![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
The author interviewed Dr. Carolyn Callahan, an eminent scholar in gifted education. The interview focused on Dr. Callahan’s work on implementing gifted program in rural areas, and illustrated her suggestions for teachers, researchers, and parents on how to advocate for gifted students.
One of our big jobs in building the curriculum is to change teachers’ expectations for rural students by teaching the students to see that they can really succeed; and then when they do succeed the teachers will see it and believe . . . Our goal is also to make every unit cost-efficient, and every one of these units costs almost nothing to implement.
—Carolyn CallahanIntroduction
Dr. Carolyn M. Callahan is the Commonwealth Professor of Education at Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia (UVa), where she served as the UVa director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented for over 20 years. She is currently coprincipal investigator of the National Center for Research on Gifted Education. She developed the graduate program in gifted education and the Summer and Saturday Enrichment Programs for gifted students at UVa. Dr. Callahan has received numerous recognitions and awards, among which are Outstanding Faculty Member in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Outstanding Professor of the Curry School of Education, Distinguished Higher Education Alumnae of the University of Connecticut, Distinguished Scholar Award, and Distinguished Service Award from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). She is also a past president of NAGC, the Virginia Association for the Gifted, and the Association for the Gifted. Dr. Callahan’s research has been supported by many grants and awards, and recently, she received two large research grants, one from the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program, focusing on rural gifted students; and the other in conjunction with the University of Connecticut, focusing on identification and successful programming for underserved gifted students. With these two new grants totaling nearly US$4 million, Dr. Callahan, Moon, Oh, Azano, and Hailey (2014) aim to improve the quality of gifted and talented programming specifically for underrepresented student groups in both urban and rural settings.
Dr. Callahan has published broadly in the area of education, and her research interests include underrepresented populations, rural education, gifted females, program evaluation, performance assessments, and curricular and programming options for highly able students including Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.
Interview
Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk with you, and it is wonderful to see you again.
You are more than welcome. Very nice to see you too.
You and your research team at the National Center for Research on Gifted Education have been working hard on different projects. Could you please explain what you have been doing?
Currently, we have two large grants. The first one is in conjunction with the University of Connecticut. The co-principal investigators (co-PIs) include Dr. Del Siegle, Dr. Betsy McCoach, Dr. E. Jean Gubbins, and me—We are all within the National Center for Research in Gifted Education (NCR/GE), but the other four co-PIs are from the University of Connecticut. We have identified three states in which the state database identifies those students who have been identified as gifted and who have not been identified as gifted. We have been engaged in a multi-step process to first find schools that are successful in identifying underserved gifted students—primarily minority students and second-language learners—and second, to identify schools that have been successful in providing programs that lead to success of these students. We have third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade achievement data in Math and Reading to use to make that identification. We are looking at which districts identify larger numbers of traditionally and historically under-represented populations. We are looking at their programs and curriculum and trying to find out in which districts the programs make a difference for gifted students, and how they do so. Specially, we look at in which districts do gifted programs make the most difference for those historically under-represented populations.
The second grant is Project PLACE, which is funded by the Jacob Javits grant with two million dollars. Amy Azano and I are the coprincipal investigators. That grant is investigating alternative identification and using CLEAR curriculum in rural setting (Azano, 2012). This project is focusing on adapting identification processes to find greater numbers of gifted students in impoverished rural schools and to offer them the “CLEAR Curriculum” that we developed for the “What Works” project, which we have purposely adapted for rural gifted students. This project is taking place in Virginia, and we have identified rural districts that have high property rates. We developed a staff development program and we have gone into those schools to conduct professional development workshops on spotting giftedness in rural student populations. We asked teachers to rate all second grade students on learning, reading, and motivation using the Scales for Rating the Characteristics of Superior Students. We also administer the CogAT-Verbal subtest to all the second grade students, and we looked for kids who were scoring high relative to other students at their school on the test and on the rating scales to select additional students for the gifted program. Then, we start implementing the “CLEAR Curriculum” units with these students and their traditionally identified peers. All the units have been modified to reflect the rural interests and are also modified to deal with the stereotype treats and mind-sets. These concepts have been integrated into the curriculum. We implemented the project in two districts during Year 1 (one experimental and one control) and have identified 8 more districts for participation as experimental or control schools for Year 2. The academic year of 2015-2016 is the first year and is our pilot year. For 2016-2017, we will be able to reflect on the curriculum data we have collected so as to provide guidance to what we can do in the four experimental districts we have identified for next year.
