Before we start with the actual information of this video I just want to provide a

little bit of background knowledge. I'm a real teacher this is my real classroom not

somebody that tells other people how they should teach without having been in that

situation myself. I get frustrated just like you do. I mess up just like everybody else

does. I'm not the perfect teacher. I have kids that don't like me and I have kids that do

like me. I'm a normal teacher and I'll tell you this because I want you to understand that

if you're watching this not having any idea about gifted students or how to meet their

needs or you might not even yet know that you're not doing it in the right way.

I want you to understand that I've been there okay. I've been in your position,

I've been in your shoes just until a couple of years ago, I didn't know that I was doing it

wrong but looking at the research reading some of the literature on gifted students, I

realized that I was I was falling short of some things and I was failing an entire group of

students. So when you when you hear the information in this video I just want you to

understand that it comes from a place of I don't know I've been there too. I've been a

little bit lost too when it comes to how to meet their needs. Please enjoy this video

hopefully it's informative and hopefully afterwards you'll be able to take a step in the

right direction if you're not already.

 All right enjoy there are a lot of hot topics that float around the world of Education

there's one area that often gets overlooked. Gifted students. Well it might seem like

these students have it easy but they actually need a lot more attention and challenge

than a lot of people realize. So let's delve into this subject a little further. First, what is

giftedness? Sure all children have something that they're good at but giftedness is an

actual identification used by researchers in the laws governing education is as

legitimate and identification as another subgroup. The generally agreed upon definition

of giftedness and students is the ability to demonstrate outstanding aptitude or

confidence in one or more domains. These domains could be intellectual it could be

athletic they could even be creative or artistic. Well every student might have something

that their parents would describe as a gift this is not the same thing as being gifted it's

also important to note that states and districts get a little bit of flexibility of how they

define giftedness in schools.

It was held to just one national standard then only the best students in the best

schools with the best teachers would be identified as gifted. The best practice for

identification procedures is that they should be multifaceted and not based solely off of

test scores. Now that we have an idea of what giftedness is, let's dispel some commonly

held myths about gifted students. Myth number one gifted students will be fine on their

own. With high-stakes testing the result is that educators put a lot of focus and effort

into struggling students so that everybody is able to grow and experience success. The

unintended consequence of this is that often times the needs of gifted students are

overlooked in the process at best the student is able to just get by maintain good grades
can fly under the radar but oftentimes a lack of attention challenge and support can lead

to boredom a lack of motivation and even acting out.

The biggest problem with this is that these students don't grow honestly theirs is

a different struggle that we don't always see. Myth number two a student with disabilities

or who has bad grades can't be gifted this is absolutely false sometimes the student’s

disabilities make it harder to identify or notice that student’s giftedness but it doesn't

cancel it out when you have a gifted student performing poorly on tests or getting bad

grades it's called underachievement. Underachievement can be caused by so many

different things. Ranging from just motivation to the environment of the classroom and

their home life and this is especially important for educators to pay attention to so that

students don't fall through the cracks. Myth number three, acceleration or grade

skipping is socially harmful to students there is a large body of research surrounding

acceleration that would suggest otherwise.

You see gifted students benefit from being with peers who are on the same

cognitive level as them in school shouldn't be the only place that these children are

getting social interaction and in an educational setting having those gifted students in

rooms with people who are on their same cognitive level can actually impact their social

skills in a very positive way. They're able to interact with kids that think like they do and

work at the same speed they do are able to engage these students these other students

in conversation they're honestly a lot of myths that educators still believe about gifted

students. It's our responsibility as educators to know these myths if we don't familiarize

ourselves with those myths we might keep doing the same thing over and over that is

harmful to that group of students.

 One of the biggest challenges faced by gifted students and any stakeholder in

their education is the issue of intensities and motivation we've all probably had that

student in class that just can't sit still. They disrupt your classes, they bounce around in

their seats, they draw on their desk, they call out but it doesn't always detract from their

learning those are the kids that it might look like they're staring off into space but when

you ask them a question boom they've got it. This could be something called an

intensity intensities are also called overexcite abilities and can occur in many different

forms. Researchers have boiled it down to about five areas you have psychomotor,

sensual, intellectual, imagination and emotional.

