Who are the Gifted and talented students, and are they always successful?

There are different profiles of gifted and talented learners

Giftedness involves more than just high IQ scores

Gifted and talented learners do not always succeed at school

1. The High Achiever

2. The Challenger (usually creative)

3. The Underground student (who tries to hide their giftedness)

4. The Dropout (the classic underachiever)

5. The Double Labelled (physical, emotional or learning difficulty)

6. The Autonomous learner

Definition of giftedness When is gifted, ‘Gifted’? - Arbitrariness of

selection criteria

'Gifted' generally refers to the top 5% of the

school population in academic subjects and 'talented' to the top 5% in other subjects. (National Literacy Trust, 2009)

Multiple intelligence theory versus traditional IQ definition

Impact on students Research findings overwhelmingly

suggest that homogeneous grouping DOES NOT consistently help anyone learn more or better (Massachusetts Advocacy Centre, 1990; Thousand, Villa & Nevin cited in Sapon-Shevin, 2002, p. 38)

Organising children into high, average and low ability groups actually creates differences in what children learn by exposing them to different kinds of material. (Sapon-Shevin, 2002, p. 38-39)

‘gifted students often resist doing their assigned work because it does not provide the challenge and sense of accomplishment of meeting that challenge, that would keep them motivated to work’.

(AHISA, 2001)

Questioning Explicit modelling Feedback Cooperative learning Alternative assessments Pre-testing

Posing opened ended questions that require higher thinking.

Modelling thinking strategies, such as decision making and evaluation.

Accepting ideas from students and expanding them.

Facilitating original and independent problems and solutions.

Helping students identify rules, principles and relationships.

Taking time to explain your errors

Gifted children are those who do things a little earlier, a little faster, a little better and probably a little

differently from most other children (Education Queensland, 1993)

Association of Heads of Independent Schools in Australia. (2001). Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Children. [electronic resource]. Retrieved July 31, 2009 from www.aph.gov.au/senate/Committee/eet_ctte/.../gifted/.../sub034.doc

Bevan-Brown, Education Queensland. (2004). Framework for Gifted Education. [electronic resource].

Retrieved July 26, 2009 from education.qld.gov.au/publication/production/.../giftedandtalfwrk.pdf

Education Queensland. (2007). Gifted and Talented Students - Action plan 2008-2010. [electronic resource]. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from education.qld.gov.au/publication/.../giftedandtal-actionplan.pdf

Johnson and Ryser, Meisenberg, G. (2003) IQ Population Genetics: It’s not as simple as you think. [electronic

resource] Retrieved August 2, 2009 from http://www.mankindquarterly.org/winter2003_meisenberg.pdf

National Literacy Trust Website. (2009). http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/database/able.html Sapon-Shevin, M. (1999.) Because we can change the world: a practical guide to building

cooperative, inclusive classroom communities. Boston: Allyn & Bacon Vasilevska, 2003