to thank our family members, and especially our husbands, Itzhak Vidergor and John Nathaniel Harris, for encouraging us to go on, even though, in times it seemed impossible. We would like to thank Sense Publishers, and especially Michel Lokhorst, the Director Asia Pacific at Sense Publishers for realizing the importance of this book. Without you the book would never find its way to the teachers, parents, and college and university students trained to teach gifted and able learners. Thanks to Jolanda Karada, the production editor, for your professional handling of the various stages of producing this book. It was a pleasure working closely with you knowing that the book is in good hands and the final product would be impeccable. Last and not least; we beg forgiveness of all those who have been with us over the course of the years and whose names we have failed to mention. xvii SECTION 1 CURRICULUM FOR GIFTED AND ABLE LEARNERS MIRACA U. M. GROSS 1. CHARACTERISTICS OF ABLE GIFTED HIGHLY GIFTED EXCEPTIONALLY GIFTED AND PROFOUNDLY GIFTED LEARNERS I trust you’ll excuse me if I begin this chapter by briefly describing my own experience as an academically gifted child and adolescent in Scotland where I was born and grew up. Aged almost 5 and in my first year of primary school (as was customary for Scottish 5-year-olds at that time) I had a magical teacher called Miss Kay. She found out, in the first week of school, that I could already read, and she responded quietly and without fuss by putting me on an individualized reading program. I read books that were usually read by second or third grade students. Did this make me arrogant or conceited? “Not on your life!” as my mother would have said. “It’s good for her to have to work at something!” Sadly, I had only one year with my beloved Miss Kay; a year in which I felt as if I was living inside a rainbow, surrounded by light and color. The following year my class was placed with another teacher who believed firmly in rigid, lockstep progression. The only differentiation she provided was for two boys with serious learning difficulties. The bright students received neither acceleration nor enrichment and I can say, truthfully, that during that year I learned virtually nothing in math or language that I did not know already. I was made to re-read the books I had already mastered in Miss Kay’s class because these were what the rest of the class was reading. After a few weeks in which I came home each day crying with boredom and frustration, my shy, rather socially withdrawn, mother plucked up her courage and went up to school to ask whether I could possibly be given some more challenging work. She received a curt refusal; the teacher told her sternly that to give advanced work to one child and not the others would make the “favored” child conceited and set her apart from her peers. My poor, brave mother tried to argue, politely, that perhaps conceit was more likely to be engendered by the current policy of giving me only work that I could master successfully without having to work at it but her efforts were to no avail. I continued to be given only work which I could do without trying… and unfortunately after a very few months I did, as my mother had feared, become rather over-confident in my own abilities – and rather over-zealous in displaying them. I was being given no opportunity to recognize my own limitations. Not surprisingly, I didn’t have many friends! By the time I had worked out that it was, at least in part, my own behavior that was contributing to my rejection I was H. E. Vidergor & C. R. Harris (Eds.), Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners, 3–23. © 2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. M. U. M. Gross very lonely and very socially isolated… and sadly, this situation continued for the rest of my time at that school… seven deeply unhappy years, as Scottish schools in these days had no middle school structure. Students spent seven years in “primary” school before moving on to “secondary” school which catered for students from 8th grade upwards. My memories of primary school are mostly scar tissue. Then something happened that changed my life. I won a place in a state secondary (8th through 12th grade) school that catered specifically to students in the top 10% of their age-group academically… and I remember thinking, after the first few weeks, “Here, now, is where my life is really beginning.” The curriculum was both accelerated and enriched; we had to strive and we loved it! In the first, joyful week, I met three girls who became lifelong friends. We called ourselves “the quartet” because there were four of us and also because we harmonized so well. LEVELS OF GIFTEDNESS This chapter introduces five students in the academically able and gifted range who could perhaps have become a quintet if they had lived in the same neighborhood—or even the same city—at the same time and attending the same school. It discusses their similarities and differences both within the group and in comparison with classmates of average ability, and proposes forms of curriculum differentiation designed to respond to their advanced cognitive and affective development. The children described in this chapter are real; not imaginary. I have had the privilege of either teaching (in my 20 years as a classroom teacher and school vice-principal) or (in my more than 20 years as a university professor and director of a research center in gifted education) working with, and advising the parents of, students at all five levels of giftedness: able, moderate, high, exceptional and profound. However, to protect the privacy of the young people described below, and that of their families, I have changed their names and a few other small demographic details. They are all now adults and some have children of their own. They live in different regions of my vast country – Australia is approximately equivalent in land mass to the USA – but they have never met. Researchers, school administrators and parent organizations involved in the education of intellectually disabled students and students with some forms of physical disability, explicitly acknowledge the various levels and degrees of the condition. Hearing impairment, for example, is classified as mild, moderate, severe and profound. It is important to note that this is neither intended nor perceived as labeling but rather as a means of clarifying the degree to which the individual differs from the norm in terms of his or her condition. I myself am hearing impaired and my disability places me at around the 30th percentile of the “severe” classification. I wear hearing aids in both ears but they cannot bring my hearing up completely to the normal range so when, for example, I am teaching a group of university students who haven’t worked with me before I briefly explain to them what I need them to do to help me interact effectively with them. If their only experience of interacting 4 Characteristics of Gifted Learners with a hearing impaired person is a grandparent whose hearing has deteriorated mildly through aging they may have a quite inaccurate picture of my need for a louder volume of speech! I’ve found that if I speak to them frankly and without embarrassment about the degree of my disability and how to help me (speak up and out and face me so that I can also lip-read), they respond willingly and, likewise, without embarrassment. Some of them, as they leave the first lecture, come up to me and say, frankly, “Thanks so much for telling us; that really helps.” LABELLING OR CLASSIFICATION? Discussing the degree of a student’s disability is not, then, labelling. In general, teachers recognize that an accurate assessment of the nature and extent of a student’s disability is a vital first step in discussing the types of support—and indeed the levels of support—that the child may require if he or she is to achieve to the level of his or her potential. Assessment is not undertaken only to find out more about the student herself or himself; it is a vital first step in designing an individualized and developmentally appropriate curriculum. Indeed, acknowledging an intellectually delayed student’s degree of cognitive impairment (is the student’s degree of impairment mild, moderate, severe or profound?) is an essential step in presenting the student with work that will be accessible and enhance learning. But while it is permissible to refer frankly and explicitly to levels of disability we tend to be embarrassed—some of us, acutely embarrassed—by references to levels of giftedness. Some teachers do indeed see this as labelling—and elitist labelling at that! -and, in consequence, are reluctant to acknowledge the conception that differences in ability may exist “even” among gifted students. And yet knowing the degree, as well as the nature, of a child’s difference from his or her age-peers, whether gifted or in some way disabled, can be of enormous assistance in planning curriculum and programming. Indeed, I believe that the greater the degree to which students differ from their classmates, the more important it is that teachers are fully aware of the degree of that difference and the implications of this both for our teaching and for the student’s learning. BUT WHAT DO WE MEAN BY GIFTEDNESS AND TALENT? The definitions of giftedness and talent used by education systems can vary significantly across countries and even across districts within countries. In Australia, where I live, the majority of education systems have adopted a model of giftedness and talent developed some years ago by a French-Canadian psychologist, Françoys Gagné. The Gagné model of giftedness and talent defines intellectually gifted children and adolescents as those whose cognitive ability—their potential for high performance in cognitively mediated tasks—places them in the top 10% of their age-peers (Gagné, 2005) with IQs of 120 or higher. However, by contrast, intellectually talented children or adolescents are young people who have already 5 M. U. M. Gross been able to translate their high cognitive ability into high achievement. Within this model giftedness equates with high ability or potential while talent equates with high achievement or performance. In Gagné’s model giftedness is translated into talent through a cluster of positive environmental catalysts through which a child’s home and school environment interact to facilitate the development of high potential into high performance. However, such environmental supports are not by themselves sufficient to encourage and scaffold talent development. Intellectually gifted children must also possess facilitative intrapersonal characteristics, for example a delight in learning, an enjoyment of intellectual challenge, the ability to experience a sense of pride (as opposed to conceit) in one’s capacity to learn and the ability to resist peer pressure to “dumb down” for social acceptance. Indeed, for intellectually gifted children or adolescents, self-acceptance of their high academic potential is essential for the development of that potential into high performance. Schools therefore should provide, for gifted students, a curriculum that is differentiated in level of challenge and engagement, delivered at a faster pace than is generally required by their age-peers, and pitched at a level beyond the readiness level of their classmates. Furthermore, if gifted students are to develop their gifts readily into talents this thoughtfully developed differentiated curriculum should be delivered within a learning environment in which their cognitive and affective differences are understood and accepted by their classmates. INTRODUCING THE CHILDREN Matthew: Mildly Gifted Matthew is 8 years old and in Ms Paterson’s Grade 2 class in a primary school within his state’s government education system. His IQ of 118 falls within the “mildly” or “basically” gifted range of IQ 115–129. Fewer than 15% of students reason at this level. Within a school system that defined giftedness as having a threshold IQ of 130, Matthew would not, sadly, have been classified as gifted and he might have missed some of the learning opportunities he has, fortunately, been offered. One of these opportunities is subject acceleration in his special field of talent; mathematics. Matthew is one of three students in Ms. Paterson’s class who leave her room and go off to Ms Jackson’s class –Grade 3 – for math each day. Matthew loves Ms Jackson’s class. He has to work to succeed whereas earlier he “cruised by” in math without having to try… and he was even becoming a little arrogant! Notably, the conceit, and its manifestations in snide remarks to his classmates about his superior abilities, stopped less than a week after the acceleration started! Ms Paterson