SPED 3100

April 22, 2015

Group Project/ Reading Summary: Giftedness

Ashley Kania

Giftedness

How children are identified

o IQ tests are the most common way gifted children identified
o Maybe one day students will instead be identified through: portfolio assessments
or teacher nominations
o How might a teacher recognize this
Might look like ADHD
Look for characteristics such as curiosity, rapid rates of development,

creativity, thoughtfulness, and innovativeness.

Educational impact- how students are perceived as disabled
o Negative attitude about them
o Belief that they do not need special services to reach their full potential and
develop their talents
o Some educators believe that gifted students/individuals should be merged with the
general education classroom or even just be eliminated altogether.
Beliefs are probably the reason why services are not guaranteed or

included under IDEA as it is for students with disabilities

Characteristics
o Intellectual/academic
Reasons abstractly
Learns quickly
Has wide interests
Highly motivated by academic tasks
Focuses and concentrates on topic or idea for long periods of time
o Social/emotional
Empathizes
Criticizes self
Has strength of character
Experiences great stress from failure
Strives for perfection
Independent and autonomous
Howard Gardners Multiple Intelligence
o Bodily-Kinesthetic body smart
o Musical music smart
o Visual-Spatial picture smart
o Intrapersonal self-smart
o Naturalistic nature smart
o Logical-Mathematical logic smart

SPED 3100
April 22, 2015
Group Project/ Reading Summary: Giftedness

Ashley Kania

o Verbal-Linguistic word smart

o Interpersonal people smart
Gifted students feeling on general education
o The curriculum is not challenging
o The instructional pace is too slow
o Too much mastered information is repeated
o Few opportunities are available to study topics of personal interest or in more
depth
o Emphasis on mastery of facts, rather than on thinking skills, predominates
o For gifted students, the general education classroom alone cannot provide the
challenges they require to remain motivated or to learn an accelerated and

comfortable pace.
Teacher tips
o Foster divergent and creative thinking
o Make behavior expectations clear
o Be more flexible to students
o Include a range of instructional activities that engage individual students
o Keep in mind that there is no single answer to a problem or question
o Allow students to be unique and color outside the lines