Group items tagged

The Gifted Rating Scales is a teacher rating scale designed to help identify gifted students and is based on a multidimensional model of giftedness. By design, GRS minimizes observational bias and increases measurement accuracy. There are two forms: the GRS-P (for preschool/kindergarten level) and the GRS-S (designed specifically for students in grades 1-8). The GRS measures students' aptitude in six areas: Intellectual Ability: measures the child's verbal and nonverbal mental skills and intellectual competence. Items on this scale rate the child's memory, reasoning ability, problem solving and mental speed. Academic Ability: measures the child's skill in dealing with factual and/or school-related material. Items rate readiness and advanced development/proficiency in reading, math and other aspects of the early childhood curriculum. Creativity: measures the child's ability to think, act and/or produce unique, novel or innovative thoughts or products. Items rate the child's imaginative play, original thinking and inventive approach to situations or problems. Artistic Talent: measures the child's potential for, or evidence of ability in, drama, music, dance, drawing, painting, sculpture, singing, playing a musical instrument and/or acting. Leadership: measures the child's ability to motivate people toward a common goal. Motivation: refers to the child's drive, tendency to enjoy challenging tasks, and ability to work well without encouragement or reinforcement. The motivation scale is not viewed as a type of giftedness, but rather as the energy that impels a young child to achieve.

Oh, they're smart, they'll do fine on their own'

often difficult to get funding for programs and services that help us to develop some of our brightest, most advanced kids — America's most valuable resource

gifted children are those who are in the upper 3 percent to 5 percent compared to their peers in one or more of the following domains: general intellectual ability, specific academic competence, the visual or performing arts, leadership and creativity."

a standard set of questions they would like answered: can you really divide people up into a particular set of categories? Are the tests for these categories reliable; if you take the test twice will you come out the same both times? Are the categories you are trying to use related to how people learn? If you use a theory of learning styles, do people learn better? Can you use learning styles to predict who will benefit most from particular styles of instruction? Does using a learning styles system - any system - for teaching have other effects on learners or teachings, such as making them more confident or making them expend more effort? These questions stem from the way academic psychologists systematically approach topics: we like to establish the truth of psychological claims. If someone comes to us with a theory about learning styles we want to know (a) if learning styles really exist, (b) if they really are associated with better learning and also (c) if, when learning styles are taken into account, learning is better because of something about the specific learing style theory rather than just being a side effect of an increase in teacher confidence, effort or somesuch.

Using a learning style theory is great, but you lose a lot of flexibility and potential for change if you start to believe that the theory is based on proven facts about the way the world is, rather than just being a useful set of habits and suggestions which might, sometimes, help guide us through the maze of teaching and learning.