was impressed by how readily and happily Matthew and the other two students adapted to their subject acceleration. (She had been privately a little wary that it might be “pushing” the students rather than extending them.) “They’ve just blossomed,” she says happily. “It’s not only Matthew who has befitted; the other 6 Characteristics of Gifted Learners two go off each day with a gleam in their eye that they just didn’t have before. I have to say I was not too sure about the idea of acceleration but it’s worked. Next year I’ll start looking for possible candidates a bit earlier rather than waiting until the bright ones get bored!” Matthew recently announced that he wants to be a math teacher when he grows up so that he can help other children who hear what he calls “the music of math” in the way he does. Jacinta: Moderately Gifted Jacinta’s IQ of 137 places her in the middle range of the moderately gifted spectrum (IQ 130–144). Moderately gifted students appear in a ratio of 1 in 40 through 1 in 1000). In the first few years of school she was very lonely. Her interest in “the way people in other lands live” as she put it, was not shared by her classmates. Now she is a member of a fulltime self-contained class of gifted students in 4th grade. She has changed from being a shy, introverted little girl who was bullied (because she was different) in her first three years at school into a happy, confident young lass who has friends both in her own grade and in the grade above. Her parents are delighted with the change in their daughter. “She brings other girls home after school and it’s so good to hear the shouts of laughter coming from her room,” says Jacinta’s mom. “There wasn’t much laughter before; she was just so lonely and afraid.” Jacinta recently told her parents she plans to be a teacher when she grows up – so that she can help other students to be as happy and content as she now is. Darren: Highly Gifted Darren entered school eight years ago aged 5 (the normal school enrolment age in Australia) and a few weeks later was accelerated straight into Grade 2 on the basis of the school psychologist’s assessment that placed his IQ at 150, thus within the highly gifted range of 145–159 and somewhere between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000 in the population. His school career has been highly successful and deeply enjoyable. His social success was assured when he was found to be a brilliant natural cricketer (the sport of cricket being as powerful within the Australian psyche as baseball is in the American!) which allowed him to be “forgiven” for being intellectually brilliant! Darren is now debating whether he should study medicine at university (one of his deep interests) or whether he should play cricket professionally. “I really enjoy breaking the stereotype of the non-athletic gifted nerd,” he grins. “I love cricket and I love math probably even more but I don’t feel any angst about any of this; it’s just two complementary parts of who I am.” Aldo: Exceptionally Gifted Aldo was born in Portugal and his family migrated to Australia when he was 6. At first his remarkable abilities were not recognized; the only time he spoke English 7 M. U. M. Gross was at school and in the early years he was very unsure of himself. He was identified as gifted in Grade 3 through a remarkable chance factor – and as in the case of Darren, this was related to Australia’s passion for cricket! Aldo’s school was visited by a member of the visiting Portuguese cricket team and Aldo, who was a huge fan of the team, was understandably asked to welcome the honored guest in his native language. The cricketer was amazed by the fluency of Aldo’s speech, as well as his deep understanding of cricket and Portugal’s position within the sport, and he made his point strongly to the school principal that here was a boy with astonishing analytical abilities and a command of Portuguese that he would be delighted to find in an adult native speaker of the language. Impressed by this (and a little embarrassed that his school had not previously recognized the boy’s talent) the principal asked the district’s school psychologist to assess the lad and he ceilinged out, firstly on a non-verbal assessment and then on the Stanford-Binet Revision 4, the then current version of the Stanford-Binet test of cognitive ability. The psychologist also administered standardized tests of reading, reading comprehension and math and Aldo ceilinged out on everything he was given. Finally, out of curiosity, the psychologist administered the Stanford-Binet L-M, now many years out of date but notable for its extremely high ceiling and Aldo scored in the 170s; within the exceptionally gifted range between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1 million. Aldo has a real flair for languages. At school he learned both French and German and this, coupled with his fluent English and Portuguese, qualify him well for what he hopes will be his career as a translator with a major international airline. Heather: Profoundly Gifted Heather, aged 34, lives in the same large city as Aldo. She was born and brought up in Scotland and had her first experience of school at age 3, a few weeks before the start of the school year when she accompanied her mother and her 5-year-old sister Anna to the neighborhood primary school in order to enroll Anna in school – the normal age for school entry in Scottish schools. Heather, who was academically bright, was longing to start school and had already learned to read a few phrases. While their mother was talking to Ms Fleming, the building principal, Anna and Heather were looking at pictures on the wall of the classroom and Anna was reading a few of the captions aloud to her small sister. Suddenly, Heather interrupted. “No, it doesn’t say lovely,” she told her older sister earnestly. “It says lonely. See, the kitten is alone and he has nobody to play with and that’s why he looks so unhappy.” As it happened, Ms Fleming had a special interest in gifted and talented children and Heather’s comment made her prick up her ears. “I think you understand kittens very well,” she smiled. “I have a book here that has a story about kittens. Would you like to read some of the story to me?” The rest, as Heather’s mother laughingly says, is history. Ms Fleming assessed Heather as having the reading skills of a 7-year-old (twice her age) including a deep and sound understanding of what she read. Ms Fleming then organized for a special 8 Characteristics of Gifted Learners exemption to the school entry requirements relating to age and Heather enrolled in school half way through the school year, spent the remainder of that year in first grade and entered 2nd grade aged 6. She topped the class in virtually every academic subject, excelling in both language and math. During that year, still aged 6, she took the Stanford-Binet Revision 4 IQ test (as in Aldo’s case, this was the version then current) and ceilinged on the test, making not a single error until she reached material designed for 11-year olds. The psychologist returned to school a few weeks later and re-assessed Heather—and she used the Stanford-Binet L-M on which Heather scored above IQ 190—in the profoundly gifted range. Fewer than 1 child in 500,000 scores at this level. Heather accelerated twice more, skipping Grade 3 and Grade 6. In Grade 7 and thereafter she was in a class with students 3 years her senior. She was highly successful academically and socially very popular – in part because she has absolutely no conceit about her extraordinary abilities. She required no further acceleration and entered university aged 15, graduating with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Honours) degree aged 19 followed by a PhD in a specialized sub-field of this discipline aged 23. Now in her 40s, she and her partner Hamish (also a highly qualified vet) run a highly successful practice in a major Australian city specializing in their two subfields. Both regularly make presentations at national and international research congresses. SUMMARY: LEVELS AND INCIDENCE OF GIFTEDNESS The higher a child’s IQ score, the fewer children there are in the population whose cognitive abilities are at that level. This has implications both for gifted children’s socialization and for the curriculum the schools and their teachers will design in response to their learning capabilities. The basically gifted child is likely to find congenial companionship in regular education settings and their learning needs are not so very different from those of age-peers as to require very significant curricular modifications. However children scoring in the middle or upper ranges of the moderately gifted distribution will certainly require thoughtfully planned curriculum differentiation coupled with opportunities to work on these more challenging tasks with students of similar abilities. Table 1. Levels of Giftedness Level IQ score Ratio to total population Basic 115–129 1:6 to 1:30 Moderate 130–144 1:40 to 1:1000 High 145–159 1:1000 to 1:10,000 Exceptional 160–179 1:10,000 to 1:1 million Profound 180+ 1:1 million+ 9 M. U. M. Gross For highly, exceptionally and profoundly gifted students schools must pay very careful attention to the learning settings in which these children are to be educated. It would be counter-productive to expect teachers to deliver a substantially differentiated curriculum such as is essential for these young people in a mixedability class setting with age-peers. For highly gifted young people ability grouping and some degree of acceleration is essential if they are to be presented with a curriculum commensurate with their abilities. For exceptionally gifted children a substantial degree of acceleration is required if the student is to have access to a developmentally appropriate curriculum that will truly extend, as well as enrich, her learning opportunities. For exceptionally and profoundly gifted children it is likely that a blend of acceleration and ability grouping will be required from the early years of school to ensure that the student does not “dumb down” her behavior both in class and in the school yard in a bid to camouflage her significant intellectual and emotional differences and secure peer acceptance. CURRICULUM DIFFERENTIATION FOR INTELLECTUALLY/ACADEMICALLY GIFTED STUDENTS In the United States, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) has recently defined gifted students as follows. “Gifted individuals are those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional ability to reason and learn) or competence (documented performance or achievement in the top 10% or rarer) in one or more domains.” Domains include “any structured area of activity with its own symbol system (e.g. mathematics, music, language) and/or set of sensorimotor skills (e.g. painting, dance, sports)” (NAGC, 2010). Having defined giftedness, the definition continues to discuss its development. “The development of ability or talent (my italics) is a lifelong process. It can be evident in young children as exceptional performance on tests and/or other measures of ability or as a rapid rate of learning compared to other students of the same age, or in actual achievement in a domain. As individuals mature through childhood to adolescence, however, achievement and high levels of motivation in the domain become the primary characteristics of their giftedness. Various factors can either enhance or inhibit the development and expression of abilities.” Professor Françoys Gagné, developer of the Gagné model of giftedness and talent which examines how high ability (giftedness) in any domain may translated into high achievement (talent) in fields related to that domain, has thoughtfully discussed the place of motivation and environment in the translation of giftedness into talent (Gagné, 2011). Motivation, as Gagné suggests, is certainly a critical element in the successful development of potential into performance but it is unrealistic to expect any student to be motivated by a curriculum set at a level he or she passed through some time (even some years) before! Similarly students are unlikely to develop engagement with a curriculum that is delivered at a pace much too slow to permit any realistic level of intellectual engagement or enjoyment. Gagné realistically 10 Characteristics of Gifted Learners argues that giftedness by itself is not sufficient for its translation into successful achievement; motivation to achieve to one’s potential, and an environment which will both facilitate the development of such motivation and continue it, are essential elements in the talent development process. All five students introduced in this chapter are gifted or able young people, albeit of differing levels of