Gifted students with psychomotor excite abilities might seem restless. Those are

the ones that are bouncing out of their seats they have lots of energy.

Sensual overexcite abilities take the form of pleasure in sensual or aesthetic

experiences so these are the kids that might take a lot of time to make sure that their

handwriting is just right and they end up not getting something done. Students with

intellectual overexcite abilities are the ones that won't stop asking you questions.

Students with imagination intensity overexcite abilities are the ones that seem to be in

their own world. They have an easy time coming up with fantasy worlds and fantasy

characters and they also like to communicate things with imagery and metaphor.
 Finally, students with emotional overexcite abilities or intensities are the ones

that can be a little extra sensitive. Where you have to be really careful about what you

say to that student how you approach them and they have intense feelings of empathy a

lot of times these intensities and overexcite abilities might manifest themselves in ways

that seem problematic for educators. They show up is something that we think you

know what needs fixing for example a lot of times gifted students with those

psychomotor overexcite abilities or intensities are the ones that we have to know we

decide to sit out in the hall or you know we might discipline them a lot and a lot of times

they're misdiagnosed with a DD or ADHD so we need to reframe the way that we look at

these intensities and overexcite abilities in our gifted students. Instead of viewing them

in a negative light as something that needs fixing we should consider an over excitability

as an increased awareness in that field and if it's something that's nursery lot of growth

in that student if they can't help it and it's something that shapes the way that they

perceive their world.

They shouldn't be punished for that think about it like tapping into a power and

using it for good likewise educators don't need to let the negative perception of these

intensities impact the identification of that student in what I mean by that is if you have

that kid that's bouncing around out of their seats and you don't need to let that say oh

okay that kids not gifted because he has ADHD. We've really got to dig down to the root

cause of those things then there's the issue of motivation just like we probably all had

that student that bounces off the walls. We've also probably had that student that's

super intelligent but just doesn't seem to care.

 They won't put forth to work it won't put forth the effort to show what we know

that they're capable of their performance doesn't match their ability and thus you have

underachievement because of the lack of motivation. The presence of motivation or the

lack thereof can depend on one or more factors of these environment plays a huge role

both the learning environment at school and the social cultural environment that they

exist in everywhere else. The learning environment at school should be one that both

challenges supports and encourages gifted students so that boredom and complacency

don't set in if a gifted student is being drugged through the same Joules and concept is

everyone else when they show that they've mastered it they're probably not going to

have much motivation to give it all they've got and when the focus of class work is on

quantity and not quality you're going to see the motivation of gifted student drop-offs. If

you are giving a student, you know 50 math problems instead of 25 just because they're

doing better on it than others in a way that student might perceive that that's punishing

them for being smart. So here are some solutions to that if you have a gifted student

that you have a hard time motivating. Try giving them a little bit of choice in what they

are learning or what they're doing and instead of giving them more work give them more

challenging work that takes their mastery of the skill and pushes it to the next level.

Another way to increase motivation and gifted students is to help them

understand that their success is based off of their effort as well as their ability giving

students feedback. That comments on their effort rather than the outcome or the

acquisition and application of certain skills rather than just a grade can help students
realize that they actually do have a great deal of control over their success and this can

yield higher levels of motivation instead of saying to a student good job.

You could say it's very obvious that you put a lot of effort into this it puts the focus

on their effort rather than the outcome. It can help the students see that hard work plus

deep thought equals better answers. Now that we try to set the record straight on some

of the myths and misconceptions surrounding gifted students let's talk strategies. How

do we meet their needs? How do we solve some of these problems? How do we ensure

that they are properly challenged and supported both intellectually and emotionally in

our classrooms? Let's look at some strategies that are both based on research and I've

seen work in my own classroom number one acceleration. As we learned earlier

research shows that acceleration of gifted students is actually incredibly beneficial in

fact it might be the most effective way to meet their needs.

