Thank you so much to all of our blog’s readers. This year we had a record number of visitors and comments on our blog! Here were the Institute for Educational Advancement鈥檚 top blog posts in 2019:

: Bonnie Raskin, Scholarship Director, gives our community a glimpse of what it is like to at the helm of the Caroline D. Bradley (CDB) Scholarship program.

  This post features 10 California schools who are also highlighted in 优蜜视频鈥檚 new Gifted Schools Guide highlighting schools for gifted and advanced students throughout the United States.

 This past September, 优蜜视频 announced the 2024 class of award recipients of the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship, a four-year high school scholarship for gifted learners to attend an optimally matched high school program to help them work toward meeting their unique intellectual and personal potential.

: In this post 优蜜视频 spotlighted a list of fantastic Summer programs that serve gifted youth.

 A post full of amazing podcast recommendations about gifted learners. These are great resources for parents and educators supporting bright young minds.

 There is no shortage of games and puzzles that are intellectually stimulating; Pylos, Quoridor, and the classic Rubik鈥檚 Cube are all examples of mentally challenging and fun games. In this post you can find a variety of educational toys and games to consider giving to a gifted child any time of the year!

: Gifted children tend to have a strong desire and need for intellectual stimulation, and that need doesn鈥檛 go away when schools are closed. In this post are three ways parents can help foster positive social and academic growth during a holiday break.

This blog post walks through every step of the evaluation process for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship.

Development Manager Mavis Bortey-fio shared her most inspiring moments spent with 优蜜视频 students in honor of this year鈥檚 #GivingTuesday campaign.

This post featured great reads for parents and educators focused on best practices and strategies for raising and educating a gifted child. These books are also listed on 优蜜视频鈥檚 which serves as a free online tool created and curated by 优蜜视频 for our community.

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Louise is 优蜜视频鈥檚 Academy Coordinator. A British import, Louise graduated from the University of Manchester with a B.A. Honors Degree in English Literature and Language, completed her post-graduate teacher training at The University of Cambridge, and recently completed her dissertation in Educational Leadership and Innovation with the University of Warwick. Louise has 20 years of experience in education as a high school literature teacher, lead teacher, administrator, adviser, and consultant. She is also the parent of three fun and active school-aged children.

Somewhere in the middle of England, somewhere in the mid-nineties, my former self 鈥� three years into my teaching profession as an English Literature teacher, new in my role as second-in-faculty 鈥� landed the golden opportunity to teach the brightest 10th graders in the school, the ‘top-set’. This 10th grade top set, as we called it, comprised of thirty-two specially selected boys and girls all destined, according to their assessment data, to achieve the highest grades possible in English Literature state examinations. My former self assumed this would be the ‘dream ticket’, that I would be confronted with eager minds, self-motivated, confident young people with similar abilities. After all, if they’d been identified as the ‘top set’, teaching would be straightforward, without barriers, without learning challenges. These kids were high potential, they were gifted, therefore teaching them would be easy 鈥� right? How wrong I was, and how quickly I learned to address these misconceptions.

Teaching is challenging at any level. As a profession, I believe it is one of the most physically, emotionally and intellectually exhausting roles out there. There is an assumption, however, that teaching high potential or gifted children is ‘easier’. It is remarkable to me that even in 2014 educators, from classroom teachers through to leading administrators, adapt a totally different language when describing the needs, or lack of them as they view it, of the gifted student. The language used when discussing the gifted is remarkably indifferent at best and presumptuous at worst. Indeed, both the language used and, at times, the pedagogies adopted assume that the gifted have ‘innate’ abilities, ‘fixed’ abilities, in need of little direction or challenge. The gifted will mysteriously ‘find their own way’, will ‘learn independently’ and will remain ‘naturally’ curious, self-motivated and fulfill all of their potential, achieving to the highest standards despite us. Teachers and administrators will merely facilitate this growth and focus their efforts on other, more needy children.

Such a mindset forgets that gifted children are like any other child with needs 鈥� it’s just that their needs are different. Yet numerous 21st century school systems continue to assume that their needs are easier to address, easier to manage and easier to ignore. Teaching the gifted is not easy. I learned this through personal experience as a teacher, and I continue to learn this in my role at 优蜜视频. To begin to explain, let’s go back then to that mid-nineties self and consider what I learned, how I learned it and why it continues to impact my role today.

Thirty-two 15-year-olds were selected, all with higher abilities in English and English Literature than the other 230 students in their cohort, but that is where the similarity ends. Let’s consider some real young people, with fictionalized names, from that class who helped to challenge my misapprehensions about the homogenous mass of the gifted:

Gareth: brilliant orator, voracious reader, highly conceptualized response to all texts but initially unable to write more than a paragraph and express himself in writing. Why? Writing was physically difficult. His thoughts travelled faster than his motors skills, and his motor skills continued to lag behind.

Dana: extremely driven, reserved, anxious, challenged by spelling and her visual memory.

Timothy: he doesn’t care, and his family is not in a place to help him. Meanwhile he tries his best to get demoted, to misbehave his way out of the situation, and because he’s clever, he knows how to misbehave and does so in interesting and innovative ways daily. To Timothy, English is a girls subject 鈥� and since no one has encouraged or valued his opinions to date, why should he believe or care now?

With a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature, I could begin to quench the gifted child’s thirst for knowledge in this class, and I had the intellectual confidence to answer their questions, but the range of their needs, emotions, anxieties and abilities was far greater and much more challenging than I’d ever imagined it would be.

