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).

Deduction & Induction In logic, we often refer to the two broad methods of reasoning as the deductive and inductive approaches. Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a “top-down” approach. We might begin with thinking up a theory about our topic of interest. Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. These two methods of reasoning have a very different “feel” to them when you’re conducting research. Is It a Cheetah? By Stephanie S. Tolan © 1996 Stephanie S. Tolan It's a tough time to raise, teach or be a highly gifted child. Giftedness, a global, integrative mental capacity, may be dismissed, replaced by fragmented "talents" which seem less threatening and theoretically easier for schools to deal with. The child who does well in school, gets good grades, wins awards, and "performs" beyond the norms for his or her age, is considered talented. A cheetah metaphor can help us see the problem with achievement-oriented thinking. But cheetahs are not always running. It's not difficult to identify a cheetah when it isn't running, provided we know its other characteristics. Its chief food is the antelope, itself a prodigious runner. While body design in nature is utilitarian, it also creates a powerful internal drive. Despite design and need however, certain conditions are necessary if it is to attain its famous 70 mph top speed. If a cheetah is fed Zoo Chow it may not run at all.

Fluid and crystallized intelligence History[edit] Fluid versus crystallized intelligence[edit] Fluid intelligence (gf) refers to basic processes of reasoning and other mental activities that depend only minimally on prior learning (such as formal and informal education) and acculturation. Horn notes that it is formless, and can "flow into" a wide variety of cognitive activities [7] Tasks measuring fluid reasoning require the ability to solve abstract reasoning problems. Examples of tasks that measure fluid intelligence include figure classifications, figural analyses, number and letter series, matrices, and paired associates.[6] Crystallized intelligence (gc) refers to learned procedures and knowledge. An example of the application of fluid and crystallized abilities to problem-solving[edit] Horn[7] provided the following example of crystallized and fluid approaches to solving a problem. "There are 100 patients in a hospital. Relationship to Piaget's theory of cognitive development[edit] Raven's Progressive Matrices[edit]

What Are the Characteristics of Effective Teachers of the Gifted? Knowing the characteristics of the best teachers of gifted students would be helpful for a variety of reasons. Understanding these characteristics could help in the training of teachers, in hiring of teachers of the gifted, and in helping parents assess who might best serve their children. Although it would be helpful to understand the characteristics of the best teachers of gifted students, there does not appear to be a general consensus of what those characteristics are. There have, however, been a number of studies that attempt to synthesize this information. An interesting discussion question might be how the characteristics of a teacher of the gifted might differ from the characteristics of an exemplary teacher of any type of student. Based on questionnaire data and needing more thorough research, effective teachers of the gifted have the following characteristics: Student responses suggest effective teachers of the gifted need to