Gifted Endorsement Year 1 Cohort: Gifted Characteristics Observation and Evaluation 

Why is it important that teachers be able to distinguish between low, average, gifted students, underachieving gifted students, and high achieving students? The answer is universal for all learners – to meet their needs in the general education classroom. Gifted students need teachers who understand and support them as students with special needs. With differentiation provided in the classroom and possible opportunities beyond, students will develop their individual natural abilities. Thus, understanding these characteristics becomes of utmost importance when working with gifted learners.

I have chosen two students from my class to observe for whom I will refer to as Student A (SA) and Student B (SB). I chose these two in particular because I believed it was possible they are gifted learners. I now know that one of these students has been identified as gifted, but I am uncertain about the other student’s status at this time. I decided to use the “Gifted Student or High Achiever?” characteristics checklist we received during one of our trainings to begin my investigation. These were my findings after several weeks of observation.

Student A:

This student definitely prefers adults! SA will stand with adults during afternoon recess and engage in asking questions about which you think is better, communism or capitalism? How do your really know if you are talking with a human or an alien? What color do you think your blood really is? SA also likes to share really silly, but witty jokes. SA’s knowledge on a wide range of topics is very impressive, especially in areas that are highly interesting to SA personally, such as space or anything science. Although SA does have friends, I can tell it is not always a comfortable situation, but I would say I am impressed with the range of students SA does engage with or partners with when given the option. During class, SA seems interested, but it may be just politeness! I can tell SA’s parents have expectations that include academic humility. I definitely noted this when speaking with SA’s father during conferences. He checked to make sure SA was not acting superior to the other students, and his reasoning was, “We tell our child there will ALWAYS be more to learn!” After the first few weeks of school, I added learning centers to the math rotations. I noted SA almost always chooses the logic type options (generally too challenging for others) and will gladly work alone, whereas most would prefer a partner.

Student A is both gifted and high achieving.

Student B:

Student B is a very pleasant, hardworking, and rule following student! SB is not only at the top of the class, but also a model of the scholarly behaviors. If all students had this type of perseverance, teaching would become a much easier career. With this attitude SB is never highly self-critical because eventually, success will be acquired. SB is highly engaged in conversations, answers questions, collaborates well with others, and has good ideas. All around, this student seems very happy to be at school.

I believe Student B to be high achieving, but not gifted.

In my opinion, I have been successful in creating a responsive classroom environment for these students. My learning centers during math vary by interest, content, student readiness, challenging problem solving, and real world application. My students also utilize online programs such as Redbird and code.org which allows them to work at their pace. In science, students work independently but more often in cooperative or collaborative pairs or small groups. The nature of science being inquiry based, encourages problem solving and motivates self learning. I have used the 5E model with labs, student led observation experiments, and creating prototypes to solve for real world problems. Most recently they were given the task to create a prototype lunar base. Their presentations are shared here. Also, we have started to utilize our class blog to share classroom learning. For example, this post on asteroids, comets, and meteors.

As students continue to grow and change, it is necessary for the classroom environment to do so as well.