Taylor Blair Speaker Reflection 1 11 October 2013 Dr.

Patti Wood did a great job of explaining the characteristics of a gifted and talented child. There are many myths about gifted and talented learners, and we addressed the most common ones and cleared up any confusion we had on the subject. She opened the floor for us to openly discuss the topic with her and ask any questions we had about gifted and talented learners. Dr. Wood also created a power point, which explained in more detail how to identify gifted learners. We even completed a worksheet that is used to pre test students to get an idea of whether a student is gifted or not. On the worksheet there were nine empty circles, which we had to creatively use the circles within a drawing. By using the circles within our drawings we were able to express our creativity and the more original our drawing was and the more we elaborated on the picture, the more points we received. The more points a student receives the more likely it is that they are gifted. I have always been confused on what qualifies a student to be in a gifted and talented class. Dr. Wood cleared up a lot of questions about the difference between average students and gifted students. I learned the difference in enriching and accelerating a gifted students curriculum. Most gifted students need a combination of both enrichment and acceleration. Gifted students are constantly ahead of their peers who are challenged by the general requirements in the classroom. Because gifted students are so accelerated, they normally attend a separate class that challenges them more so than the regular classroom would. Any child regardless if they are gifted or not would benefit from a curriculum that is meant for gifted students. The issue occurs when there are struggling lower level learners in the classroom who would be overwhelmed with

more challenging curriculum. Dr. Wood agreed that a gifted classroom environment would benefit many different students who are not categorized as gifted. We also discussed the importance of quality of education for gifted students rather than the quantity of work. It is more important for gifted learners to be working through activities and lessons that are challenging rather than time consuming. If gifted students remain in the classroom and do not have a separate class they go to, curriculum must be differentiated for these students. Activities can be differentiated by using advanced literature and providing individual learning opportunities. Dr. Wood did a fantastic job on informing us about the characteristic of talented and gifted students and the teachers responsibilities for fostering a childs creative and advanced development.