While scheduling for acceleration is honestly more the hands of the

administrators than it is the teachers there are still some things that can be done for

instance, if student is gifted in one area it might be important to note that giftedness in

that one area might not mean giftedness in all areas and that full-on acceleration might

not be what's best for that student when you have a situation like this, single subject

acceleration is a possibility if the personnel and resources are available. Having entire

classes or entire groups of gifted students can also reap the benefits of acceleration the

point of acceleration really is to just meet the needs of those students by providing them

with content that's challenging enough to continue their growth in a setting of like-

minded peers number two differentiation.

 Differentiation is probably the second best way to meet the needs of your gifted

students a lot of schools just don't have the funds and resources and personnel that are

needed to have full on acceleration of gifted students. Differentiation within a classroom

offers another way to present those same gifted students with equal amounts of

challenge in a differentiator lesson. Students are learning at a level that matches their

ability, they're working with content, working with concepts that are at the level that they

are the challenge and the content of the lesson is usually based off of pretest or some

other form of formative assessments with differentiation if a student shows that they're

not proficient with the skill then they might need to go back and work with that content

on a more foundational level.

Getting the basic knowledge’s, they need to achieve at higher levels later on a

student who's mastered the skill that's being taught might go on to try applying that

same skill at higher grade levels you know being held to higher grades standards or

they could go on to work with that same skill or that same content that's more in depth

levels. Maybe they're creating something new with that knowledge or with those skills

and with differentiation. Both of these things would be happening simultaneously within

a classroom. The gifted student isn't being bumped up a grade but they're still being

challenged in a way that fits their ability and it is very important to know that giving the

student more work is not differentiation, giving the student more challenging work is it's

about quality not quantity and no 50 problems instead twenty-five problems is not the

right type of challenge. Number three student choice.

 When we discuss motivation I talked about student choice as a possible

motivator. Self-selected learning is great way to meet the cognitive needs of gifted

students. It gives them the sense of autonomy and feeds their curiosity. Number four

programming. If your school just doesn't have the funds or personnel available to have

gifted classrooms or to accelerate students, then after-school programming is

something to look into. With after school or before school programming the options for

how the needs of gifted students are met. It's only limited by your imagination. There are

a number of organized programs that a teacher could actually facilitate that would

benefit gifted students such as talents unlimited or Odyssey of the mind but you can

also cater the program to meet the individual needs of students that are in the program

using interest inventories to find out what they like to do or what they would like to do

would incorporate that student choice that we talked about earlier.

The structure of the program could even allow these gifted students to be in

groups of like-minded peers which would have an impact on their social skills. If you're

an educator chances are you've recognized at least one of your students in things that

we described up until this point. If you haven't already hopefully you'll take the things

that you've learned today and take a step in the right direction towards meeting the

needs of gifted student. There are many resources out there that are available to both

educators and parents to help meet these needs. Here are some of the top ones a lot of

the information that I use comes from the National Association for gifted children in

AGC.
 It has a wealth of knowledge that are easy to access and highly consumable.

Meaning that it's not going to be like reading a research paper although it can link you to

research as well if that's something that you're into and obviously I recommend

checking that out. It is a great place to get started to get some of that foundational

knowledge that you'll need to start meeting the needs of your gifted students for

educators and parents I recommend checking out Tseng.org it's a resource that focuses

on meeting the social and emotional needs of gifted students but also has resources for

meeting their cognitive needs as well. All of this content can be accessed through their

website San gifted org. Finally if you're looking for some literature on students

meeting their needs strategies or paradigm shifts in education I recommend checking

out these books as educators we have a responsibility to all of our students all of our

students not just the ones that are visibly struggling because they're not performing as

well in class but also those that might be struggling internally the things that we can't

see you see just because they're gifted doesn't mean that they don't need our help it

doesn't mean that we can stick them in a corner and give them 50 problems instead of

25 we have to do what we know will help them grow if not we're failing them I know what

Tom's it can seem like a daunting task like it's just one more group of students that you

have to worry about but it's so worth it if you have any questions about gifted students

you can reach out to me or you can check out any one of the resources that have listed

in this video.