ability. Unquestionably, all require the presentation of a curriculum set at a level, a pace and – importantly – a level of complexity that would not be accessible for a student of average academic ability. VanTassel-Baska and Little (2011, p. 10) propose four key questions that teachers should ask themselves when considering whether a given body of curriculum (or even a specific curriculum task) is appropriately differentiated for intellectually gifted students. • Is the curriculum suitably advanced for the strongest learners in the group? • Is the curriculum complex enough for the best learners, requiring multiple levels of thinking, use of resources, and/or variables to manipulate? • Is the curriculum sufficiently in-depth to allow students to study important issues and problems related to a topic under study? • Is the curriculum sufficiently encouraging of creativity, stimulating open-ended responses and providing high-level choices? If the answer to any of these questions is “NO” the curriculum the teacher is proposing is not suitable or indeed adequate for gifted learners. Either (a) it is set at too low a level to engage the most gifted learners in the class or group, (b) it lacks the necessary complexity to engage and challenge gifted students, (c) it fails to facilitate an in-depth exploration of the topic or issue, or (d) it does not allow for the student who delights in “thinking outside the square”, expanding and elaborating on an issue in her responses and selecting questions or tasks that will demand the employment of analysis, synthesis and deeply thoughtful evaluation. These four questions, of course, are of key importance when analyzing and evaluating the suitability of a curriculum task for any learner, including gifted learners, but when we are dealing, as we are here, with gifted students who differ substantially – and in some cases immensely—among themselves in their capacity to learn, it is of critical importance that we do not fall into the trap of seeing them as “the gifted group” in our classes and expecting them to work together on tasks in which they cannot reasonably be expected to participate as equals. This, incidentally, is a telling argument for acceleration; it allows a gifted younger student to work with older students who have already reached the younger student’s level of readiness in a particular curriculum area and on a particular curriculum task. Too often teachers allow themselves to be caught up in a debate as to the relative merits of acceleration and enrichment and, consequently “which” of these paradigms should be employed with gifted learners. VanTassel-Baska and Brown (2009) have argued powerfully that a strong body of research exists that has demonstrated potently the benefits, for intellectually gifted students, of a curriculum that is both enriched and accelerated. The fear, among some teachers, that accelerated gifted 11 M. U. M. Gross students will “run” out of curriculum or have to repeat much of it the following year is ungrounded. Indeed, requiring a child to stay with age-peers when he or she is more than ready to move on and up to the work of the next grade is imposing underachievement on the child through the imposition of unnecessary and tedious curriculum review. AN EXAMPLE OF GROUP-BASED DIFFERENTIATION For two years, in an elementary school serving 600 students, I “filled in” for the school’s regular music teacher whose husband’s work had taken her overseas. One of my goals was to develop a range of differentiation in the school’s program of choral music which would be a realistic response to the remarkable range of musical ability, and enthusiasm for music, among the students (when I held an audition for the choir, approximately 200 students turned up!) and with one of the teaching assistants who was a highly gifted pianist we created not one choir but three! How could an ordinary elementary school attract enough singers to support three choirs? Well, the Christmas Choir was the first choir we established and, democratically, we decided that it should be open to any student who wanted to join – and oh! did they join! They flocked in! My teaching colleagues teased me, good-humoredly, that at the Christmas concert I should seat the choir on the floor of the hall—the stage was too small for them!—and put the audience on the stage instead! (We solved the problem by having two Christmas concerts, half the choir singing at each!) Obviously, the repertoire of the Christmas Choir was related to the music of Christmas and at first we used simple, easy to sing carols – but as the choir became more confident we “spread our wings” (“an appropriate metaphor for Christmas” said one of the brighter boys, drily). What did they sound like? Well, after the first rehearsal when the choir had trotted off gleefully back to their classrooms Jenny, our pianist, looked at me bemusedly and said, “I’d never realized before that the word ‘cacophony’ is onomatopoeic.” The Regular Choir, by contrast, was composed of students with a “reasonable” level of vocal skill and a love of singing. We required students to audition for the regular choir which met every two weeks but the assessment was tempered with generosity. The Advanced Choir, however, served children with a very real level of vocal talent. The repertoire of this choir was far beyond the capacity of the majority of the students. Entry was open only to students who had a substantial level of aptitude. It was accepted that access to the advanced choir should be restricted to students who could sing the repertoire. Was this elitist? Probably, yes, in the literal sense! It also made for a glorious choir! When the music teacher returned from her travels she was delighted with the expansion of choral music in the school! So were the other staff members – and the parents, particularly parents of the Christmas Choir. “He always saw singing 12 Characteristics of Gifted Learners as ‘something for girls’,” said the mother of Dennis (nick-named “Menace” by his classmates) bemusedly, “but his whole attitude towards it has changed. He’s proud of his voice now instead of being embarrassed by it.” When I returned to my classroom role—with my reputation among my colleagues much enhanced ☺– I proposed that the school should develop a “pull-out program” for academically gifted students. The students would be withdrawn from their regular classrooms for two hours each week for enrichment work in their areas of special aptitude. The proposal aroused some “tut-tuttery” among my teaching colleagues; surely my proposal of a special program for gifted students was rather elitist? However, as I pointed out, good-humouredly but frankly, the Advanced Choir was singing material that was very obviously far beyond the scope of the other two choirs and wasn’t that elitist? What I was proposing was the idea of a group of students with particular aptitude for academic work who would meet together for two hours a week for advanced work in their particular area of talent. I pointed out, also good-humoredly but frankly, that the work the gifted students would be presented with would be, in terms of rigor, significantly more challenging (in other words, harder) than would be accessible by the average ability students in their grade! I also suggested that for the first year we would focus on subjects that were in my own particular areas of strength – English and the social sciences – and in the following year another teacher whose talents lay in math and the physical sciences would take over. The reassurance that this was not just “Miraca trying to ‘grab’ the easy job” reassured my colleagues and my proposal was accepted with something approaching enthusiasm! DEVELOPING A SUITABLY ADVANCED CURRICULUM As Tomlinson has recently noted, the term ‘differentiation’, when it is used specifically in discussions of issues in gifted education, has come to mean the modification of curriculum and instruction to better respond to the needs of gifted and talented students. “According to this expanded use of the term, differentiation includes adaptations in content, process, product, affect and learning environment in response to student readiness (proximity to learning goals), interests (my italics) and learning profile (preferences for taking in, processing and presenting ideas) to ensure appropriate challenge and support for the full range of learners in a classroom” (Tomlinson, 2014, p. 198). One of the key premises of curriculum development is that curriculum designed for gifted and talented students should be differentiated in terms of: • The content (the ideas, concepts and information) presented to students. To make the content more responsive to the learning characteristics and needs of gifted students it must be altered to provide more complexity, greater variety and a higher degree of abstraction. 13 M. U. M. Gross • The process (the methodology through which the content is presented to the students). The teacher can modify the way in which the material is presented to the students: for example, at a faster pace, at a higher level of abstraction and avoiding unnecessary repetition. • The product (the response expected from the student). Tasks presented to gifted students must be developed in such a way as to encourage responses that are pitched at a higher level of analysis and synthesis in order as to demonstrate the complexity of the issues being addressed. • The learning environment. An optimal learning environment for gifted students is one “in which they are free to be themselves and where it is safe to be smart” (Clark, 2002). This requires that the teaching and administration staff of the school must be fully committed to the premise that every child should be permitted, encouraged and facilitated to develop their abilities to the fullest unhampered by any feelings of embarrassment or shame at being “different” – in racial origin, faith, family composition, appearance, hobbies and interests, or ability profile. Some Real-Life Examples of Curriculum Differentiation: Bloom Taxonomy Space does not permit a full discussion of the recent revisions to the naming and content of levels in the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy but readers are directed to http://www.kurwongbss.qld.edu.au/thinking/Bloom/blooms.htm. Doubtless there are several American sites that provide equivalent information but this is the one your friendly Australian writer has been using☺. As outlined earlier, Matthew has a special talent, and keen interest, in math. A useful project for him could be researching careers that involve “figuring the odds” (no, not only gaming – it would be much wider than that!) An associated task could be for him to investigate whether it would be possible to succeed in these careers without knowing and applying probability theory. These tasks would involve skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation – the higher levels of Bloom. As described earlier Jacinta was very lonely during her first few years in Australia and she now keeps “a special eye open” for new migrants who have joined her school and have come to live in the neighborhood. Noticing Jacinta’s watchful care in befriending and assisting new immigrant students in the school, her teacher suggested that she create a useful phrase-book with words and phrases that have a special meaning in Australian “slang” with example of how they might be used. This required her to employ skills of application, analysis and synthesis – and, as Jacinta pointed out a few days after she had started, it required subtle degrees of evaluation as well when she realized that (as she put it) “boys just don’t speak girls’ language!” Darren and Aldo were united by their passion for cricket and this was facilitated by email and the world-wide-web. At the suggestion of Darren’s father, a cricketing fan, they decided to create a phrase-book translating cricketing terms from English into Portuguese and vice-versa. This expanded to include cricketing anecdotes and 14 Characteristics of Gifted Learners after a year or so it spread to include brief email interviews with noted cricketers, likewise translated. Two years later they translated the phrase-book into their other two languages, French and German (“Just for the fun of it, really,” explained Aldo, “because France and Germany aren’t really cricketing nations!”) and were agreeably surprised at the interest that was shown among their teachers who even used it in class. “That was quite a compliment,” grinned Darren. “Both of us – each in our different countries—were always being told to stop talking in cricket practice and now they’re using what we were talking about!” The synthesis of analytic and evaluative material in their phrase-book demanded high-level