How did you come to focus on rural gifted education?
Like many in our field, my interest in gifted rural students is a combination of personal experiences and the trajectory of my work over the past 40+ years. I come from a very rural community, and as I have reflected on the experiences in my pre-university years, I have often noted both the positives and negatives of attending a very small school with limited resources. Those experiences always underlie my thinking about school opportunities. So as my work in evaluation of gifted programs evolved and then I began to focus on the identification of gifted student in the early NRC projects, I find my concerns evolved into attention to programming options (including AP and IB programs as well as grouping arrangements) and then evolved into looking at curriculum and what works for gifted learners. The evaluation work I was still doing was constantly reflecting stakeholders’ concerns about which model of curriculum is “best.” Hence, the deliberate intention of trying to integrate the “best of the best” led to the development of CLEAR curriculum model based on Renzulli, Kaplan, and Tomlinson. As the study of that curriculum evolved, the issues that teachers had in implementation of the curriculum in rural settings became evident to Tracy Missett, Amy Azano, and me (2015). We saw patterns in the fidelity data and in the many questions we received from those teachers that indicated that there were issues faced in identification, programming, and curricular relevance that needed more attention than the field was according to those settings. So I was brought full circle back to my childhood!
How does this “CLEAR Curriculum” model work?
The key is the whole differentiation process has been built into the curriculum. Our assumption is, it would be more beneficial for teachers if we show what to do step by step, instead of going to the school and telling them what to do in a workshop and then leave the differentiation work up to them. I believe that there are about 25% teachers who can really develop and modify curriculum for differentiation and are willing to do so, and 50% of teachers can and will implement it if you give them the differentiated curriculum, and the other 25% either can’t or won’t do either. However, I don’t think the average teacher has the time, the background, and the skills to really modify the curriculum in the high quality way that we hope for. Even worse, the research shows that when teachers do modify their curriculum, they usually modify for just the struggling learners, not the higher end learners or only by interest or learning style. We know that a lot of data has suggested that that is the case.
Therefore, our approach is to pave the way for teacher to differentiate in an easier way. We give teachers those already modified curriculum, give them very specific directions on how to differentiate their instruction in their specific classrooms, and tell them how to assess their students’ progress. Teachers will also know what to do after assessments, and they don’t have to spend time to design and develop or to do other extra things. They implement what we give them with clear directions on how to modify their teaching. For instance, if a student scores at a given accelerated level on the pretest, we provide instruction on how teachers can make the curricular or instructional adjustment; then, if a student scores at a different, average level, we provide lessons at that level. If some kids are struggling, then, here are the scaffolding lessons for them. Again, the rationale for our approach is that we cannot simply rely on teachers to do what they don’t have: time, energy, or skills to do. We want to know whether teachers can make a difference if we give them this “CLEAR Curriculum.” We have found teachers did make a difference with this curriculum in our “What Works” project curriculum. I mean, we found real differences. Now, we are testing the curriculum in a specific setting with specific underserved students.
How does it work in rural areas?
I am convinced that if we give teachers modified curriculum to teach in rural schools and districts as we have planned to, then we can make a difference for those kids in rural areas. In those places, there are even fewer resources than there are in urban schools for teachers to modify and differentiate their teaching. Since I am from a rural area and grew up in a very rural environment, I am very empathetic to teachers and kids in those schools with the sense that they can really benefit from our program that addresses some issues that they can closely relate to. Teachers have low expectations for rural students in general, so one of our big jobs in building the curriculum is to change teachers’ expectations for rural students by teaching the students to see that they can really succeed; and then, when they do succeed, the teachers will see it and believe. Hopefully, that will change indirectly what teachers expectations are for their students.
