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Teaching Gifted & Talented Students Online


Course Outline


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

  • Identify issues and concerns with giftedness
  • Define terms associated with giftedness
  • Identify issues and concerns regarding teaching the gifted and talented student
  • Appraise program options for gifted students.
  • Examine methods for selecting students for participation in gifted programs
  • Recognize that curriculum and basic pedagogy are fundamentals related to giftedness
  • Recognize what constitutes a ‘structure’ of knowledge
  • Iimplement instructional strategies for use with students who are gifted
  • Design an analytical model for organizing the classroom to teach all students
  • Identify and analyze additional methods for teaching the gifted
  • Interpret the difference between the pursuit of excellence and perfectionism among gifted students
  • Analyze the problem of uneven integration
  • Identify and name different ways of being gifted
  • Describe the signs of emotional problems
  • Differentiate between self-image and self-esteem
  • Report intellectual issues gifted students endure
  • Analyze the frustration of having too many options
  • Identify why gifted students do not meet expectations
  • Review the role of curriculum in underachievement
  • Define "selective consumer"
  • Evaluate various definitions of giftedness
  • Evaluate various theories concerning the ways of knowing
  • Evaluate giftedness from a national perspective

Curriculum Design & 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 Skill Requirements

Students may use either a Macintosh computer or a PC with Windows 2000 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 Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox etc.

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

Session 1: Course Orientation and Overview
Contents:
  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

Session 2: Giftedness: An Overview
Contents:
  1. Identify issues and concerns regarding teachingthe gifted and talented student
  2. Review program options for gifted students

Session 3: How Gifted Are Identified
Contents:
  1. Identify ways gifted students are selected for participation in a gifted program
  2. Define several fundamentals related to giftedness
    • The curriculum
    • Basic pedagogy

Session 4: Gifted Curriculum Matrix
Contents:
  1. Identify a "structure" of knowledged
  2. Construct a "Gifted Curriculum Matrix"

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

Session 6: Emotional Dimensions of Giftedness
Contents:
  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

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

Session 8: Meetin Expectations
Contents:
  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

Session 9: The Epistemology of Giftedness
Contents:
  1. Consider a definition of giftedness
  2. Consider ways of knowing

Session 10: "It's not easy being green." - Kermit the Frog
Contents:
  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

1. Participation: Participate in all Forum activities and dialogue with colleagues.
2. Reading Assignments: Students will complete all assigned reading in the textbook,
Web sites, and research articles or best practices and answer questions in the appropriate Forum thread.
3. Final Project: Complete and present the required course project. Review research and literature on teaching the gifted, and identify several major findings or themes. Based on these key research themes, design a unit of study for your students. This unit should consist of five lessons, each containing a list of objectives and a description of activities and content.

Student Academic Integrity

Participants guarantee that all academic class work is original. Any academic dishonesty or plagiarism (to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one's own), is a violation of student academic behavior standards as outlined by our partnering colleges and universities and is subject to academic disciplinary action.

Register

To register to take TEI's Teaching Gifted & Talented Students Online course, go to the Course Registration page.