Course Description
Teaching gifted students provides classroom teachers the strategies and techniques they can use to meet the academic and emotional needs of the gifted and talented. Course content includes practical approaches for challenging the most able students in the regular classroom, pull-out, or full-time classes for gifted students. A course emphasis is upon ways of knowing (epistemology) unique to gifted students, and an appropriate pedagogy to specifically enhance each student's giftedness.

Objectives
• Acquire the knowledge and skill to design and develop a comprehensive program appropriate for gifted and talented students in your school and classroom
• Acquire the knowledge and skill to accurately identify gifted and talented students, Pre-K through 12th grade
• Identify a pedagogy and curriculum format that meets the unique attributes of gifted and talented students
• Learn to design compacted, accelerated, enriched, differentiated, thematic, project and independent study, and inquiry study approaches
• Identify and articulate the social, political, parental, and misconceptions faced by teachers of the gifted and talented
• Locate and use educational, psychological, and longitudinal studies to improve educational opportunities for gifted and talented students
• Address the issues and concerns with tests and testing as they relate to the identification, placement, and teaching of gifted and talented students
• Delineate an epistemological system unique to giftedness

Time Requirements
Teaching Gifted and Talented Students is a 13 week 3 credit graduate level or sixty hour professional development course taught online.  Modules 1 through 10 will be completed over a 13 week period.

Hardware & Computer Skills Requirements
Students may use either a Macintosh computer or a PC with Windows 95 or higher. Students should possess basic word processing skills and have internet access with an active e-mail account. Students also are expected to have a basic knowledge of how to use a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer or America Online's (AOL) browser. To download a browser at no cost, visit one of the following Web sites – Netscape.com; Microsoft.com and AOL.com.

Course Materials
The required textbook for this course is When Gifted Kids Don't have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs by Jim Delisle & Judy Galbraith, Free Spirit Publishing, 2002. A variety of readings will be referenced throughout the course. Included in the course materials is a copy of the bell curve for each student. A comprehensive "Research Bibliography" is included in the student manual. In addition, selected Web resources will be read and reviewed.

Session Outline
Module 1: Course Orientation and Overview
Content:
  1. Review course objectives and requirements
  2. Become familiar with course navigation system
  3. Class participants introduce themselves
  4. Complete the Issue and Concerns Survey
  5. Defining terms

Module 2: Giftedness: An Overview
Before beginning this module, read Chapter One in the course text.
Content:
  1. Identify issues and concerns regarding teaching the gifted and talented student
  2. Review program options for gifted students

Module 3: How the Gifted Are Identified
Before beginning this module, read Chapter Two in the course text.
Content:
  1. Identify ways gifted students are selected for participation in a gifted program
  2. Define several fundamentals related to giftedness
       • The curriculum
       • Basic pedagogy

Module 4: Gifted Curriculum Matrix
Before beginning this module, read Chapter Three in the course text.
Content:
  1. Identify a "structure" of knowledged
  2. Construct a "Gifted Curriculum Matrix"

Module 5: Adapting Pedagogy for Gifted Students
Content:
  1. Design an analytical model for organizing the classroom to teach all students
  2. Identify and analyze methods for teaching the gifted

Module 6: Emotional Dimensions of Giftedness
Before beginning this module, review Chapter Three and read Chapter Four in the course text.
Content:
  1. Recognize among gifted students the difference between the pursuit of excellence and perfectionism
  2. Understand the problem of uneven integration
  3. Identify and name different ways of being gifted
  4. Recognize signs of emotional problems

Module 7: Great Expectations: The Burden of Potential
Content:
  1. Distinguish between self-image and self-esteem
  2. Recognize intellectual issues gifted students endure
  3. Understand the frustration of having too many options

Module 8: Meeting Expectations
Before beginning this module, read Chapter Six in the course text.
Content:
  1. Define underachievement as it relates to gifted students
  2. Review the role of curriculum in underachievement
  3. Identify the label of giftedness as a contributor to underachievement

Module 9: The Epistemology of Giftedness
Before beginning Module Nine, finish reading the course text.
Content:
  1. Consider a definition of giftedness
  2. Consider ways of knowing

Module 10: "It's not easy being green." – Kermit the Frog
Before beginning Module Ten, review Chapter Eight in the course text.
Content:
  1. Review the course
  2. Compose a classroom strategy to meet the unique needs of gifted students

Grading

		Assignment	Points			Grading Scale
		Group and Online Participation	20			100 – 93	A
		Reading Assignments	10			92 – 85	B
		Module Reflections	25			84 – 77	C
		Final Project	45
		Total Points	100

Student Requirements

Bibliography

	•	Berndt, D.J., Kaiser, C.F. & Van Aaalst, F. (1982). Depression and self-actualization in gifted adolescents. Journal of Clinical Psychology 38: 142-150
	•	Boyer, A. (1989). Surviving the blessing: Parenting the highly gifted child. Understanding Our Gifted, 1 (3), pp. 5, 17, 20-21
	•	Cohen, LeoNora M. Mapping the Domains of Ignorance and Knowledge in Gifted Education. Roeper Review February/March 1996, Vol. 18 No. 3 p. 183
	•	Daniel, N. & Cox, J. (1988). Flexible pacing for able learners. Reston, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children. (ED 298 725)
	•	Grost, A. (1970). Genius in Residence. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
	•	Higham, S. & Buescher, T.M. (1987). What young gifted adolescents understand about feeling different. In T.M. Buescher (Ed.), Understanding gifted and talented adolescents (pp. 26-30). Evanston, IL: The Center for Talent Development, Northwestern University
	•	Janos, P.M. & Robinson, N.M. (1985). The performance of students in a program of radical acceleration at the university level. Gifted Child Quarterly, 29 (4), 175-179
	•	Kaiser, C.F. & Berndt, D.J. (1985). Predictors of loneliness in the gifted adolescent. Gifted Child Quarterly 29: 74-77
	•	Kline, B.E. & Meckstroth, E.A. (1985). Understanding and encouraging the exceptionally gifted. Roeper Review, 8 (1), 24-30
	•	Lewis, G. (1984). Alternatives to acceleration for the highly gifted child. Roeper Review, 6 (3), 133-136
	•	Powell, P.M. & Haden, T. (1987). The intellectual and psychological nature of extreme giftedness. Roeper Review, 6 (3), 127-130
	•	Rogers, Karen, A Study of 241 Profoundly Gifted Children, Online Document, June 27, 1998
	•	Tolan, S.S. (1989). Special problems of young highly gifted children. Understanding Our Gifted, 1 (5), 1, 7-10

Register
To register to take TEI's Teaching Gifted & Talented Students online course, visit our Course Registration page.