This is not a high cost curriculum. All lessons are provided electronically on thumb drives, and they are also accessible online. When teachers implement the curriculum model, they can certainly further adjust the modified curriculum to suit their own needs, depending on what they choose to do for a particular group of students. They can either combine or extend the content depending on how fast their kids go or how much the kids have learned. Our ultimate goal is to see that teachers do this and see the differences; and to see that they do a few units, and then continue and extend their work to other subject areas. Teachers are given the modified curriculum, and they can use that forever after we go away, not just these one or two years. When they see fit, they can develop new units for whatever content they teach using the same model. Our goal is to make every unit cost-efficient, and every one of these units costs almost nothing to implement. We choose to take this low-cost and easy-to-access stand as we don’t want to create something complicated and expensive, and then when we walk out the door, they will say, “We can’t afford to do this.” That’s really a big problem with almost any project—that teachers may not be able to do anything unless the funds and people are still here and give them all the materials they need. We hope our project will last beyond us.
Can you explain how this program is aligned with the State Standards and Common Core?
Yes. When we originally developed the language arts units for the study done as part of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, we examined the standards included across various state standards and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with attention to on-grade-level and one grade level beyond (Azano, Missett, & Callahan, 2015). Specifically, we were aware that the CCSS had a sufficiently deep well of quality outcomes that could be meaningfully differentiated. Those standards were then differentiated. We used those lessons as the basis for developing units in the area of research and poetry. Those units were validated nationally as producing greater achievement among treatment students identified as gifted. In our new study, we verified that the objectives were aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning.
When looking at any of the objectives, you may track them or map them back on the Virginia Standards of Learning and the CCSS. Because our current study is in Virginia, which is not a Common Core state, we have to assure our school division participants that the differentiations are based on our state standards. But, those standards we chose are also aligned with the CCSS to ensure the curriculum would be applicable in other states. Sometimes, there may be minor wording differences, and sometimes you find the third grade objective in the fourth grade, or vice versa. But you can really look across them and see the common objectives.
What do you think the differences between the “CLEAR Curriculum” model and the traditional differentiation models are?
There are two fundamental differences. The first is that the CLEAR model is a blending of the complementary elements of the models proposed by Tomlinson, Kaplan, and Renzulli. The second difference may lie on the reality of what teachers would do after the project (and any in-service training) is over. I wonder if we have a whole year workshop training on differentiation, what the teachers would do after that year. We actually did that previously with one of the grants we had in our National Research Center. We went to the middle schools for three years, and the teachers were trained, and they differentiated in those years while we were making visitations, but usually on the basis of interest and learning profile or for struggling learners. We had coaches there, and we did everything in the professional development that literature told us to do. However, when we were there, the teacher would differentiate; but when we were not there, they wouldn’t do it. They didn’t have the time, the resources, nor the skills to do it properly. So the lesson I learned from all of that is we need to do something further. Maybe the workshops inspire people to differentiate; maybe the workshops give teachers the idea of what differentiation looks like; and maybe 25% of those teachers would master it and continue to differentiate after that. Another 50% may understand it, and if they get a curriculum to use, they will do it. But without the curriculum framework, they may not do it, or they may refuse to do anything. In our curriculum model, we want the teachers to have the help continue implementing the curriculum, modifying their teaching, and differentiating even when we are long gone.
What we are offering to teachers are built-in curriculum, so teachers can start to use it straight away and follow instructions, with or without us being there helping them. However, I do admit our program is not a perfect solution. We have limited options within the lesson to give to teachers, and maybe there are many children who need even more scaffolding that we haven’t been able to offer. But at least, if we help them at the beginning, and they can see how it works, and maybe when next year starts, teachers can say, “Now, I have a child who even needs something more advanced, and I can do that because I don’t have to rethink the whole thing.” They don’t have to identify the big ideas. They don’t have to identify the principles. They don’t have to identify whatever they do for struggling learners, average learners, or advanced learners. That part has already been done for them. I think we give teachers enough structure, so they can do it very well and maintain it in a long run, and do it all the time. What they need to do is just to tweak it for their kids, and even make it bigger.
What do you think the most difficult aspect for teachers to keep differentiating?
The most difficult part for teachers to maintain the level of differentiation is probably differentiating authentically for gifted kids. To truly differentiate the gifted learners, teachers should not just give them free time when they get things done, or asking them to help other kids, or sending them to library to read a book. Teachers are more intended to differentiate for struggling learners and special Ed students, or they may differentiate by interests or students’ preferred performance. It can be difficult for them to differentiate their teaching for gifted students. I would say this is more like American style, as we have developed the culture since 1960s. It was essentially for people to see that no kids should fail, no kids should struggle in school. Everything we did was built upon the concept that all children should be successful, and many teachers brought this into their teaching philosophy. It is always easier and more comfortable for teachers to give something easy for kids to do, and they don’t want kids to be uncomfortable. Gifted kids are very used to do everything easily, and they may rebel when teachers give them something more difficult, because it’s out of their comfort zone.