cognitive processing… and was highly enjoyable to both boys. From her early childhood years Heather demonstrated a deep love of, and understanding of, animals and was distressed by their mistreatment. When she was nine years old she developed, by herself, a research project which involved investigating animals that were hunted for sport in a range of countries and writing letters of protest to the relevant countries’ consulates. This, obviously, required a sophisticated synthesis of arguments—and also a thoughtful evaluation of how she could frame her objections without going “over-the top” and offending the very people she was trying to influence! She was impressed by the courteous and detailed responses she received from some of the embassies, some of which included contact details of organizations in their own countries that shared her own opinions. These tasks, developed in response to the children’s special abilities and talents, are set at a level rather beyond what would be achievable for age-peers of average ability; it is in part the element of acceleration that would make them stimulating and rewarding for these young people. Some Real-Life Examples of Curriculum Differentiation: Williams Model Unlike Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is well-known and widely used among teachers in both the United States and Australia, the Williams model is comprised of three dimensions: cognitive behaviors, affective behaviors and teaching strategies. Famously, the cognitive behaviors comprise: • Fluency: the generation of a quantity of responses to an idea, an issue or a question. • Flexibility: the development of a quantity of ideas or a shift in categories and directions of thought. • Elaboration: the embellishment of improvement of ideas; inclusion of details. • Originality: unusual and/or unique ideas or responses; movement away from the obvious. In the following section on teaching strategies I have not “oriented” the strategies towards the five “target” children and their levels of ability as this would make this chapter even longer than it is already ☺ However, this could be an interesting and, I think, enjoyable exercise for you, the reader. I have, however, developed activities at 15 M. U. M. Gross a level of rigor and complexity that I believe makes them specifically suitable for use with intellectually gifted young people – some of them being particularly rigorous. Teaching Strategies and Examples Paradox. A statement or proposition that at first seems to be self-contradictory but that might express a truth e.g. Ice can both help and hurt; give examples and explain your reasoning Attribute listing. Inherent properties or identities that must be open-ended e.g. What characteristics must a fairy-tale have to be popular across cultures? Analogy. Finding similarities between things or situations that might otherwise be different e.g. In what ways is a baby’s first laugh like lark-song? Discrepancy. Gaps or missing links in given knowledge. e.g. We know the name of the first man who walked on the moon but who was the first person who proposed it? Provocative question. Inquiry to incite curiosity and exploration e.g. What would happen if Australia decided to celebrate Christmas in winter, as they do in the Northern hemisphere? Examples of change. Show the dynamics of things; make modifications, alterations or substitutions e.g. In what ways did the invention of the pneumatic tyre change our lives? Examples of habit. Build sensitivity to habit-bound thinking. e.g. If Australia was a society in which women did not yet have the vote, what laws might not have been passed? Organised random search. Structured case study for new courses of action e.g. Interview at least six teachers regarding what improvements they would make in teacher training. Use your findings to make recommendations for improvements in teacher training to your regional teacher training institution. Skills of search. Research on something done before: trial and error on new ways. 16 Characteristics of Gifted Learners e.g. Interview six parents of school-age children. How would they improve the education of children in their first two years of school? What similarities and difference can you note in their views? Tolerance for ambiguity. Pose open-ended situations e.g. What if your pet was able to speak? What advice would it give you about how to be a better pet-owner? (Or does your pet think it owns you?) Intuitive expression. Expressing emotion through the senses; guided imagery, role-playing. e.g. You are a musical instrument. What does it feel like to you to be played by a beginner with little skill? What does it feel like to be played by a professional musician? Describe what you see, what you hear and what you feel in both situations? Adjustment to development. Examine or play back mistakes or failures. e.g. Look back on a memory of when you did something for the first time. How would you plan to improve it if you did it again? Study creative development. Analyze the traits of creative people; creative processes; or creative products. e.g. Interview someone who has had a work “published”. e.g. the author of a book or short story; a painter whose picture has been in an exhibition or a musician whose work has been performed. How did the final work differ from how it was planned in its early stages? Evaluate situations. Extrapolate from ideas and actions; analyse implications or consequences. e.g. How effective are you in getting school projects handed in on time? If you’re less effective than you’d like to be, what changes could you make in how you go about things? Creative reading skills. Read again a non-fiction book that interested you the first time you read it. Is there anything you remember differently on the second reading? What might be some reasons for this? Creative listening skills. Ask your parents to find you a record or tape that you haven’t listened to before. Write down something you like about it and something you like less about it. Three weeks later, listen to it again. Are there any changes in 17 M. U. M. Gross your feelings (liking or disliking)? Can you think of any reasons why your feelings have changed? Creative writing skills. Write a children’s book about how something “came to be” and the mythical reasons (for example how winter came to be cold or why tortoises hibernate). Use your creative imagination. Visualisation. Express ideas in three-dimensional format or non-traditional format. Help to design and create a mural for your classroom that illustrates important events in your school year. Attach to the mural (so that they look as if they are “in” it) reallife artifacts which can symbolize the events. Individual Research Projects Students seem either to deeply enjoy research projects or to dislike (and even resent) having to undertake them. However, individual research projects can (at least from time to time) be centered on the student’s hobbies or special interests. Essential elements of math and languages can sometimes be scaffolded by relating them to “passion” areas. For example, as a fairly bright student in high school French classes that seemed (to me) to be too focused on unnecessary review (“Oh no, not this again; we covered it in the last test and I scored 95%!”) I would send my mind away on fantastic journeys. One term (to keep my mind alive!) I developed enjoyable projects for myself by inventing imaginary letters written by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev to some of the dancers in his Ballets Russes company in which a key common language was French – the language of choreography. However, that year’s French teacher discovered this and began to participate good-naturedly in the fantasy. One day when I had written a letter that she considered was a tour de force she dropped me a note in French informing me that I was being promoted from corps de ballet to soloiste. What a teacher! I thought the world of her and wept when I had to leave school and move on to college. French in college wasn’t half as challenging, for me, as French in Ms MacLeod’s class had been! While delivery of an interest-based curriculum can certainly have a positive effect on student engagement (Gross, 1993, 2004) a number of studies conducted over the last few years have suggested that when an interest-based curriculum is matched with student readiness, interest and learning styles more substantial effects can be noted (Marulanda, Giraldo & Lopez, 2006) particularly for high school students (Rasmussen, 2006). The majority of these studies have been conducted in elementary and middle schools but in the high school studied by Rasmussen the drop-out rate was reduced and student participation in the Advanced Placement program rose by almost half. 18 Characteristics of Gifted Learners I can vouch personally for the effectiveness of an interest-centered curriculum presented as an enrichment strategy for students of all ability levels. As a classroom teacher in an elementary school in Adelaide, South Australia, I facilitated individual research among my 5th grade students by introducing to the students a cardboard calendar representing a Scottish terrier and cut out in the shape of a dog. I announced that this was Mr McDougall and that he had come to be our class friend and mascot. A few days after McDougall’s arrival, when my class arrived at the door of our classroom after a school assembly (which, “mysteriously” I did not attend) they found the glass panel of our classroom door masked by paper with a notice telling them to line up and wait for me to join them. When I opened the door I told them that something of “mystery and magic” had occurred; on my table I had found a note from Mr McDougall which he wanted me to read to them. Dear friends and colleagues. Sitting up on the wall here watching and listening to you I’ve become aware (I’m a very observant dog-person) that you are a class that loves finding out new things. Mrs Gross and I have done some planning together for a very special challenge. Somewhere in our room I have left a special letter just for you; it has your name on the envelope. In my letter I’ve asked YOU to find out (Grossy calls it “research”) something about a topic that I think will interest you. Everyone has a different topic! In four weeks’ time I’d like you to give our class a 5-minute talk about your topic. I’d like you to make it as interesting as you can. Grossy will help you both as a class and individually.” I’m looking forward to learning a lot from your talks. (Grossy calls them “presentations”). This is going to be fun! Yours woofingly, Mr McDougall The students were entranced! When I opened the door they streamed in – an orderly stream ☺ but excited and delighted. They helped each other find the letter with their name on the envelope and they showed each other, with delight, their special letter. Two sample letters appear below, showing something of the range of challenge “McDougall” provided for individual students and how a student’s special interest could be “woven into” the task. Over the next four weeks we worked on research skills and presentation skills. In the fifth and sixth week we held the presentations; three each morning and three each afternoon until every student’s McDougall talks had been presented, eagerly listened to and enthusiastically applauded. 