Forget Your Perfect Offering: Perfectionism and the Gifted Learner. When I was learning to quilt, the only consistent about my stitching were the mistakes. A friend reassured me that the famous and fabulous Amish quilters always placed a deliberate mistake in their quilts in recognition that only God is perfect. After that, whenever I made a mistake (often), I would shrug and say, “Oh, that’s just my Amish mistake” (or my 23rd Amish mistake, whatever), and go on. I have since discovered that the idea of an Amish mistake in a quilt isn’t really accurate, yet I still share it because it dovetails beautifully with an aspect of underachievement that has profound and far-reaching impact: perfectionism. In Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem,” he says, Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in. All too often gifted youth find it impossible to forget their perfect offering, instead sacrificing themselves, their time, and their talent on the altar of perfection seeking.
(C.P. Are We Failing Gifted Students? By Cindy Long Meet C.J. Wilson. He’s a fourteen-year-old from Alexandria, Va., who likes video games, going to the movies and playing neighborhood football with his friends. An accomplished swimmer and diver, C.J. also plays soccer and runs track—activities that, along with homework, gobble up most of his evenings. He’s intellectually gifted, and he represents a population that is sometimes overlooked in increasingly crowded classrooms. Challenge Gifted Students Or They’ll Do it For You Like most gifted students, C.J. is a straight “A” student with a soaring I.Q. “He’d ask me what different words meant that he’d read in the newspaper,” Kim Wilson, C.J.’s mom, recalls.
Either they’ll zone out or they’ll act out, says Del Siegle, Ph.D., a professor in gifted education and department head of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut and past president of the National Association of Gifted Children. Step on the Gas and Accelerate The Five “C’s” High Achiever, Gifted Learner, CreativeThinker. Identification of gifted students is clouded when concerned adults misinterpret high achievement as giftedness. High-achieving students are noticed for their on-time, neat, well-developed, and correct learning products. Adults comment on these students' consistent high grades and note how well they acclimate to class procedures and discussions. Some adults assume these students are gifted because their school-appropriate behaviors and products surface above the typical responses of grade-level students. Educators with expertise in gifted education are frustrated trying to help other educators and parents understand that while high achievers are valuable participants whose high-level modeling is welcomed in classes, they learn differently from gifted learners.
In 1989, Janice Szabos published a comparison of the bright child and the gifted learner. Later, in the second cartoon, the teacher poses a question to the class. Szabos, J. (1989). Tips for Teachers: Successful strategies for teaching gifted learners. Davidson Institute for Talent Development 2003 This article by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development offers a list of tips for teachers. It focuses on suggestions any teacher can use in the classroom to aid their gifted students and promote their achievement in positive ways. Common blunders are also discussed as well as why they can be detrimental to the gifted student.
Being a regular classroom teacher can be both an exciting and overwhelming experience. There are so many curriculums to cover, so many standards to meet, and so many things to learn. Tip #1: Familiarize Yourself with the Characteristics of Intellectually Gifted StudentsNot all gifted students in your classroom will be identified and even those who are may not always appear to be gifted. Tip #2: Let Go of "Normal"In order to be an effective teacher, whether it's your first year or your 30th, the best thing you can do for yourself is to let go of the idea of "normal. " Permission Statement Comments. To Teach Gifted Learners Well. THE DOS AND DON'TS OF INSTRUCTION:What It Means To Teach Gifted Learners Well by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Ed.D, The University of Virginia Some people suggest that gifted education is just sort of "fluffy" or enriching-gravy on the potatoes, perhaps, but not anything especially substantial or critical in the way of mental fare.
Others propose that all gifted education is what's good for all students. Unfortunately, those two criticisms sometimes stem from observing classrooms where gifted learners are taught inappropriately. So what does it mean to teach a highly able student well? Of course it will vary some with the age of the child, the subject, the learning style of the student-and possibly even the child's gender or culture. Certainly appropriate instruction for such learners varies for a child who comes to school rich with experiences vs. a child who is equally able but lacks richness of experience. Good Instruction for Gifted Learners Inappropriate Instruction for Gifted Learners. Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn. For years, many educators have championed “errorless learning," advising teachers (and students) to create study conditions that do not permit errors. For example, a classroom teacher might drill students repeatedly on the same multiplication problem, with very little delay between the first and second presentations of the problem, ensuring that the student gets the answer correct each time.
The idea embedded in this approach is that if students make errors, they will learn the errors and be prevented (or slowed) in learning the correct information. But research by Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays and Robert Bjork at U.C.L.A. that recently appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition reveals that this worry is misplaced. In fact, they found, learning becomes better if conditions are arranged so that students make errors. Some readers may look askance at the use of word pairs, even though it is a favorite tactic of psychologists.
Are you a scientist? Brain_research_for_teacher_2013.pptx. NRC/GT—Winter '98 Newsletter-Distinguishing Myths From Realities: NRC/GT Research. Marcia Gentry Mankato State University Mankato, MN Karen Kettle Durham Board of Education Whitby, Ontario How well do you know the research findings of the NRC/GT? We developed a quiz to test the extent to which you can really identify what the research says. You often see and hear the phrase "the research says" to support a strongly held viewpoint. But you should ask yourself, does it really say that?
We scanned 11 NRC/GT publications and modified or quoted findings. See how well you know the research by marking each statement with (M) Myth or (R) Reality. Now check your responses with the following key. Research Documentation Cooperative learning in heterogeneous groups provides academic benefits for gifted and talented students. References Ableman, R. (1992). Clark, G. Delcourt, M. Hoge, R. Jackson, N. Kulik, J. Robinson, A. (1991). Robinson, N. Rogers, K. Runco, M. Sheffield, L.