To me, although I don’t think we should torture kids, and set things up so the kids would feel bad about themselves, I do believe that real learning occurs when kids are struggling at certain level. The greatest satisfaction comes from struggling with something and then understanding it, and then coming to grips with it. Like when you learn a different language (I am learning French right now), you struggle, but you can do it if you keep working on it. That is what we want the kids to learn, no matter gifted kids or special Ed kids, and a little bit of struggle brings great accomplishment.
Some teachers who I taught had mentioned that they had to follow the CCSS to help all students, and it would be difficult to differentiate for gifted students. What do you think?
There is a lot more to CCSS than most realize. They are really constructed in a way that they can be interpreted differently, either at the very minimum, or at the very maximum. One big message I want to give is that we should see CCSS as a framework. It’s not just minimum standards. Schools should look at CCSS and consider what would be the expectations for struggle learners to achieve the standards, and what would be the expectations for the most advanced learners. If we handle them well for all students, including gifted students, we will be doing a really good job. Unfortunately, many see the CCSS only as they are reflected in the tests. We have found we can easily incorporate them into our CLEAR units and differentiate for gifted students based on those standards by using complex and advanced curriculum topics and learning materials.
If I were teaching curriculum, I would ask, “How can this CCSS be interpreted in terms of lessons, content, activities, and materials for the most advanced learner? For a student who could do it at the minimum level, what would that look like? And what would it look like at the average level? And what would it look like at the most advanced level?” We could probably take some of the content and activities and apply them to colleges and universities. But within your grade level, what would your curriculum and instruction really look like if you were teaching at the most advanced level? Teachers need to consider CCSS as a framework for teaching, not a minimum standard, and look at the CCSS more broadly, not as “You have to do this to pass the state tests.”
I think what happens to many teachers is, they care more about how standards are translated into test items. They want to know how to teach kids enough so that they can pass the test items on whatever test is given in the state, instead of how to teach these kids in a way they have the deepest understanding they can possibly have. Our accountability standards lead teachers to this position. Rather, we need to help teachers see the CCSS a framework with great potential for differentiation to more advanced learning.
What do you think of role of school administrators in helping teachers implementing differentiated programs along with the CCSS?
I think it is very important for school administrators to understand and recognize the need for the gifted program. It is up to the schools to help the teachers implement an advanced curriculum. I don’t think it is enough for advocates or professional development experts to focus only on teachers. Administrators are the ones who make decisions. For instance, it is up to the school administrators to decide when and what textbooks or workbooks to buy, or to purchase the materials they expect the teachers to use to teach the CCSS. Do they buy a textbook that allows students to succeed just at the minimum level? Or do they provide teachers units and resources that also help the advanced learners, like the units we are developing? We must work with the administrators. Eventually, they make decisions about who to bring into work with teachers and what kind of steps for curriculum development and implementation are instituted.
What’s your advice to faculty members who are teaching in-service teachers? How should they understand the CCSS as a framework instead of minimum standards?
First, teach by example, which is the best way I know. It is certainly a lot of work, but when you hand out your objectives for your course for the semester, you have to be open to differentiation of those objectives. You need to say, I’m going to differentiate, and I’m going to show you how my “Common Core” can be differentiated. I’m going to try to show you how I can see these objectives are a minimum standard, but a framework like the CCSS. I can try to get some of you do this at really advanced level and still see how some of you may struggle to just meet my minimum standards. That will, of course, generate a conversation around the issue of “that’s not fair. Why do you expect more of me?” The response should model what we expect teachers to offer their students.
Well, I expect more of you because you came in here knowing A, B, and C. And I have reasons to believe that you can take this whole of further. And so, I’m going to challenge you. I’m not saying that you will not earn an A unless you do everything at the advanced level perfectly. But rather I am going give you feedback at the level expectation that I have for you and expect the same growth in you as other students.
Then, of course, the ways in which you differentiate have to model the creation of activities and products that are challenging and engaging—not just harder or more work.
