1. Gifted Education Meeting
Bensalem Township School District
December 2, 2009

2. Overview
At both the Special Education and BCIU Gifted conferences many presentations were prefaced with a caveat: “based on what we know now…or…pending review of the PDE gifted guidelines…”
No actual release date has been provided.
In the meantime districts are being asked to make good-faith efforts to move toward implementation of the new Chapter 16.

3. Conference Highlights
Many of our teachers of gifted students as well as our Special Education Supervisors attended these conferences.
Thank You All for your continued interest and participation.
Due to limits of time only some of these staff members have been asked to provide you with information here this evening.

4. New Format for PLEP Ability and assessment test scores
Group and individual achievement measures
Grades
Progress on Goals
Instructional Levels
Aptitudes, interests, specialized skills, products and evidence of effectiveness in other academic areas.

5. Teachers Can Differentiate
Content
Process
Product
According to Students’
Go through and talk about each green box.
Content – What is being taught. You can differentiate the actual content being presented to students.
Process – How the student learns what is being taught. For example, some students need to interact with the material physically, some might prefer to read a book.
Product – How the student shows what he/she has learned. For example, students can write a paper or they can present information orally.
Readiness – Skill level and background knowledge of child. We try to stay away from the word “ability” because you don’t always know the ability level of a child if their readiness level is low.
Interest – Child’s interest or preferences – these can be interests within the curricular area (for example, they might be interested specifically in learning about folklore in a unit on volcanoes) or in general (for example, knowing a student’s favorite cartoon character could allow you to tie that into an example and might motivate the student)
Learning Profile – This includes learning style (is the student a visual, auditory, tactile, or kinesthetic learner), as well as preferences for environmental (such as level of distraction, exposure to light or noise) or grouping factors (small group, large group, or individual)
Readiness
Interest
Learning
Profile
Adapted from The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (Tomlinson, 1999)

6. Differentiation Instruction: Flexible Grouping Centers Projects
Varied Individual
Practice
Tasks:
Context
Data
Complexity of Skills
Readability
Output
Challenge/Extension

7. Gifted Strategies that Work
Gifted and talented students need accelerated programs that enrich and challenge
Having gifted students grouped together for instruction provides opportunities to integrate topics
Curriculum Compacting reduces repetition of previously mastered material 7

8. Gifted Strategies that Work
Teachers with existing pull out programs in another district’s middle school indicated that delivering a sound program was restricted due to time. Students missed work which discourages them from participating.
Additionally, with a pull out program, when the student returns to his/her regular class, the student is viewed as having already received services and, therefore, requires no further challenges or rigor.
Years of experience and training are necessary to meet gifted students’ needs and deliver programs at all levels. 8

9. The NNAT-2 Pilot
The NNAT-2 is a non-verbal screener that allows “for a culturally neutral evaluation of students’ nonverbal reasoning and general problem-solving ability, regardless of the individual student’s primary language, education, culture or socioeconomic background.”
This goal appears to be consistent with the new PA Chapter16.

10. The NNAT-2 Pilot (continued)
We are in the process of identifying three (3) elementary schools and a middle school for this pilot.
Training for specific staff will be provided.
Testing will be completed by the end of February, 2010.
Tests will be scored and data analyzed by the end of March, 2010.

11. NEXT STEPS Pending publication of the PDE gifted guidelines:
Review the NNAT-2 data with all administrators, teachers of gifted and Special Education Supervisors and School Psychologists.
Develop the new plan for gifted testing and related curriculum changes for full implementation in the fall, 2010.
Next meeting:
Wednesday, February 17, 2010