Breaking Down Barriers to Gifted Education

12/2/2024

Just before the Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to attend the annual conference of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) in Seattle, Washington.

Part of my visit involved giving a presentation on the changes we at Roeper are introducing to our identification and admissions processes to better reflect evolving scholarship—and our evolving views—on the nature of giftedness and how best to identify gifted behaviours in children.

As you may recall from my blog back in March 2024, we recently adopted a new definition that regards giftedness as a constellation of six demonstrable characteristics: cognitive capability, task commitment, creativity, communicative ability, connection, and collaboration. But having defined giftedness in this new way, we now need a new system of assessment that goes along with it, a system of assessment that not only lines up with the behaviours we wish to identify, but one that is predictable, understandable, accessible, and equitable.

Although that involves a number of changes to our protocols, the most immediately obvious is our move away from insisting solely on a small number of expensive I.Q. tests to now accepting results from a much wider range of assessments, including one that can be administered inexpensively here at the school. In addition, we have moved to more deliberately incorporate evidence-based tools such as the Renzulli Scales along with a formal scoring rubric to ensure greater consistency and accuracy throughout our assessment process. While we are introducing these changes at Roeper, they are also consistent with the ground-breaking work we—through the Roeper Institute—are leading in partnership with Detroit Public Schools Community District.

What stood out to me at the NAGC conference was learning about the many schools and districts following suit by taking steps to refine their identification protocols, ensuring they are not only valid and reliable but also truly inclusive.

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