2017 Gifted Education Policy Symposium and Conference

Transformational Leadership: Inspirations and Issues in Gifted Education

A Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Frank C. Worrell holds affiliate appointments in the Psychology Department (Social and Personality area), and with the Center for Child and Youth Policy, the Center for Race and Gender, and the Center for Latino Policy Research. His current appointments include Faculty Director of the School Psychology program, Faculty Director of the Academic Talent Development Program, and Faculty Director of the California College Preparatory Academy. 

Dr. Worrell’s areas of research include academic talent development/gifted education, the education of at-risk youth, ethnic identity, racial identity, scale development and validation, teacher effectiveness, time perspective, and the translation of psychological research findings into school-based practice. Dr. Worrell is an active member of several professional organizations, and is currently a Member at Large on the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association (APA) and editor of the Review of Educational Research.  

He served on the Committee for Psychological Tests and Assessment (APA), the Board of Educational Affairs (APA), and the Joint Committee of AERA, APA, and NCME appointed to revise the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and is a Fellow of several divisions. In 2013, Dr. Worrell was awarded the Jack Bardon Distinguished Service Award from Division 16 of APA.

Low motivation is among the most frustrating education issues facing parents and educators. Low motivation can limit students’ opportunities for long‐term success and fulfillment, and impact society as a whole by reducing the pool of high ability individuals contributing their creative productivity to societal growth and development. In this session we will discuss reasons students underachieve and specific strategies to improve student achievement that increase students’ confidence and make learning more meaningful.

This session will include the application of Transformational Leadership through educational models such as Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Indigenous Educational Models. These Indigenous systems and models will use art, creativity, and cyclical ways of knowing and being in order to engage leaders in transforming and inspiring gifted educational settings.

What are programming options for building or enhancing the leadership skills of our gifted students? Suggestions for topics and activities will be presented in an interactive presentation that can be applied to gifted students, grades 4-12.

Are you an empowered gifted parent, or do you feel more frustrated and bewildered than anything else? Join us as we power up to help you feel better prepared to raise a healthy, happy gifted child and take care of yourself as well. We will delve into many aspects of parenting gifted children.

Racially, culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse students are often overrepresented in special education placement and disciplinary action in schools. Conversely, these same students are typically underrepresented in identification for gifted programs. Contemporary research consistently indicates that school leadership matters. Colorado has one of the most comprehensive identification processes in the country. Each has significant influence on the culture of a school, so that every student and teacher flourishes. In this interactive session, we will discuss specific strategies that principals can use to make gifted identification more appropriate and inclusive.

In this presentation, Dr. Worrell will review several of the common explanations put forward for underrepresentation in gifted education and assess the evidence in support of those explanations. He will highlight the explanations that have the greatest support in the research literature and propose some strategies for increasing participation of underrepresented students in gifted and talented education programs.

If making small adjustments in lesson design and classroom pedagogy could lead to a dramatic increase in engagement and achievement, would you pursue those changes? According to Moss and Brookhart (2012), learning target theory can be combined with structures that promote student engagement, self-motivation, and differentiation. Effective learning targets address standards and engage students at appropriate levels of challenge. Learn how to transform instructional objectives into learning targets that directly address higher order thinking.

Social and emotional needs are crucial to the wellbeing of gifted students and adults, yet are often their least met needs. When social and emotional needs are not met, low self-esteem, anxiety and/ or depression often follow. This session reveals the foundation of how these issues develop which in turn, leads to effective intervention strategies. It proceeds to show ten steps to building social & emotional core strength and flexibility—in essence, to becoming Social-Emotional ACES. An ACE, of course, is someone highly skilled. Becoming Social-Emotional ACES specifically targets Asynchrony, Social Skills, Emotional Resilience & Self-Esteem.

The research is clear that accelerating gifted students is beneficial and cost effective. There are still questions and concerns about academic acceleration as an intervention. Advocating for grade skipping and single subject acceleration requires careful data collection and targeted communication to overcome negative perceptions of acceleration. We’ll discuss various acceleration options and practical approaches to providing for gifted students advanced learning needs. The highlights from A Nation Empowered: Evidence Trumps Excuses Holding Back America’s Brightest Students will be presented. 

We are well aware of all the demands placed on classroom teachers. We are also aware that many of the things that teachers want to do are limited or even eliminated. The reading of literature is often one of the first casualties. How do we create a culture of reading and re-integrate reading and literature back into our classrooms as a priority? In this session, we will identify strategies that can help us to create time for reading, especially reading of longer pieces of literature, and re-establish the reading of literature as the priority that it must and should be!