Second, they have to see concrete examples of the CCSS actually differentiated appropriately at the most advanced level of interpretation. If they don’t come in with that understanding of the CCSS as a framework, it has to be demonstrated. Show students lessons that illustrate how that’s done. They need to see it to believe in it. And they need to see the experience as a positive one. They will take the easy path unless you can change some set of expectations so they say, “Oh, maybe if I just try a little bit this way, try a little bit that way.” But then, we have to give them the materials, then they can do it. You know that’s the next stage. If we don’t change their understanding, they can’t do it at all. So that is the very basic step that they have to have. The second step is to help them do it. Literally help them, give them the curriculum, and even the units and the practice to do it daily.
What advice do you have to schoolteachers regarding implementing gifted curriculum?
First, I would recommend that teachers look for materials and resources that have different levels of the CCSS built in. Those materials can be in the textbook that you have, and they can be online. The second thing I would say to teachers is to work with each other. For instance, what if you know that you have strong background in language arts while I might have strong background at Math, and we are both teaching fourth grade? Then, maybe I could work on some Math CCSS, something suitable for language arts that you can use in your classroom. Meanwhile, you may be able to develop something in language arts that I can use in my math class. So don’t go into this as an individual, go into this as a team. I may go to find a great Math unit, and you go to find a quality language arts unit. We bring them back, and we share. But many teachers, especially elementary teachers, may feel like they have to do all of the work in all different subject areas every day. They probably can’t. Of course it is not impossible, but it is difficult. The best option is to break it down so that teachers share the load, share the responsibilities, and use the talent of each other.
Even in the middle school and high school levels, you may have a group of social studies teachers, teaching American history, world history, and government. One teacher may really love the world history stuff, another loves American history, and a third teacher loves government. The three teachers will be able to work together, one developing a couple of government units, anther developing a world history unit, and the third developing American history unit. They share the units, teach students together, and they can take time to sit down and talk about what they teach.
Teachers can teach each other, and give feedback and help each other. I think we should model what Japanese do in terms of helping with teachers make better units. But, unfortunately, too often, our teachers “shut the doors” in their classrooms. They don’t bring their teaching and learning to each other, and they all have individual, isolated units (or worse, scripted low-level units). It is not a normal practice for teachers to take a unit and all work on it together, and then make the best can be based on the strength of all of the teachers. Teachers don’t want to share their units with anybody else, especially with something really good, because that might be their own signature unit, their reputation.
I think the most effective teaching is when we really share and help each other to make teaching better. One suggestion to teachers is, try your best to create a community. Go out to your schools and find teachers who are willing to work with you, and you really work with them, share with them, and make your teaching and curriculum the very best they should be for the kids to learn. The more you share, the better you will be in a long run.
When differentiating, how do you think teachers should use assessment to maximize student learning?
An important part of a good curriculum has to be assessment. The assessment should be built in the curriculum, in a way that teachers would not see assessment as a burden, but as a way they can get students’ data quickly and easily. We have to admit that many teachers are not trained on how to construct quality tests and assessments or how to effectively use measurement data. They receive very little training on how to construct a good assessment tool. Our CLEAR curriculum helps teachers with assessment, and we design it and give it to them. We make sure the assessments are carefully connected to the CCSS, both in the pretest and posttest phase in formative assessments. We can also tell them, if necessary, “Let me show you how to develop a good assessment, including pre-test and post-test.” That way they can really find out what students have learned.
How can we help teachers develop and implement appropriate gifted programs?
We need to make it clear that there is no single program as different gifted students will need different services. If we are going to make one big change, it will be to stop using one gifted program to serve all gifted students. There are students who would be best served by early entrance to kindergarten or by going to college early, the acceleration model (Missett, Brunner, Callahan, Moon, & Azano, 2014). Some students are very gifted in mathematics and they may need to be pulled out from the regular elementary classroom to join a high school or college-level math class. There are some other kids who need compacting and a Renzulli-Type of enrichment program in their classrooms. Or some kids are really creative producers, who don’t need their content accelerated, and they really need to concentrate and work on certain products which can’t be carried out in traditional classroom. Also, some gifted students just need enrichment in the regular classroom. We should not say, “We have a gifted program, and do you fit?” But we should say, “What are the particular skills and talented abilities these children are bringing to us, and how do we provide specific services to fully develop their talent?” These will be our best efforts to maximize their education.