19 M. U. M. Gross Dear Aldo, Mrs Gross (I know some of you call her “Grossy”) has asked me to find out something and suggests you might help me. Have you ever wondered what happens to a letter when you put it in the mailbox? A dog friend (she’s a corgi) told me some mailmen open the mailboxes and take the letters away to a special mail centre… but what happens to them there? Are parcels handled differently to letters? I’d love to know. Can you make a 5–10 minute presentation (interesting talk) on this to our class on Monday, May 30 in four weeks’ time. Grossy will give you any help you need and we’ll all be practicing how to synthesize (put together) the information we find and how to plan our presentations. Yours woofingly, Mr McDougall. Dear Betty, I have a friend who was born in Glasgow, Scotland (she’s a Scotch terrier). She gets really homesick and I thought it would be nice if I could find out a bit about her hometown so that I could talk to her about it next time I write to her. What is Glasgow like? If we went there, what could we see and do? I think our class would be interested too, so can you make a 5–10 minute presentation (interesting talk) on this to our class on Tuesday, May 31st in about four weeks’ time. Grossy will give you any help you need and we’ll all be practising how to synthesize (put together) the information we find and how to plan our presentations. Yours woofingly, Mr McDougall. Of course one doesn’t need a fantasy figure like Mr McDougall to scaffold research projects! Heather and Hamish have two children – both highly gifted. Fiona, aged 11, is in a full-time self-contained class of gifted students in a state government school… what Australia appropriately calls an Opportunity Class. In general, Opportunity Classes are taught by teachers who have postgraduate qualifications in gifted education. Australia is part of the British Commonwealth of Nations and has a substantial Scottish population. Recently Scotland voted in a national government referendum to decide whether they should break away from the rest of the United Kingdom (UK) and be completely self-governing. Fiona’s teacher gave her class an interesting topic for research. She pointed out to the class that what is now the United States of America was once a colony of Great 20 Characteristics of Gifted Learners Britain and asked them to work in small groups to discuss how Scotland might have voted if they were given the opportunity not only to break away from the UK but also to merge with the USA and become the 51st state of the Union! (Fiona and her classmates decided that Scotland would probably vote to retain the status quo but it provided a thought-provoking and lively discussion!) As a result of the interest that this discussion aroused in Fiona and some of her friends, their teacher allowed them to present their hypotheses to the class and the result was a thoughtful but quite impassioned discussion. As many teachers have noted with gifted students’ capacity to engage passionately with issues that would rarely excite their classmates “everything matters and it matters that it matters.” This ability (and indeed the tendency) of gifted students to build in challenge for themselves by reasoning at a more advanced level than their classmates and, in addition, “thinking outside the square” is in general, not sufficiently recognized by the authors of books on curriculum differentiation. Welcome exceptions are Juratowitch and Blundell, authors of Make a Twist: Curriculum differentiation for gifted students (2014). This practical text, addressing teachers in upper primary and middle school, demonstrates how to scaffold the creative differentiation of curriculum through providing a highly practical guide to identifying, selecting and implementing differentiation strategies that are aligned to curriculum content, process and product development. SUBJECT ACCELERATION – A WONDERFUL VEHICLE FOR DIFFERENTIATED CURRICULUM DELIVERY Before I became a university professor I spent 20 happy years as an elementary school teacher. This included six extremely happy years at a school in Adelaide, South Australia, where the principal, Alf Pearce, was a true visionary – a creative, enthusiastic, thoughtful innovator who was dearly loved by his teaching staff. One of his innovations was the structured, daily use of ability grouping and acceleration. For the first half hour each day every class went to its “home room” so that the class’s own home–room teacher could check the roll and spend some special time with their class. Then the students separated into their “special” math class. Some students stayed at their grade level, some went to the grade below for review of material they had not mastered, others went to the grade above for accelerated and extension work. This lasted for an hour, then we had morning break. After the 20 minute morning break each student went for the next hour to his or her “special” English language classroom. As with math, some students required review and worked with a younger class while others required extension and worked with an older class. Regular evaluations were made of students’ progress and at the end of each three month school term students would move to a class that was working at their particular level in a particular subject area; no one had to stay in a class that was covering material that was too simple or too challenging for them. 21 M. U. M. Gross This allowed children who were particularly bright in math or English to accelerate in those particular subjects – and also allowed children who were slower learners or who were having difficulties in a specific subject area to work at a level that more appropriately responded to their particular learning needs. The students loved their gentle, thoughtful principal dearly and the teaching staff adored him. The challenge created by the subject acceleration was a delight to bright students who might not have been suited to overall grade-advancement but who had been bored in the regular classroom by having to spend many hours waiting for their classmates to be ready to move on to tasks for which they had been ready months before. Equally, it was a true gift to students who were rather slower in some subjects than in others. For the teachers, the freedom of being able to select which level one could teach at in different subject areas was a true joy. I had a talent for working with children who found math difficult and who needed substantial, thoughtfully presented review, and that was exactly what I was scheduled to do. My other talent was for working with children who “heard” and “sang” the music of language and I was scheduled to work with these young people on the English curriculum of the grade above – material for which they were more than ready. Other subject fields were taught on a whole-class basis by the class’s own homeroom teacher so the students had a range of “learning settings” that allowed both age-based and ability-based curriculum differentiation. For me, my six years with Alf and the wonderful staff of gifted teachers he attracted was the highlight of my 20 years as an elementary school teacher. From Miss Kay to Mr. Pearce… two gifted educators who taught me what it should be to be a teacher. I wish all my own classroom teachers had been as thoughtful, as sincere and as professional as these two wonderful people. They weren’t – but in those days colleges of education did not offer courses in how to identify and respond to gifted and talented students. It is probable that they simply had no idea of what to do with “the brighter ones”. If only a book like the one you are holding had been available then. REFERENCES Bloom, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York, NY: David McKay. Clark, B. (2002). Growing up gifted (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall. Gagné, F. (2005). From gifts to talents: The DMGT as a developmental model. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 98–119). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Gagne, F. (2011). Understanding giftedness as the foundation of talents. In T. L. Cross & J. Riedl-Cross (Eds.), Handbook for school counselors serving students with gifts and talents (pp. 3–9). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc. Gross, M. U. M. (1993). Exceptionally gifted children. London, England: Routledge. Gross, M. U. M. (2004). Exceptionally gifted children (2nd ed.). London: Routledge Falmer. 22 Characteristics of Gifted Learners Juratowitch, M., & Blundell, R. (2014). Make-a-Twist: Curriculum differentiation for gifted students. Retrieved from www.openleaves.com.au/products/Make-a-Twist:-Curriculum-Differentiation-forGifted-Students.html Marulanda, M., Giraldo, P., & Lopez, L. (2006). Differentiated instruction for bilingual learners. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Association for Curriculum and Program Development, San Francisco, CA. NAGC. (2010). Definitions of giftedness (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Loyala University, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/definitions-giftedness or talents Rasmussen, F. (2006). Differentiated instruction as a means for improving achievement as measured by the American College Testing (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Loyola University of Chicago School of Education, Chicago, IL). Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). Differentiated instruction. In J. A. Plucker & C. M. Callahan (Eds.), Critical issues and practices in gifted education (pp. 197–210). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc. VanTassel-Baska, J., & Brown, E. F. (2009). An analysis of gifted education curriculum models. In F. A. Karnes & S. M. Bean (Eds.), Methods and materials for teaching the gifted (pp. 75–106). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. VanTassel-Baska, J., & Little, C. (2011). Content-based curriculum for high ability learners (2nd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. 23 LINDA KREGER SILVERMAN, LINDA POWERS LEVITON AND STEVEN C. HAAS 2. ENGAGING DIFFERENT TYPES OF GIFTED LEARNERS INTRODUCTION In the dark ages of education, school was teacher-oriented, rather than studentcentered. The role of teachers was to pour knowledge into the empty vessels with folded hands seated in front of them. The student’s role was to master the skills of reading, writing, spelling, and calculation through rote learning and repetition, at the same rate as the rest of the class. Those who mastered these skills faster were forced to sit and wait for the others or were given “More Of The Same” (MOTS) work to keep them busy. Those who mastered the skills more slowly—and who learned differently—were publicly humiliated. In some settings, the enterprise of schooling has not progressed. Marginalized, unique learners who were schooled in this manner still bear the scars. The 21st century has born witness to heightened awareness and appreciation of learning styles, as well as variations in rates of learning. However, this enlightenment is spotty: it is found in some schools with some teachers, not others. A case in point: a profoundly gifted visual-spatial learner with dyslexia and dysgraphia attended a prestigious private school in the United States. His mother wrote that the Head of the School: was adamant that “her teachers didn’t have time to deal with different learning styles.” Any child who didn’t fit her mold of sitting quietly in class, doing what they were told, not asking questions…was simply to be bullied and shamed into submission. (GDC Parent Questionnaire, October 22, 2014) The gifted do not just “get there” faster; they learn in a qualitatively different manner. They yearn for complexity and abstract concepts, and they become disengaged with rote memorization and the practice of skills. However, not all gifted children are alike. “The range of scores of children in the top 1% on IQ—from 135 to more than 200—is as broad as the range of scores from the 2nd percentile…to the 98th” (Gross, 2009, p. 338). Five different levels of giftedness have been identified (Wasserman, 2003), and each requires specific educational modifications. (See Silverman, 2013 for more information.) H. E. Vidergor & C. R. Harris (Eds.), Applied Practice for Educators of Gifted and Able Learners, 25–41. © 2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. L. K. Silverman et al. Levels of Giftedness 120 – 129 IQ mildly gifted 130 – 144 IQ moderately gifted 145 – 159 IQ highly gifted 160 – 174 IQ exceptionally gifted 175+ IQ profoundly gifted Giftedness occurs in all ethnic, linguistic, geographic and socio-economic groups; it is color blind and gender fair. Natural propensities, unique interests, and the drive to absorb all that is known about a topic, lead the gifted in a multitude of directions. Access to Internet and early reading ability can diversify this group even further. “The higher the IQ or greater the intellectual capacity, the more individual differences” will be found (Tolan, 1999, p. 148). Auditory, visual and kinesthetic modalities vary dramatically within this population. A child with a brilliant mind may be unable to write. A growing number of gifted students have disabilities: the twice exceptional. Gifted children have different learning styles: some learn more effectively in a sequential manner, while others are more spatially oriented and struggle with sequential learning. An effective program is tailored to all of these individual differences. DIFFERENT WAYS OF LEARNING The field of gifted education has embraced many models that honor various constellations of learning strengths. One way of conceptualizing the multiplicity of abilities is through theories of multiple intelligences. In 1938, Louis Thurstone constructed a theory of nine primary mental abilities. Thurstone opened the door for many theorists who followed. By far, the most ambitious theory of multiple intelligences, Joy P. Guilford’s (1956) The Structure of Intellect, described 120 intelligences; the model eventually expanded to 150 intelligences. The Structure of Intellect Learning Abilities Test (Meeker, Meeker & Roid, 1985), based on Guilford’s