Road to the Gifted
Digital Portfolio
During my time working toward my teaching degree in Elementary Education, I also decided the most appropriate concentration for me would be AIG. I have completed four required gifted classes for my concentration over the course of a year. This digital portfolio serves to show my growth in knowledge of what giftedness is and how to teach gifted students.
"What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning."
Chuck Grassley
GIFT 4000
The Diverse Gifted Child
Gifted Students in the Media
This was the first assignment I had ever done regarding giftedness. My knowledge was extremely limited looking back and comparing what I know now. During this module, we'd been discussing gifted students and their characteristics, stereotypes, and myths. I didn't do amazing on this assignment. I missed the mark in digging deeper into his economic lens and made some generalizations that were based on my lack of knowledge. I also did not cite things properly from the show, which is because, at this point, I had not taken a college writing class. I would fix these issues within the paper itself if I went back and redid it, as I've grown tremendously since then in terms of knowledge of giftedness.
Case Study of Giftedness
I also did not do great on this assignment. I missed a big part of the assignment, comparing and contrasting with another student, which was a total oversight on my part but also did not help me learn how to evaluate students. I likely missed this part because I was not confident in my skills to study possible gifted students, as this was only the second assignment on giftedness I'd done this far. I would go back and make sure to add that in, as now I'm more confident with comparing and contrasting two students, as well as comparing students to the "image" of giftedness teachers usually have in their minds.
Lens of Place
This presentation, I'd 100% redo if I could. I didn't go into depth about the lenses, advocacy, or communication aspects, which makes this presentation weaker. I also could've gone much more into detail about intersectionality, however, I'm assuming I just was not confident in my abilities to research and talk about it within the presentation itself. I also did not include any helpful statistics to back up my information. This assignment is just not one of my favorites, nor one I did well on.
Twice-Exceptionality Fact Sheet
This was another assignment I really enjoyed doing. Twice-exceptionality was something I always considered possible, as I've heard stories of very gifted students who also have learning disabilities, mental health disorders, or autism, however, taking a deep dive into discovering one realm of possibly was very insightful for me. I completed mine on AIG students with anxiety. It can be hard for educators to identify gifted student in general, but even more so when they're twice-exceptional. That's why I enjoyed learning about it, as I hope to one day break that stigma and ensure all students, regardless of their exceptionalities, are able to receive the proper resources and material to suit their learning.
Poverty and Giftedness, Educating Others
I created this presentation in my GIFT 4000 class to educate others on how poverty affects giftedness. Compared to my other two assignments from this class, I did phenomenally on this one. It's a very information-based presentation, since I'd be teaching others on how the two intertwine. I actually really enjoyed learning about this topic myself, and this assignment just furthered my knowledge on statistics and reasons why poverty can have an affect on a students identification. This assignment helped me realize that I want to be the change in a school for the realm of giftedness... maybe even being an AIG teacher (which is now what I want to do)!
Growth
When I first started in GIFT 4000, I had no idea what to expect and had no content knowledge of giftedness at all. I knew the reason why I changed my concentration to AIG but didn't know much about it at first besides what AIG stood for. I always assumed identifying giftedness and teaching gifted learners was cut and dry, but I quickly learned that's not the case! This course helped me grow and see that I was being ignorant to how complex it can be to characterize and identify gifted students due to differing characteristics, twice-exceptionalities, place, culture, socioeconomic status, etc. This course really opened my mind into how different gifted students can behave in different ways, have different strengths, and the challenges gifted learners go through to receive the enrichment and support they need for success. GIFT 4000, The Diverse Gifted Child, helped me to better my cultural lens so I'm able to be an equitable educator.
GIFT 4100 & 4200
Foundations of Gifted Education & Instructional Practices in Gifted Education
Differentiation and YOU
This was the first assignment I completed in the fall in GIFT 4200 (I took 4200 before 4100). This assignment might be the worst work out of anything I've done in my GIFT classes. I apparently had no understanding of differentiation like I thought I did. I did quite terribly on it, not stating goals, changes, or really anything that would be useful to fix the scenario at hand. If I could redo this assignment, I definitely would and it would be so much better with how much knowledge I have on differentiation and methods of teaching gifted students now.
Case Study Analysis
I remember being pretty happy with this assignment when I turned it in. Looking back, it's definitely not my best work but not terrible either. It's pretty indicative of my work at the time. I could've added in multiple things to make it better and take it to the next level, such as including the "taming the fox" prompt and addressing the cultural and diversity ties within the case study that pertain to Raul; i.e., where Raul is from, his cultural background, his learning needs, etc.
Personal Conceptions of Giftedness
This was the first assignment I completed in GIFT 4100. Again, not my best work at all... It's pretty subpar. I could've made this assignment so much better by connecting to the readings, choosing a better graphic to include, or explaining more in-depth my reasoning behind my personal conception of giftedness. I just missed the mark when I was writing and didn't fully get my thoughts out before "giving up", which is unfortunate.