I think one of the problems we have in our community is that we have had just one type of pullout gifted program for so long, and if the children don’t go to a pull-out program, they are not considered as gifted. It is very important to get schools to see that we need to identify the specific needs of the gifted students. Instead of offering the extreme model we have, which is, either everyone is differentiated in regular classroom or everyone is going to a pullout program, we need to switch to special education model, to fit programs to the characteristics of the kids. Regular classroom teachers will not be able to offer Renzulli-Type 3 services, so we need to know who should go to pullout a program, who needs to work with classroom teacher for compacting and enrichment, and who needs to be accelerated. If we are going to make one dramatic positive programming change, it will be to start thinking in terms of services that are not designed to fit the gifted students to a program, but rather one to fit services to the students.
I would suggest that schools and districts reconsider where they are now, whom they are serving well, and whom they are not serving well. Also consider what services they could add, so as to serve more gifted students more effectively. I would say to them, look at how special Ed works. Certainly, I don’t expect every school to develop an IEP for every gifted student. What I want to say is,
We recognize there are special Ed students in regular classrooms, and there are special Ed students who need someone to communicate and to work with them within that classroom, and there are also special Ed students who need to be taken out of the classroom for a part of the day for special services, and also there are special Ed students who need to be at a special school. The same options should work to gifted students. They are not all homogeneous group, like the special Ed group is not homogeneous.
You may need to look at that special Ed model, replicate that model, and identify the specific needs for individual gifted students. A gifted student may need to be taken out of the classroom for some part of the day, another gifted student needs to be in a different classroom, and a third gifted student will need to go to a special school, or even college.
Schools must know how they could take that same special Ed model and think carefully about how to use it in gifted programs. They may not even need to add much at all, but they need to place students differently, and have different expectations for people like the regular classroom teacher or the pullout program teacher. Special Ed students can only go back to regular classroom and fit in well when someone helps regular classroom teachers. It is the same for gifted students. Maybe it will help to have a resource teacher in the regular classroom to help with differentiation, to offer gifted curriculum, and to give teaching materials that regular classroom teachers needs to use for gifted students.
It is a common misunderstanding that acceleration or enrichment programs will cost a lot of money for districts and schools. They don’t have to. The important thing is how to allocate resources in different ways. Administrators may get together and figure out what can be done to share resources, and make it work in different districts and not cost a lot of money.
What are your suggestions to parents and communities, especially those in rural areas?
: Parent’s advocacy is very important. Be advocates but not adversaries. Learn how to be advocates, learn how to work with schools, districts, and learn how to be a resource to the school. Some parents may go to their children’s classrooms to help and help make the school a better place, not only the child’s classroom. Parents may think about how to help schools better, how to find ways to support what’s going on with the students, and what resources they can bring to school. It’s a hard work to be advocates for gifted education, especially in rural areas. I understand it as when I was young, my mother wouldn’t go to parent teacher conferences. She quit school very young, and she would be embarrassed and she thought other people would think she was dumb. There is such a parent group in every area who would consider school to be intimidating and don’t feel comfortable going there. In rural areas, they may not have a car to drive to school, and thus, they may have to ask someone else to give a ride because there is no public transportation. They may not have proper clothes to wear to go to school. Parents may not even think schoolteachers could be friends or supporters to their children or families. School may be only a place that their children have to go, and they don’t associate with school any more. Sometimes, it would be even scary for these parents to have gifted kids, who would “know it all,” and who would know more than they do. It is very important for schools and teachers to tell parents that their child is special, and special in a very positive way. If schools can do community building, then advocacy would be developed. If in the community people are talking about it together, and if other parents of gifted students reach out to other parents of gifted, it will work better. Advocacy groups with parent-to-parent communication can be better than teachers trying to reach out.
: What are your suggestions to researchers regarding gifted education? What should they do in the coming future?
I have one bit of advice. We have to stop studying characteristics of gifted student and start to study interventions—finding out what works and what doesn’t work. One of the things that our field doesn’t have is really good intervention studies. So finding ways to study interventions is absolutely the key field to the future.
What are your other suggestions to teachers?