model, has served as a method of qualifying for gifted programs. Dr. Mary Meeker, a student of Guilford’s, and her husband, Robert, founded SOI Systems in Vida, Oregon, which provides training in the model, the assessment tool, and instructional programs (www.soisystems.com). In Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner (1983) postulated seven intelligences; two more have been added, and others are under consideration. Several books and articles are available to guide teachers in customizing education to multiple intelligences (e.g., Armstrong, 2009). Françoys Gagné (1985, 2012) created the Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talents (DMGT). DMGT includes six domains of giftedness, along with nine talents. It serves as the theoretical basis for many gifted programs in Australia. Personality theories gave birth to learning style models. Carl Jung (1923/1938) conceived of two basic orientations: extraversion and introversion. In addition, he described four functions: sensing, intuition, thinking and feeling. Katherine 26 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners Cook Briggs developed a typology based on Jung’s constructs, adding another dimension—judging versus perceiving—attitudes she felt were implicit in Jung’s theory (Myers and Myers, 1980). Katherine, with her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, devised the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers, 1962). The MBTI is the mother of most modern assessments of personality type and learning style. Its four dimensions yield 16 personality types—different combinations of extraversion vs. introversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feelings, and judging vs. perceiving. These 16 personality types have been translated into learning styles, spawning many books for teachers on differentiating for personality types (See Dunning, 2008; Kise, 2014; Lawrence, 2009; VanSant & Payne, 2009.) As there is considerable overlap between personality types and learning styles, some use the term synonymously (e.g., Bireley, 1991). For a decade, beginning in 1976, the measurement of learning styles was in its heyday. Excellent inventories were developed during this period—unfortunately, all bearing the same or similar titles: Learning Styles Inventory (R. Dunn, K. Dunn, & Price, 1979; Kolb, 1976; Renzulli & Smith, 1978); Learning Styles Inventory: Primary Version (Perrin, 1982); The Learning Style Profile (Keefe & Monk, 1986); and The Learning Preference Inventory (Silver & Hanson, 1978). The instrument constructed by Rita and Kenneth Dunn and their associates (1975/1979) emerged as the most popular in gifted and regular education, and stood the test of time. Rita Dunn (1983) defined learning style as “the way individuals concentrate on, absorb, and retain new or difficult information or skills” (p. 496). Her Learning Styles Inventory is comprised of a complex matrix of 24 environmental, sociological, physical and psychological elements. While it is easy to administer (30 – 40 minutes), application of the thousands of combinations can be daunting. Shortly after the rage of learning styles inventories, another way of looking at modes of learning emerged: the exploration of modalities. Two gifted education leaders, Walter Barbe and Ray Swassing, developed the Swassing-Barbe Modality Index (SBMI) (Barbe, Swassing & Milone, 1979a). They defined a modality as “any of the sensory channels through which an individual receives and retains information” (Barbe & Swassing, with Milone, 1979b, p. 1). The three modalities vital to education are visual, auditory and kinesthetic. The kinesthetic modality consists of large muscle, small muscle and tactile abilities. A modality strength is the most efficient or dominant mode through which an individual processes information. Visual learners learn by seeing and watching demonstrations, auditory learners through verbal instruction from others or self-talk, and kinesthetic learners by doing and direct involvement. For the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on the nucleus of our work: visual-spatial learners. The model differentiating visual-spatial learners (VSLs) from auditory-sequential learners (ASLs) originated from observing test protocols of gifted children and relating these observations to brain research (Silverman, 1989; 2002). The left hemisphere of the brain functions sequentially, while the right hemisphere functions spatially (Levy, 2000; Ornstein, 1997; Springer & 27 L. K. Silverman et al. Deutsch, 2001). Spatial information is apprehended visually. Terms such as “visuo-spatial,” “spatial visualization” and “visual-spatial” are used to describe the inextricable connection between visual and spatial. The relationship between auditory and sequential is a gift from the field of audiology (Northern & Downs, 1994). Phonemic awareness and spelling both involve the ability to sequence nonmeaningful sound bites. ASLs have stronger left hemispheres, while VSLs have stronger right hemispheres. School primarily addresses left-hemispheric strengths; right-hemispheric strengths, such as those involved in the arts, are often seen as tangential. Children with excellent auditory-sequential abilities are more comfortable with the medium of words than VSLs. Gifted ASLs access words easily, efficiently and quickly. Their verbal fluency assures greater ease at public speaking and allows them to be more verbally assertive in discussions. ASLs have good auditory skills and excellent phonemic awareness, which enables them to master reading phonetically, as it is usually taught. They tend to have a good sense of time, be punctual, and turn in their assignments in a timely manner. Fast processors of information, they enjoy contests, like “Mad Minutes” (timed math facts). They are likely to be neat, orderly and wellorganized—sequential attributes. They can show their work, because they take a series of steps to reach their conclusions (Silverman, 2003). ASLs “easily follow others’ verbal explanations and remember step-by-step directions, pay attention to details, naturally categorize, and know a mountain from a molehill” (Maxwell & Punch, 2012, p. 10). Gifted ASLs are more likely than equally capable VSLs to be high achievers in academic subjects, to be selected for gifted programs, to be recognized by their teachers as having high potential, and to be considered leaders (Silverman, 2009). All in all, school is usually a positive experience for ASLs. The structure and demands of school make sense to them. The school curriculum is sequential, the textbooks are sequential, the teaching methods are sequential, and most teachers learn sequentially themselves. Therefore, we do not provide guidance for teaching ASLs; teachers do an excellent job reaching this population. We believe that most indigenous cultures are strongly right hemispheric, and that visual-spatial methods are culturally relevant. This model is easy for teachers to implement, because they only need to plan for one new type of learner. The visual-spatial learner construct bears most similarity to the modality strengths model. Recently, one member of our team added a third learning style: the tactilekinesthetic learner (Leviton, 2011, 2014). This cements our connection with learning modalities. Tactile-Kinesthetic Learners (TKLs) learn best through sensations, action, physical experience, touching, moving, doing something, manipulating objects, and application to real-life situations. TKLs often excel at sports, dance, mechanics and laboratory science. While TKLs clearly have specific learning needs, space does not permit our addressing them in this chapter. (See Leviton, 2014 for more information.) Like visual-spatial learners (VSLs), TKLs are usually more right hemispheric; therefore, most strategies proposed for VSLs will be helpful for them as well. 28 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners VISUAL-SPATIAL LEARNERS Visual-spatial learners (VSLs) are individuals who absorb, organize, process, and communicate ideas, concepts, and information in a holistic way, thinking in images, seeing patterns, grasping ideas all at once instead of step-by-step. Although VSLs tend to think in images, some rely on intuition or feelings—also VSL strengths. They can transform images in their mind’s eye, seeing them from many perspectives. It takes more time for VSLs to translate their mental pictures into words, and word retrieval may be somewhat difficult (Lohman, 1994). Under the pressure of timed tests, their pictures often disappear (Leviton, 2003). They do not have a linear, clockdriven sense of time, but, instead, see time as a flow of events. And they demonstrate superb awareness of space. Their learning takes place in great intuitive leaps, when, all of a sudden, they have an “Aha!” moment and see the “big picture.” Since they do not learn sequentially, they are at a distinct disadvantage on achievement tests that require them to show their work. They learn best by understanding relationships, not by memorization. Complex concepts are easier for them to understand than simple, sequential skills. They may master calculus before their times tables. It is easy to see why these children suffer in school. They tend to be late bloomers, often getting smarter as they get older (Silverman, 2002). Characteristics Comparison The characteristic differences between VSLs and ASLs have emerged from 35 years of observations and interviews, and the clinical analysis of the protocols and parent questionnaires of over 6,000 gifted children. The model has been refined through two decades of empirical investigation by an interdisciplinary study team (Haas, 2003b). Visual-Spatial Learners Are whole-part learners Are keen observers See the “big picture” Learn concepts all at once (“Aha!”) Think in images or feelings Solve problems in unusual ways Often lose track of time Arrive at correct solutions intuitively Struggle with spelling Need to see relationships to learn May appear disorganized Learn whole words easier than phonics Read maps well Are good synthesizers Auditory-Sequential Learners Learn in a step-by-step manner Are good listeners Attend well to details Learn by trial and error Think in words or ideas Are comfortable with one right answer Are conscious of time Show steps of work easily Can sound out spelling words Excel at rote memorization Are well organized Have excellent phonemic awareness Follow directions well Are good analyzers 29 L. K. Silverman et al. May have messy handwriting Interweave thought and emotion Learn complex concepts easily, but may struggle with easy skills Write quickly and neatly Compartmentalize thought and emotion Progress sequentially from easy to difficult (Silverman, 2009) Many gifted students—particularly the highly gifted—demonstrate attributes from both lists, but some clearly lean toward one set or the other. School is easier for gifted ASLs, whereas gifted VSLs are more often counted among underachievers, gifted dropouts, twice exceptional children, dyslexics (Eide & Eide, 2011), children with AD/HD, creative nonconformists, and bright children from culturally diverse groups (Silverman, 2002). More talented children from low socio-economic groups are identified by spatial tests than by verbal and mathematical measures (Webb, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2007). The Visual-Spatial Identifier In 1992, an interdisciplinary group began construction of the Visual-Spatial Identifier (VSI), a 15-item inventory for quickly identifying visual-spatial learners in the classroom. The VSI is available in two forms: Self-Report and Observer-Report; it has been translated into Spanish. The instrument has been validated with 750 students in urban and rural settings (Haas, 2003b; Silverman, 2002). About one-third of the student population in the United States are strongly VSL and two-thirds have at least a slight preference for this learning style (Haas, 2003b; Silverman, 2002). Among the gifted, there is a higher percentage of VSLs. The highest percentages of VSLs have been found in twice-exceptional and culturally diverse groups (e.g., Native Americans) (Haas, 2007). CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE CHILDREN Research conducted under the auspices of the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development shows that nearly 80% of Native American children in the U.S. are visual-spatial learners (Haas, 2007, 2014). These results come from working with indigenous children, primarily Navajo and Northern Arapaho, but also diverse urban Native children and Coeur d’Alene tribes in the U.S. and Ojibwe First Nations in Canada. Abundant anecdotal information also suggests that a predominance of visual-spatial learners can be found among other indigenous peoples throughout the world, such as Alaska Native tribes, Canadian Inuit and Metis, Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maori, Southern African Bushmen, Mexican Yucatec Mayan and other Mayan peoples of western Central America, South American Quechua people, mixed Gulf peoples of the United Arab Emirates, and many of the 567 federally recognized tribes in the United States. 