Gifted Education

How We Identify

Clustering students with similar needs is an additional way to support the development of needs-focused lessons. In the spring of the year, as classroom and support teachers plan for student placement in the fall, they consider how to reduce the range of instruction in each classroom. Teachers consider many factors, including academic strengths, learning styles, need for rigor and repetition, behavior and other factors. Results from several grade-level appropriate assessments, such as DIBELS, NWEA/MAP, teacher recommendations and special needs of individual students are also included. Every classroom has a range of student needs.

The assessment of students is ongoing in each elementary school to support the best educational experience for learners. Cluster groups allow for flexibility in small groups, large groups and “walk-to” leveled instruction. Each elementary site has a designated reading or math focus for the 2009-2010 school year. Many students at any given grade-level fall within a fairly narrow range that is defined as ‘at-grade-level.’ While the range will vary from site to site across the district, the pattern of students entering below, at, or above grade level exists at each site. Those students who enter a grade level having already mastered many of the standards need additional challenge. The combination of grouping for instruction and differentiating the instruction to meet learner needs, provides new learning and challenge daily for student at all levels of need including those entering with mastery.

Instruction to raise student achievement for all learners begins with an ongoing process of knowing what students need to know, understand and be able to do, guided by Minnesota standards and benchmarks. Teachers, parents and students will use formative and summative data to help determine the needs of each student. In the spring of the first grade year, the Gifted Education department begins collecting data for review for the purpose of finding students with the greatest need for rigor and challenge. Teachers, parents, and students provide input into the data collection process.

At school, the Gifted Education teacher works in collaboration with each classroom teacher, who knows the children best in the school setting, to provide assessment. In Kindergarten and first grade the assessment is observational. In second grade, both parent and teacher complete a checklist focusing on characteristics of behavior. The Cognitive Abilities Tests are administered, and then each student profile is reviewed to determine service needs for the following school year. Information about upcoming testing is provided in the school newsletter and at conferences for parents. The Cognitive Abilities tests are administered to children in grades two through five seeking possible pull-out service for the following year.

Beginning in the spring of a child’s second grade year, the NWEA tests are administered and provide additional achievement profile information. The profile review and assessment process is available to students during their elementary school experience, for pull-out service in grade three through six. Profile data usually includes information from the parent, teacher, measures of achievement and aptitude. Information can come from teachers other than the classroom teacher, peers, an outside agency or other standardized test scores.

In the data review process, we are looking for students who need rigor and challenge in one or more areas of the curriculum. Through the process, students are identified for service in pull-out classes, called Needs Based classes, in reading, language arts/reading, non-verbal, or affective.

During the data collection process, parent and teachers receive information about different ways to look at the characteristics, problem-solving processes, and achievement levels of children. Janice Szabos Robbins originally developed a chart of behaviors representing the continuum of behaviors spanning the range from the bright child to gifted learner. For example, a bright child knows the answers and a gifted learner asks the questions. The adaption of Szabos’ original document created with permission by Susan Winebrenner, M.S. and Dina Brulles, Ph.D. is sent home to parents and shared with teachers to prompt critical thinking about a potential test-taker.

A sample of descriptors on the continuum includes:

Bright Child	Gifted Learner
Learns with ease	Already knows
Grasps the meaning	Draws inferences
Is in the top group	Goes beyond the group
Is pleased with own learning	Is highly self-critical

Parents and teachers often see different strengths of children in their respective environments. For this reason, each is asked to provide information about the child as they consider nomination for testing.

Assessments

The IQ test was developed between 1905 and 1908 for the purpose of determining academic success. It focused on the measurement of attention, memory and verbal skills. The resulting mental-age number provided by the assessment results was used as the predictor of learning success. The IQ test has undergone many changes in its hundred-year history. Today some educators and psychologists believe that an IQ score of 140 or more is gifted, however giftedness is much more multi-dimensional than a single score can indicate.

Many people also believe that being a gifted learner results is a guaranteed road to academic success. Many of the social, emotional and academic needs of the highly gifted child are not easily met in the general classroom setting. A multidimensional look at the intellectual, achievement, and performance traits provide a much clearer picture of individual needs.

In Osseo Area School, we focus on identifying student needs and match identified need to service. A focus on identifying student needs is not the same as identifying students, however. Our needs-focus means we do not include IQ testing as a part of our screening process. When available, data from an outside IQ assessment, standardized assessment such as the full Iowa Test of Basic Skill, and other data from qualified agencies or systems outside of Osseo Area School are reviewed to identify student needs as part of the student profile. Parents and guardians are responsible for assessment outside of the school setting.

Notification of data-collection and testing results

The learner profile that results from the collection of parent, teacher, achievement and cognitive data, is reviewed to determine the need for service at this time. Parents receive notification through US mail. The matrix of data provides scores from achievement tests and Cognitive Ability Tests, and indicates the need for placement. If the student does demonstrate a need for more rigor and challenge at this time, the Needs Based Class or Classes will be indicated that match the student’s need to the service.