I would say be a good assessor! First of all, I think grading is totally arbitrary. You may teach any class, and all your kids can get As, depending on how you create the assessment. I mean you could ask a really easy question about the objective or you could ask a really, really hard question about the objective. So I would say that grading is philosophical too. There is no right or wrong about grading. If a student has mastered the objectives at the minimum level, then the student get an A. But I would suggest that teachers do not just assess the students at that minimum level. They should assess students at the most advanced level where they are performing, then take the next step when assessing them further. To students who are really struggling, give them a lower level assessment, then grade them on how much they are growing over the course of the year, not on what they achieve compared to other students. I have to say that I don’t believe in our grading systems. Our grading system just says who is really bright and learns fast and who is not. It does not reflect what was learned and how much students have learned. This current grading system says that a student learns this set of common objectives faster than everybody else. But he or she might have already mastered the objectives even before the year began. Lots of times, the final exam is something that is assessing a gifted student who was at the most advanced level on the first day of class and would have earned an A on the first day of the year. If the teacher only assesses that student all along at the same level, the student would just get As every time and never learn anything new.
Now, you could argue and some people do argue that, and I do not totally object to it, the end-of-the-year final exam should be the same final exam for gifted students as the one taken everybody else. Let those kids who are capable to get an A get an A, and then you just don’t worry about it. If you don’t give them the same grade level test, they don’t get the A they deserve. Then, everybody would say it is not fair. We are all so ingrained in our beliefs about grades, that it is probably a means to avoid all the grief, that you give the gifted students the standard test, which really measures just the minimum competencies of the student. But that would not prevent structuring lessons and assessments to give feedback on student growth throughout the year. We understand the student could have had an A on the first day, but at least, we have tried really hard all year to get the student to strive for way more than just earning an A.
For all other assessments along the academic year, teachers need to differentiate and push the students to go further and further all the time. I would suggest that teachers give feedback to students, not grades. They can tell their students, “I’m going to give you feedback and show you where you were when you started this and where you are now.” Essentially, teachers give kids feedback on their growth throughout the year, and monitor whether they are learning new things and how much they have learned. All the feedback teachers give the kids, and all other assessments along the way, should all be differentiated.
We need to change the fundamental belief system about grading in this country, and probably the world. It’s the way people have graded for years. We probably can’t change that, but we can try to change students’ attitudes about what is going to be learned in our classes. We can let them know that they are not here to take up time and space. They are here to learn something. Tell them that,
As a teacher, if I’m not going to teach you something that you don’t already know, if I’m not going to help you develop skill that you don’t have, and if I’m not going to help you develop the ability to produce what you couldn’t produce before, we both may as well just stay at home.
Last but not the least, how would you describe yourself, and what are your personal hobbies?
I would see myself first as an educator, and then second as a researcher. My passion has been many ways on special or diverse populations of gifted students. Another is program evaluation. We have to be very clear what works in school districts and what doesn’t. For me, there is always a passion to help school districts to do better at what they do. For personal hobbies, I love to travel, and I love to cook.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
|
Azano, A. P. (2012). The CLEAR curriculum model. In Callahan, C. M., Hertberg-Davis, H. L. (Eds.), Fundamentals of gifted education: Considering multiple perspectives (pp. 301-314). New York, NY: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
|
Azano, A. P., Missett, T., Callahan, C. M. (2015). Poetry and fairy tales: Language arts units for gifted students in grade 3. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Callahan, C. M., Moon, T. R., Oh, S., Azano, A. P., Hailey, E. P. (2014). What works in gifted education: Documenting the effects of an integrated curricular/instructional model for gifted students. American Educational Research Journal, 52, 137-157. doi:0002831214549448 Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Missett, T. C., Azano, A. P., Callahan, C. M. (2015). Research and rhetoric: Language arts units for gifted students in grade 5. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Missett, T. C., Brunner, M. M., Callahan, C. M., Moon, T. R., Azano, A. P. (2014). Exploring teacher beliefs and use of acceleration, ability grouping, and formative assessment. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 37, 245-268. doi:10.1177/0162353214541326 Google Scholar | SAGE Journals |
About the Author
Echo H. Wu received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Beijing and Sydney, respectively, and studied at the Hong Kong University for M.Phil and then the University of Virginia (UVa) for her PhD. Currently, she is the Director of Center for Gifted Studies and an assistant professor at the Department of Educational Studies, Leadership & Counseling in the College of Education & Human Services at Murray State University (MSU).