30 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners The predominance of holistic, visual-spatial learning among indigenous peoples may contribute to a different appreciation of giftedness. Instead of the characteristic of an individual demonstrating outstanding levels of aptitude or competence (NAGC, 2015) or high achievement capability (United States Department of Education (2004)), American Indian genius springs from community: A person steeped in traditionalism of his or her people relating to values of the tribal community, and the manifestation of individual expression through individual actions of the person who represents deep inner thought on a frequent basis that also enlighten one’s family, relatives, and community. (Fixico, 2003, p. 74) Strength-based, culturally responsive instruction for Native American children starts with visual-spatial pedagogy, closely intertwined within an instructional system that includes emphasis on place, culture, 21st century skills, project-based learning, and problem solving. Such an instructional program instills confidence in young Native American learners. Standardized tests indicated a significant increase in achievement for many of these students. This section provides classroom examples of best practices, profiling the cultural adaptability of instructional strategies designed for Native American children. Each of these lessons is deeply visual-spatial. Following each description is a YouTube link where the classroom video of the example can be viewed. Visual-Spatial Instruction Young writers in a 3rd grade class on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming had the assignment of writing an essay about a family outing or activity. But before taking pen in hand, the class was shown a series of brief video clips and slides taken of Native children and their families engaging in a wide range of activities, from backyard BBQs to camping adventures and a tribal pow-wow. Then, with whimsical music playing, they were asked to visualize their own family on an outing or activity. This was the first in a series of translations from one medium to another to transform their visual ideas into written essays. They could “see” an activity that had occurred or “imagine” one that they would like to happen. Then all the students used large drawing paper and colorful pens (because visual-spatial images are always in color) to draw what they saw in their heads, a second translation. This translation also took what may have been a mental video running in their heads and selected a screenshot to capture on paper. On the back of the drawing, each child then took time to put down as many “-ing” words as s/he could think of that jumped from the drawing. This third translation was the first time they had written anything for this assignment. Once a full list had been compiled, the students strung the “-ing” words together in a written story (fourth translation), scrambling the words to rearrange the order so that it made sense to them (http://youtu.be/qQN02hrt4Aw). 31 L. K. Silverman et al. Spatial Aspects Visual refers not just to things that can be seen by the eye, but to those that exist only in the mind’s eye, and to those abstract concepts that must be envisioned. Spatial learning is strongly relational, to place, to people, and to time. Any role-playing exercise in class lends itself to spatial learning. For instance, a 12th grade history class studying the Nazi rise to power in 1933 assigned roles to each of the students – Nazi, Gestapo, industrialists, socialists, communists, Jews, Bavarians, trade unionists, and Catholics – and let them talk amongst themselves in anticipation of the open election of November 1932 that eventually brought Hitler to power the following spring. On the video of the class that day, the coalitions were fully visible and the isolation of some students was palpable and distressing. When the public vote took place, the majority – even including the Jew – voted for Hitler, vainly hoping to avoid “consequences.” Then, for the rest of the class period, one by one, each was taken and put into an enclosure marked with masking tape on the floor. That exercise served as the springboard to a probing discussion of the tribe’s own experience with genocide during the white settlers’ seizure of land and the atrocities committed against their Native ancestors (http://youtu.be/SSE_AARaVqU). In another more benign example of spatial learning, 6th graders learned about the Greek counterparts to their own tribal gods and the relational hierarchy in both systems of deities. Importantly, they also gained a more profound appreciation of their own individual relationship to their tribal gods, and by extension of ordinary Greek citizens to their gods on Mount Olympus (http://youtu.be/gtMCKud2Rdc). Culture In culturally responsive education for diverse indigenous children, cultural content can become the centerpiece of a classroom lesson, as it did for a kindergarten class studying the use of symbols and color in their tribal flag. By learning the origins of the flag and the deeper meaning of its symbols, they found an appreciation of the tribe’s history and culture. Since their tribe’s flag incorporates distinct geometrical shapes, the children also saw their tribe’s connection to geometry and other principles of mathematics. The colors of the flag show up repeatedly in tribal regalia and ceremonial situations, as well as in everyday use. So, the children developed pride in those colors and color combinations whenever they saw them displayed. As the lesson progressed, the teacher asked the children to follow along by drawing their own copy of the tribal flag at their desk, as a way of taking note of what they were learning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rCqQEj4S4). Place Place is the pivot point for indigenous children’s learning and understanding of their cultural connectedness to location, to personal and cultural relationships, and 32 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners to the flow of time (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001, p. 33). That sense of place begins early and is a recurrent theme in visual-spatial culturally responsive education, as a class of 1st graders learned with an astronomy lesson. Using a SmartBoard to depict star clusters, children were able to draw in constellations and then see the shapes where they got their names. In a simple, low-tech demonstration, the teacher projected an image of the night sky onto a screen and then, using a flashlight, showed how close stars were brighter and distant stars fainter. For the children, what had been a two-dimensional screen suddenly acquired three dimensions, and Earth with the children on it found its place in that cosmic display (First segment on Sampler Video at “http://youtu.be/Ex3T2sUg6G8). Twenty-First Century Skills Preparing children to thrive, contribute, and be happy with their lives in the 21st century is a much bigger task than just helping them acquire tech savvy. In addition to technology, it includes info literacy, communications, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and career skills. With the advent of a handheld digital world, that technology is becoming the breakthrough tool of humanity’s next age. An 11th grade business class of Northern Arapaho students explored the visual power that technology offers, as those students in real time recorded statistics (shots made/missed, offensive/defensive rebounds, steals, and blocked shots) of a video recording of a National Basketball Association title game. Teams of students initially plotted data on a large poster board but then transferred that data to a SmartBoard for analysis of relative strengths and weaknesses and input for coaching decisions. One of the major problems that Arapaho high school teachers face is low attendance rates. The class began with only four of the 11 enrolled students in the room. But word traveled fast. Little by little, their friends (even some not enrolled in the class) came to see what all the commotion was about. Even in a content area of high interest to boys, the girls in the classroom engaged vigorously in the tech-based problem (http://youtu.be/aSXgCqrjkqs). Project-Based Learning An urban middle school class of children from mixed tribal origins tackled the project of using digital storytelling to create an interview that would become an intergenerational record of events of lasting importance to family, elders, community, and tribe. Working over a period of weeks, students began from scratch and had to find a topic that resonated for them and a suitable subject to interview. With a storyboard, each child mapped out a line of questioning for the interview, conducted the interview while simultaneously holding the palm video camera, edited, and produced the finished product. One student’s work, “Grandma with the Fry Bread,” was an endearing interview with a survivor of the Native boarding school experience (Sixth segment on Sampler Video at http://youtu.be/Ex3T2sUg6G8). 33 L. K. Silverman et al. Problem Solving When students get too used to the teacher supplying answers, any attempt to shift to a more problem-solving approach can be difficult. One solution is to inject an element of competition into the learning process, in which teams compete to find a correct solution path quicker than other teams. In many indigenous cultures, competitive behaviors are discouraged, so this instructional technique needs to be introduced with a culturally sensitive light touch. In a 5th grade class, students were using colorcoded cards with spelling words with the same sounding vowel blend, but derived from five different vowel combinations. For the competition, the cards were shuffled and dealt facedown for a Concentration-type game. Each team needed to figure out the code that unlocked the spelling game. By the time the final two teams faced off in the championship, the focus of both participants and spectators was intense (http://youtu.be/NxQ-4Jxk4To). Mathematics For visual-spatial students, mathematics presents a unique set of challenges – overreliance on rote memorization of basic math facts, algorithmic rules, formulas and equations, and insistence that students show step-by-step solutions. Algebra is the worst offender, but even two-column geometric proofs can confound highly visualspatial indigenous students (Haas, 2003a). Two examples of more engaging visualspatial math lessons are given below. For a 4th grade class learning about ratios, the meaning of whole and part, numerator and denominator, and ratio and equivalents were causing difficulties until each child could work with a bag of multicolored pre-counted M&Ms. Following visual counting and sorting work with the sample, students transferred that knowledge to their own sketches. The real connection of the math concepts with physical objects made it easier for the children to grasp those concepts and eventually to abstract those ideas into the meaning of ratio, disassociated from any applications (http://youtu.be/4vmMFomxOxY). In a fairly advanced topic from statistics, a 9th grade class was studying tagging and sampling of a population of unknown total to determine population size. A formulaic approach to the subject provides an answer but no understanding of the math principles. The students used Swedish fish candy and clipped tails off of a small sample. Through successive sampling, they calculated a converging value for total population. Students were also able to explain the deeper meaning of the statistical principle, confirming mastery of the topic (http://youtu.be/f69bHLb5x0). With large numbers of indigenous children, strength-based visual-spatial instruction in a culturally responsive classroom environment ensures engagement and in-depth learning. Visualization, visual materials, manipulatives, and projectbased learning are all essential. For learning to be meaningful, it must be culturally 34 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners relevant. Visual-spatial strategies, such as those described above, can bring all subject areas to life. (Please see www.VisualSpatial.org for free downloads of visual-spatial teaching strategies. Go to www.islaproject.wikispaces.com for more information about the Indigenous Students Leap Ahead program, on