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The elephant in the room

Represents the community population

Regular classes

Not as diverse

Gifted classes

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Black and Brown

Twice-Exceptional

Children you do not see with as much frequency in gifted programming

Underrepresented Gifted

Students

Economically Disadvantaged

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34%

Economically disadvantaged early high achievers were formally identified by their schools as gifted

30%

Black early high achievers were formally identified by their schools as gifted

Compared to…

Among other early high achievers, over half were identified as gifted

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Identifying the Students

Research/data found those students who scored a 121 or higher often ended up being identified as gifted on the next assessment
We started our pool of students at a 120 SAI

Determine a pool

We have 7 elementary buildings in the district
Took the top 13 student scores from each building
Sometimes this went down to a 110, others a 104

Used local building norms

Made sure they knew this was not gifted services
Only a few did not accept the invitation
Gave us 91 students

Got parent buy-in

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Different mix of students

33 of the 91 students were underrepresented students
This more clearly mirrored the district breakdown
Two special education students

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Setting the schedule

The focus would be on enrichment
30 minutes
3 times a week (other two days we offered Math enrichment for those that qualified

Done during E/I time

GIS staff member
Would not be the teacher of record
Not beholden to content standards

Staffing

Would create common curriculum
If teacher had something they preferred to use they could do that instead
Would hold TBTs on what was working

Pacing

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Talent and

Individual

Development

Enrichment

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Developing the Curriculum

Took a growth mindset approach
Focused on the type of thinking, not the product
Wanted students to dig deeper

Teach cognitive skills

Wanted students to develop executive function skills as well as build cognitive
Students could work on projects independently on the days not spent in TIDE
Always a sharing of products

Project-Based Learning

There would be no grades
Feedback was provided though
Students gave each other feedback as well

Grading

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Giving them Permission

What could this eraser be used for?

A-HA Moment

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Some of the projects

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Our results

21 of 91 students qualified for gifted programming before the program was over
Students and parents reported students feeling more confident

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Some projects we worked on

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Barriers and possible solutions

Difficult to change cognitive scores
Our solution is to still use the icons but make it more content based where movement is more likely

With only a half hour it was difficult to get students for the allotted time. Anything preempted TIDE class
Moving to 2^nd grade to avoid testing that took away a lot of classes (3^rd grade reading guarantee)

Outside work was hard to complete back in their home class. Teachers were more interested in intervention
Work will mostly be done in class

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This year

Expanding the program

Moved it down to focus on 2^nd graders

Hired a GIS specifically to develop the work with the Talent Development students

Dedicated more staffing to title 1 buildings

Will assess for cognitive spring of 1^st grade year to create pool sooner

Will be a mix of gifted and talent development children

We have seen that our high SES buildings tend to have more identified gifted prior to programming and title 1 buildings very few if any

Last year we used one data point and students stayed in for the year. Now we are reassessing for 2^nd semester based on updated data

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How will you develop talent in your school?

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Thanks

Any questions?�You can find me at:

@the_gifted_guy
thegiftedguy@yahoo.com
www.thegiftedguy.com

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