Identification Simulation
This assignment marked the moment when I took more creative freedom in the types of products I was submitting. I enjoyed making videos more than I did presentations or papers and I had the opportunity to be creative in all of my assignments, so I chose to be. This assignment was fun for me, as I got to look more into how identification is conducted and simulate it myself. The challenge required coming up with constraints for identifying giftedness and what it would look like-- it was totally up to me to come up with it! How fun! We had to choose five students out of 22 applications to identify for a summer gifted program. I was pretty proud of myself with this challenge, as it was more difficult than other challenges, but drew on a lot of prior knowledge and critical thinking from me. Of course, there are things I could have improved in this video assignment, like my definition of giftedness could have been more specific and my reflection could have been better, however, I'm still proud of this assignment and the knowledge it shows.
Grouping for Gifted Students: What we do vs. What we know
Another video product for an assignment! I bet you can tell I liked making the videos when possible. For this assignment, I chose option number four-- "Grouping Guidelines". I explained the research behind one of the guidelines and made a video for teachers to watch to learn more about the guidelines. This was honestly insightful for me as a future educator, as I get to know where research and guidelines are coming from in the realm of gifted education. That might be one of my favorite things about these classes-- learning more about the "why" behind the practices and rules. Again, definitely had room for improvement in the area of programmatic models (providing them and the equitable practices that go along with them), but still really enjoyed creating this video and proud of it!
Program Model Recommendation
I have to say that this is my favorite assignment I've ever completed for a GIFT class, and it might be the work I'm most proud of. I got an amazing grade on this too, which only makes me feel better about it. This assignment was so cool-- I even told my mom who's an elementary school teacher all about it! During this assignment, we had to suggest to the superintendent a new programmatic model for the school system to use regarding giftedness. I chose to research and change the school system's model from where I went to K-12, Rockingham County Schools in North Carolina. It was an even cooler assignment because the AIG Coordinator for Rockingham County Schools was my AIG Teacher for a few years when I was in elementary school. To complete this assignment, I decided to do a pamphlet detailing everything the superintendent and decision-makers would need to know regarding the gifted programming, including demographics, North Carolina's definition of giftedness, the current program, the new program, why it fits, and internal consistency. I got to draw from almost everything I had learned in this class and lots of knowledge from other GIFT classes as well. This assignment is something I'm extremely happy with and absolutely loved completing in GIFT 4100.
Growth
I took GIFT 4200 before I took 4100 so my knowledge was definitely more limited in that class. You can see my growth through these assignments, as I get more and more comfortable with giftedness as a whole and how to identify, plan, and program for gifted students. When I'm more excited to do an assignment, I tend to do a lot better than not I've noticed as well. Looking at the first assignment in this section versus the last, you are able to see just how much I've grown in my familiarity with the content and my comfort level in sharing my knowledge. The personalized feedback I received on every assignment also helped me grow tremendously, as I knew what to fix and pay attention to next time. I'm hoping in the future I'm able to share my acquired knowledge with staff members, and use my knowledge to teach and inspire young minds to achieve higher, just like I've been inspired within these classes.
GIFT 4300
Creativity, Critical-Thinking & Problem Solving
Creativity in the Classroom: SCAMPER
I liked doing this assignment generally, but I'm not sure it helped me in the long run since I didn't have my own students to complete it with (undergrad, am I right?) This assignment required using the SCAMPER method with a group of students-- or in my case, my sorority sisters who lived in my house-- to solve a problem. The problem I chose was new uses for an old plastic bottle. I conducted this assignment with them, using the house's projector and introduced the concept to them, then completed the activity. Like I said, I feel like this assignment might've been more beneficial for me to complete with an actual group of gifted students, but it was great to see SCAMPER in use nonetheless.
Gifted Learners Podcast
This assignment was also very fun and creative. Creating a podcast is not something I'd ever done before, but I enjoyed it while I was completing this challenge. It was definitely a learning curve to take my knowledge and research on how creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking intertwine for gifted students and turn it into a podcast, but very cool to do at the same time. I definitely could have done better on this assignment in my opinion, as it was not very long at all. I could've dug deeper and conducted more research, however, the research I have I believe is very useful and relevant to the topic. This will be a great resource for myself in the future.
Presentation
Original Lesson Plan
Co-Teaching with Professor X
I have two parts for this assignment: the original lesson plan and the presentation I completed to implement co-teaching and differentiation for gifted learners. I'm also very proud of this assignment, as it shows my growth throughout the class. This assignment required that I be very creative and collaborative in order to cater to gifted students during a traditional classroom lesson with Professor "X". I chose a lesson plan about social studies, doing fourth grade Colonial America. I had to think of ways to make the activities more challenging for gifted students, while ensuring it was on level for traditional students as well. Co-teaching is something I'll need to be familiar with in the future, so getting a glimpse into what it would be like is very useful.
Growth
GIFT 4300 is likely my favorite course content-wise that I took throughout my AIG concentration courses. This course kept my hooked all the way throughout, and I loved completing all of the assignments and reading all of the material. Knowing how creativity-- which is something I highly value--, critical thinking, and problem-solving intertwine to create great instruction for gifted students and learning about why it's important for gifted students to have those skills is truly insightful and amazing to know. Throughout this class and using what I've learned in the other three GIFT classes I've taken, I have no doubt that I have extensive knowledge of giftedness and the best practices in the realm of gifted education.