which this section is based.) THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN TEACHING VISUAL-SPATIAL LEARNERS Visual-spatial learners (VSLs) are among our most creative and divergent thinkers, yet they often feel excluded from mainstream education. Because they often don’t fit teachers’ preconceived ideas of how children learn, they may be perceived as rebellious, underachieving or slow. They are rarely acknowledged for their innovative ideas and unique solutions because they work slowly or fail to show their step-by-step work; they might have embellished the assignment in ways that the teacher finds distracting or non-compliant. These “commandments” provide some insight into the right-hemispheric world of visual-spatial learners, as well as ideas for engaging their imagination and enthusiasm for learning. Create Visual Materials to Present Ideas and Facts The visual-spatial learner (VSL) translates experiences and words into pictures; this allows memories to create an internal structure. When VSLs are asked to describe an event, they will first recall their mental “video” of the whole experience, and then find the needed facts within the context of that experience. This elaboration in image form takes longer than auditory-sequential processing (think computer download: compare download time and storage memory for a page of pictures vs. a page of words). By pairing pictures with words or movies during the presentation of an idea, VSLs are assimilating the information more directly and are more likely to anchor it in their long-term memory. Pictures require little or no repetition in order to be saved in memory. This is one of the reasons that VSLs rebel when forced to do repetitive work; either they have it in the mental photo album or they don’t. When teaching vocabulary, present the word list with the option of writing the definition in a sentence or creating a game out of the word. To reinforce spelling, have students place spelling words below pictures and visualize them together. If they can create a whole word picture, it is easier to recall the spelling. Other ways to reinforce vocabulary words and spelling are crossword puzzles, word searches, and Mad Lib-type fill in the blanks (which add humor and knowledge of parts of speech). Present Ideas, Facts and Information within a Context VSLs see the world as a whole, and then fill in the pieces of the puzzle. Because of this, they need to understand how a fact or idea fits into the big picture. In the classroom, this sometimes comes in the form of wanting to know why they need a 35 L. K. Silverman et al. skill, or when they are likely to apply that information. Teachers sometimes find this kind of question annoying, but it helps VSL students to place the task into a mental construct of the world. For VSLs, everything is connected in some way, and the teacher helps them learn to mentally organize information in the context of their lives. An example is an Art History program maintained by parents at Van Gogh Elementary School in Granada Hills, California. The overall program involved selecting 20 artists per year who had diverse styles, colorful personal lives, and used accessible materials. The children were given a ten-minute history of the artist with an emphasis on colorful personal facts (such as why Van Gogh cut off his ear, or that Monet had poor vision) and how his art was related to his life. (e.g., Picasso started painting his blue period when he broke up with his girlfriend). Next they were given an art medium that artist used (e.g. pastels, watercolors, acrylic paint, etc.), shown pictures of his art and allowed to create an original piece of art. The lesson became vivid, engaging, and memorable because facts were associated with humor, human interest, contextual awareness, personal creativity and actual hands-on manipulation of materials. Metaphors Work Like Magic to Illustrate Ideas Metaphors are a highly effective way to illustrate relationships, patterns, and ideas. Metaphors allow VSLs to compare experience and understanding. In addition to stimulating right-hemispheric conscious thoughts, they also work to unlock unconscious associations. These unconscious associations create new associations and understanding long after the conscious process has finished working; this is basically how dreams help us to work through concerns. The most reinforcing metaphors come from the children themselves. A good way to model this is by including familiar metaphors or similes in explanations. (e.g., Anger: “He exploded like a volcano.” Brainstorming: “To solve this problem, we need ideas to light our minds like fireworks light up the sky.”) Use Humor, Costume, Storytelling to Entertain and Inform Probably the most entertaining and effective way to illustrate an idea or to present information is by using cartoons or humorous stories. Even difficult concepts can easily be clarified with the right joke and will melt the anxiety that often accompanies confusion. The use of costume is particularly useful for enhancing attention and memory for VSLs. Teachers can use hats, costumes, props or puppets to demonstrate different characters in a story, or when changing subjects. Costume references to literature or famous people can anchor an idea in a spectacular way. For example, when assigning groups, a Selecting Hat from Harry Potter can bring pleasant associations to the process. 36 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners Current events and history are especially well suited to teaching in costume and illustrating ideas through cartoons. Humorous pictures or cartoon captions can be supplied by students. Teaching history lessons in costume, giving extra credit to reports presented in costume, and using period videos all are more easily accessed by VSLs. Presentations not only take on new meaning when the student has to dress the part, and present “in character,” but taking pictures of the presentation also helps jog memory for later retrieval. Inductive Logic: Inspiring Curiosity from the Right Hemisphere of the Brain Deductive logic is the sequential method of using reasoning to develop a rule. Using deductive logic, the conclusion follows from, is deduced from, or is inferred from the premises. The deduction starts as a specific statement or statements, and ends with a general statement. Inductive logic is when the conclusion “goes beyond” the premise; it is more like a puzzle in that it includes a challenge, rather than a statement. An easy way to apply this technique is by playing “What’s My Rule?” In this game, examples (such as math equations) are given and the students must use inference to uncover a general rule from these specific statements. 2×7=7×2 6×4=4×6 8×5=5×8 What’s My Rule? (See Silverman, 2002, pp. 283–286 for more examples.) The rule can then be tested by applying real numbers, or concrete examples. Another form of using inductive logic is to provide an answer and challenge the student to figure out the question or problems that will result in that answer. (E.g., “The answer is 42. How many creative ways can you arrive at this answer?”) Games and Puzzles Reinforce Concepts and Inspire Curiosity A wonderful way to reinforce skills and engage creative VSLs is to allow them to show what they know by creating a board game or puzzle that illustrates the concept or skill, and is enough fun that kids will want to play or solve it. The game must include whatever is being studied, all the covered material, and not be any more difficult than the test on the subject is likely to be. It also must be small enough to fit, with all its pieces, in a 9 × 12 inch manila envelope. Even if only some of these games turn into winners, eventually there is a set of reinforcing learning materials available for years to come. Name the game after the student: “Johnny’s Fraction Game” or “Susie’s Cell Parts Game” and use it as an incentive to finish assigned work early. (Note: the game board usually has to be folded to fit into the envelope; but that is another problem for the child to solve.) 37 L. K. Silverman et al. Simulate, Demonstrate, or Manipulate Something to Explain It Some of the most exciting educational programs use no words at all: a presentation for Heschel Elementary School in Los Angeles about the California missions was completely mimed by a “Spanish Conquistador.” The actor used a walking stick and grunts to supervise making adobe bricks and building an actual adobe wall around what later would become the garden of maize they planted. (They eventually cooked tortillas from the corn they grew and ground up using a rock, on a fire they started with a real flint!) The amazing thing was that the children in the class who became the “interpreters” and, therefore, “foremen” for the adobe-making were the VSLs who spoke English as a second language—children often behind in school because of their English deficiencies. In this context, they had an advantage—they were keen observers, and had already learned the nonverbal skills necessary to make meaning from context alone. Utilize Visualization and Mnemonic Techniques to Aid Memory Short-term memory is often a problem for VSLs. But, once an image is associated with a fact or idea, it enters long-term memory. While it may take VSLs longer to access memories (they have to sort through a lifetime of saved images), often memories are more vivid and complex. The most difficult facts to learn are numbers (dates), names, and anything out of context; adding a picture or related context can help. For instance, have VSLs imagine each spelling word as skywriting, or associate a picture with it and place the letters inside the picture. The computer is a fantastic tool for writing and spelling because it allows students to “see” the word and to edit and reorganize their writing by moving words or sentences around in different configurations. Images from the Internet are readily available to aid association. For names, VSLs can associate memory facts with humorous acronyms. The order of the planets is memorable as “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles,” otherwise known as Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Or, use rhymes (e.g., “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two”). Music is another wonderful mnemonic and rap music integrates facts by using both rhyme and rhythm. (Remember the Alphabet Song?) Model a Variety of Ways to Organize Thoughts and Ideas Most of us learned to organize our thoughts by creating an outline—a sequential and logical process that simply doesn’t match the way a VSL thinks. Two alternative ways to organize ideas recreate their “thought-burst process.” Tony Buzan (1991, 1996) has written extensively on his Mind-Mapping method of using pictures and something like a firecracker design to organize subjects and thoughts. Another organization technique uses a tree (trunk is the main topic) 38 Engaging Different Types of Gifted Learners and branches (the paragraphs), with smaller branches (sentences), and leaves (the details or descriptors.) Students can also make up their own organizing metaphors. Brainstorm subjects and associations, and then use their personal metaphors to organize the results. If an outline is an important skill to master, teach VSLs to put their ideas on 3 × 5 inch cards as they think of them; lay out and move the cards until they suggest a good outline. Or use the computer program, Inspiration (www.inspiration.com), which automatically does the translating for them. Honor Differences, Reward Innovations It’s ironic that visual-spatial students (often the least likely to get positive reinforcement from their teachers) are among those who are best motivated by encouragement and praise. VSLs tend to respond with enthusiasm when their creativity, ideas and innovations are acknowledged; they are commensurately sensitive to being hurt by criticism and disapproval. Often, just noting what is “right” will be enough to let VSLs know what they did wrong. Empathy, patience, approval, positive incentives, encouragement, and acceptance not only inspire VSLs to work harder, but often have a lasting impact on how they perceive their entire school experience. One way of honoring their different way of thinking is to give multiple grades, such as one for content and one for mechanics. Or give one for originality and one for following directions, or partial credit (honorable mention) when the student has created something original, but hasn’t completed the assigned task. Students deserve to be taught in the ways they learn best. Sometimes this involves thinking creatively. Involving the student in the process can often make it a positive experience for both teacher and student. 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