Advanced Placement courses - (AP) college-level courses for high school students

Asynchronous development - Differing rates for physical, cognitive, and emotional development. For example, a gifted child may be chronologically 13 years old, intellectually 18, emotionally 8, and physically 11. The discrepancies are greatest for everyone at the chronological age of about 13, but the extremes displayed by gifted children have led some experts to define giftedness itself as asynchronous development. If you tell a gifted child to "Act your age!" s/he could legitimately respond: “Which one?”

Authentic assessment - evaluation of student performance by a real, intended audience, ex. artwork evaluated by artists

Cluster grouping - three or more gifted students grouped together within a heterogeneous classroom with a teacher who has the desired and expertise to work with these gifted students

College in the Schools – University course work taught by our high school teachers

Complexity - element of differentiation, which refers to making connections among academic disciplines and to relating information across time

Conceptual thinking - stating a big idea (concept or abstract idea) that applies across time, cultures, and disciplines

Consultation - planning in which the Gifted Services Coordinator works with the cluster teacher suggesting curriculum, strategies, and materials that the classroom teacher can use with the gifted learners

Core classes - math, science, language arts, social studies

 

Credit for Prior Learning - A process by which students are recognized, through an assessment, for their prior knowledge.  Credit may be awarded

Depth - element of differentiation which includes elaboration of details and evidence, finding patterns of recurring events, identifying trends that affect concepts, describing rules, standards, issues and ethics, applying principles, theories, and generalizations

The Differentiated Classroom - Teachers may use numerous strategies and tools to differentiate instruction. Regardless of the specific combination of techniques one might observe, there are several key characteristics or elements that form the foundation of effective differentiated learning environments:
• Teachers and students accept and respect one another's similarities and differences.
• Assessment is an ongoing diagnostic activity that guides instruction. Learning tasks are planned and adjusted based on assessment data.
• All students participate in respectful work -- work that is challenging, meaningful, interesting, and engaging.
• The teacher facilitates students becoming self-reliant learners.
• Students and teachers collaborate in setting class and individual goals.
• Students work in a variety of group configurations, as well as independently. Flexible grouping is evident.
• Time is used flexibly in the sense that pacing is varied based on student needs.
• Students often have choices about topics they wish to study, ways they want to work, and how they want to demonstrate their learning.
• The teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to help target instruction to student needs.
• Students are assessed in multiple ways, and each student's progress is measured at least in part from where that student begins.

Flexible pacing - any provision that places a student at an appropriate instructional level and allows a student to move forward in the curriculum as mastery of content and skills are achieved; may include such options as continuous progress, subject advancement, and early entrance

Flexible skill groups - fluid instructional grouping of students determined by continuously pre-assessing students’ level of knowledge about each lesson’s focus; students are placed with students at a similar level of knowledge; therefore, groups change membership regularly

Gifted learners - students who perform, or show potential for performing, at notably high levels of accomplishment and problem-solving when compared with others of their age and experience who require a wide variety of educational opportunities and experiences beyond the regular instructional program

Grade acceleration- students who meet standards earlier than expected and are counseled to progress through grade levels at a rate commensurate with their ability and effort

Heterogeneous grouping- grouping students of various abilities together

Higher order questioning - questions that require the highest levels of thinking processes, ex. analysis, synthesis, evaluation

Homogeneous grouping - grouping students of similar abilities and/or skill levels

Honors courses - advanced courses in both the middle school and high schools that cover traditional content but also focus on issues, problems and themes related to complex topics.

Independent study - option for self-directed students who demonstrate content mastery, may contract with teacher to accelerate or enrich learning by pursuing a study of a special interest

Interdisciplinary curriculum - synthesizes content of two or more academic disciplines

Intellectual peers - students with similar intellectual abilities

Intelligence - A general concept of mental ability, often summed up as the ability to learn from experience. The concept was put into a measurable form as intelligence quotient, but theorists such as Howard Gardner believe there are multiple intelligences which traditional IQ tests do not sample. Others counter that multiple intelligences are merely manifestations of an underlying general factor ("Spearman's g"). Pragmatically in schools, intelligence has come to mean whatever intelligence tests measure, regardless of the test's reliability or validity.

Intelligence quotient (IQ) -A quantitative representation of cognitive ability which results from testing a sample of cognitive skills.

Levels of giftedness - According to IQ measurements, the following labels are generally accepted: Bright - 115 and above Gifted - 130 and above Highly gifted - 145 and above Exceptionally gifted -160 and above Profoundly gifted - 175 and above

 

Mentor - a tutor or coach who provides education and support in a particular area of expertise for an individual student

Multi-age grouping - grouping students of various ages together for instruction

 

Multiple Intelligences (MI) - Howard Gardner’s theory of eight distinct intelligences: linguistic, logical/ mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist

Multiple criteria - many factors examined to determine students’ academic placement such as test scores, classroom performance, checklists, and informal observations

Nurture - recognize, support, and extend the knowledge, skill, and motivation of students with potential

Overexcitabilities - A term originated by Kazimierz Dabrowski to describe excessive response to stimuli in five psychic domains (psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional) which may occur singly or in combination. Overexcitabilities are often used to describe certain characteristics of the gifted. “It is often recognized that gifted and talented people are energetic, enthusiastic, intensely absorbed in their pursuits, endowed with vivid imagination, sensuality, moral sensitivity and emotional vulnerability. . . . [They are] experiencing in a higher key.” - Michael Piechowski. Extreme overexcitabilities or a strong imbalance between them may reduce the individual's ability to function in society.

Performance-based assessment - evaluation of student products, which demonstrate applied learning rather than evaluation through testing

Problem-based learning (PBL) - learning that engages students in problem-finding and problem-solving within a context that is meaningful to students by offering a range of student-selected topics and authentic opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding

Prodigy - A child (usually under age 10) who is able to perform at an adult level in a specific skill. Unlike savants, prodigies often have high intelligence and are aware of their thinking strategies.

Real-world problem solving - empowers students to use critical, creative, and practical thinking as they tackle community problems; students learn to assess what they already know, identify what they need to know, gather information, propose solutions, and work together to affect change

Skill grouping - flexible grouping that places students with similar skills together for instruction

Strengths - a gifted student’s abilities, skills and capacity; identified to determine the appropriate level of expanded services

Subject acceleration - based on assessment, students are allowed to test out and bypass specific subjects or skill levels; students might receive instruction at a higher level with another group of students and yet remain with their age peers for most of the instructional day

Under-represented populations - minority populations traditionally under-represented in gifted programs such as underachievers, handicapped, females, culturally diverse, and students of low socioeconomic status