Underrepresentation of giftedness in the context of poverty is a challenge faced by educators in both urban and rural settings. In this study, three questions are examined: “What local assumptions and beliefs serve as barriers to recognizing potential in every student in rural settings?”, “What impact does systematic professional development in best practices for identification and instructional depth and complexity have on increasing the proportionality of identification of diverse students?” and “What are the implications for leadership to effect culturally proficient change for every student?”. Results provide insight into complex settings and recommendations for applied action leading to change.

Each of us has a role to play in advocating for gifted students in our capacity as policymaker, educator, business person, or parent. In this presentation we will discuss how to best determine what we can do to advocate for gifted students. We will walk through the process of assessing, and possibly creating, resources. We will discuss the process of helping to determine what a given student needs and how to best meet those needs with the resources in our proverbial backyard and beyond. Informal internships, radical acceleration, single subject acceleration, and distance learning will be discussed as well as maintaining balance through the pursuit of true peers and social-emotional wellbeing.

James T. Webb, Ph.D., has been recognized as one of the most influential psychologists nationally on gifted education. Dr. Webb has written 16 books, over 75 professional publications, three DVDs, and many research papers for psychology conventions or for conferences regarding gifted and talented children. Six of his books are on gifted children and adults, and four have won “Best Book” awards.

A frequent keynote and workshop speaker, Dr. Webb has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Sunday Morning, The Phil Donahue Show, CNN, Public Radio International, and National Public Radio. In 1981, Dr. Webb established SENG, a national nonprofit organization that provides information, training, conferences, and workshops, and he served as Chair of SENG’s Professional Advisory Committee. In 2011, he was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arizona Association for Gifted children, the Community Service Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and the Upton Sinclair Award by EducationNews.org.

Dr. Webb has served on the Board of Directors for the National Association for Gifted Children and was President of the American Association for Gifted Children. Currently, Dr. Webb is President of Great Potential Press, Inc.

This session will explore leadership strategies to support an environment of change which leads to positive impacts for gifted learners. Change is difficult but with a creative systems-thinking approach districts can balance ECEA rules with innovative approaches to support gifted learners. Participants will walk away with strategies they can implement to begin changing outcomes for gifted learners in their districts.

Educators have limited opportunities to reflect on issues of culture, power, and equity in teaching and learning. This leads to missed opportunities for identifying underrepresented students for gifted programs. Participants will explore how cultural difference and power inform the equity imperative in gifted education, and will examine how their own social identities shape the way they think about teaching and learning and who ‘counts’ as gifted. Critical examinations of equity, identity, and cultural competency are central for leaders tasked with ensuring that historically marginalized students have equal access to gifted programming.

“All students, regardless of socioeconomic status, gender, or race should have access to, and be provided with the best educational opportunities”. One such practice is curriculum compacting, giving students the opportunity to experience and interact with content and ideas at a faster pace and with greater depth and complexity. This session provides resources and highlights how to utilize this practice through the lens of language acquisition. By supporting the potential for rapid language acquisition, a body of evidence for gifted programming can be collected to inform future programming options, including supporting the students in becoming multi-lingual.

This session will celebrate the lives of gifted women with the focus upon the dissemination of the doctoral research project, “Exploring the Lives of Gifted Women.” The research findings will be compared to the existing literature that exists for gifted women including the external and internal barriers that gifted women face. It will also discuss the obstacles that gifted women encounter and specific challenges that are unique to gifted women. A discovery of proven strategies that help guide gifted women will be presented.

Many of our brightest, most creative, most independent-thinking children are being incorrectly diagnosed as having behavioral or mental disorders. Stigmatizing labels can harm their sense of self, and treatment may be unnecessary or even harmful. Because few health care professionals receive training about gifted children, educators and parents must become informed, particularly since research indicates that teachers’ opinions are instrumental in decisions to send a child to be evaluated by a health professional. This workshop describes ways to differentiate whether a child suffers from disorders such as ADHD, or whether the child is simply showing gifted behaviors.

The socioemotional development of gifted children is beautifully complex. Numerous well-accepted concepts within the gifted field have been acknowledged, including, but not limited to, those of intellectual precocity, asynchronous development, socioemotional needs, twice-exceptionality (2e), and overexcitabilities (OE’s) within Dabrowski’s TPD. This presentation posits an understanding of the socioemotional development of gifted children that will incorporate the myriad concepts in the field of giftedness/2e to help guide parents, teachers, and clinicians with gifted children’s optimal growth and development.

Our highly gifted teenagers are out in the world leading the way in organic, novel and unanticipated ways. In this session we will meet these students and learn their leadership lessons, environments and journeys to sharpen perspectives on how to best nurture, predict and even duplicate their achievements in other settings. One definition of leverage is: Power or ability to act or to influence people, events, and decisions. How does social conscience inform these leaders’ decisions? In the “perfect storm” of advanced leadership, how do achievements and emotions set the climate for our rising ‘GenZ’? We will ask the experts!