Today, as in the mid-nineties, I am most challenged by the most able. Of course preparing for the intellectual challenges, anticipating the questions, the trajectory of a classroom conversation and the depth of knowledge sought remains a delight. Gifted children need teachers with content knowledge, content they can immerse themselves in, connect with, have telescoped or have explained in a way which is honest and meaningful to each of them at that moment in time. But, teachers of the gifted need to be more than a walking encyclopaedia, they need to have a whole range of other tools in their trade…..

Teachers of the gifted need to:

• Be able to assess where each child’s abilities reside so that students can experience meaningful intellectual challenge through pedagogies appropriately matched to their learning style.
• Help children make connections with each other, to develop the confidence to share knowledge with each other and have the confidence to confront gaps in knowledge.
• Accept that gifted children may have other physical and emotional challenges to deal with and that this doesn’t make them less gifted, just gifted in a different way.
• Be mindful that whilst gifted children may have the vocabulary and intellect of a person beyond their years, they are still children who thrive on praise and encouragement, whilst still needing to know that there are boundaries, limits and expectations.
• Be prepared for strong emotions when gifted children face academic challenges and don’t know how to proceed.
• Connect content in deep, imaginative and real ways, being reflective, student-centered and clear about learning objectives.
• Be like any other excellent teacher 鈥� proud of their profession, dedicated to catering for the needs of each individual learner in their classroom with high expectation of their intellectual, social and moral conduct.

We have just celebrated World Teacher’s Day, and I know many teachers may have momentarily raised their heads from their marking and preparation and smiled wearily at this accolade. When asked, we will all be able to recall a teacher who made an impact on our lives, for better or worse. We should all be mindful that with teachers, there is no other profession and that the gifted, with all of their needs, deserve a great teacher, a gifted teacher, just like any other child.

Want more resources for parents and teachers of gifted children? Sign up for our e-newsletter to get articles and resources pertaining to gifted youth delivered straight to your inbox.

Jennifer is 优蜜视频鈥檚 Marketing and Communications Coordinator. She works closely with 优蜜视频鈥檚 social media to regularly connect with parents and educators of gifted children.

In a previous post, I mentioned that and discussed the ways in which Facebook can be used in this manner. In this post, I will cover a social network you might not be as familiar with using but that has many extremely helpful applications for you to network and find resources on giftedness 鈥� Twitter.

140 characters may not seem like much, but Twitter is a gold mine of information, resources and support for parents of gifted children.

Getting Started on Twitter

If you have not used Twitter before, 聽 and the both have excellent tips for getting started.

Once you have an account set up, find Twitter accounts that interest you just like you did on Facebook. , so be sure to follow us during this process to see the gifted news and resources we share there. You can also see the Twitter users we follow for ideas of other people and organizations to look at.

If you use your Twitter account for personal reasons or follow accounts that are not related to giftedness, I suggest you use the 鈥渓ists鈥� feature to create lists based on the type of content each Twitter user posts. Twitter displays tweets in real time, so if you are looking at your home page, you will see the most recent tweets, no matter who sent them. Lists help you see the most recent posts by the type of account so that if you are looking for gifted news and resources you won鈥檛 have to sort through 100 tweets about where Ashton Kutcher ate lunch.

You can also search Twitter using keywords or hashtags that are of interest to you. You will find many resources and articles falling under that topic. #Gifted is a great place to start.

Engaging on Twitter

As with Facebook, you will get much more out of Twitter if you engage with others on the network.

To direct a tweet at another user, begin your tweet with @[Twitter handle]. You can also retweet (RT) what other users tweet and suggest other good Twitter accounts to follow using the popular Follow Friday hashtag (#FF).

RT 鈥� Simply press RT button or copy and paste the tweet into a new tweet with letters RT @[Twitter handle] previous to their tweet if you鈥檇 like to add commentary, which adds value for your followers.

#FF 鈥� Once you have followed some organizations and people you know on Twitter, you may start to see Follow Friday (#FF) tweets. These are recommendations of people to follow. In addition to being a helpful way for you to find new accounts to follow, you can use it as a nice way to say you appreciate the people in your network.

#gtchat

Twitter chats are something unique to Twitter that the gifted and education communities have really embraced. These real-time chats are scheduled and typically occur at the same time every week or month, allowing you to plan for the discussion ahead of time. #gtchat is a popular chat about giftedness that is worth a look.

This weekly chat was created by Deborah Mersino to connect parents and educators of gifted children with each other and discuss topics of interest. The chat is now run by Texas Association for the Gifted & Talented (TAGT) and moderated by Lisa Conrad, but the spirit of the chat remains the same. Chat topics are often voted upon earlier in the week, so you have a say in what you鈥檇 like to discuss. Chats usually take place on Fridays at 4pm Pacific, although chat times are changed or added occasionally to accommodate international participants. For more information about the chat or to see transcripts of past chats, which are excellent resources, visit the .

#gtchat is an excellent forum to discuss issues related to your gifted child, and we highly recommend participating. However, the fast-paced, real-time chat can be overwhelming at first. I suggest looking through the transcripts of previous chats before participating. Once you see the chat in action and get the hang of it, you will love interacting with this great group of people.

When participating in any Twitter chat, it is often helpful to use the tool available at TweetChat.com to see the chat in real time, as it is specifically built for this function. You can view the chats on Twitter, but it is often a bit slower and more difficult to work with. If you do not use TweetChat, make sure you add the chat鈥檚 designated hashtag (e.g. #gtchat) to the end of every tweet you want to show up in the chat.

#gtchat is also a great hashtag to follow throughout the week, as is the .

For more great information about how to use Twitter for advocacy and learning, take a look at these posts from Deborah Mersino:

Gifted Education and Twitter: How Social Networking Can Propel Advocacy and Learning

How have you used Twitter as a resource on giftedness? Please share your experience in the comment section below.

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