Roles of ICT in TAG Education

1. Roles of ICT in TAG Education David Moursund University of Oregon Version 2/6/06

2. Getting Started • Handouts • Introductions: participants’TAG interests & involvement • Time Schedule

3. Very Brief Overview • Highly interactive • Presenter and participants as whole group • Participants in small groups • Very important overall goals • Improve the quality of education being provided to TAG students • Improve the quality of education being provided to all students • Enjoy ourselves—learn and have fun.

4. Part 1Four key ideas • Many “real world” problems are interdisciplinary, complex, challenging. • Information and communication technology (ICT) is a powerful, interdisciplinary aid to problem solving. • TAG students learn faster and better than average; they can become much better than average at solving complex, interdisciplinary problems. • TAG students can learn to become self-directed, self-responsible, intrinsically motivated learners.

5. Comments about four key ideas • A small number of key ideas such as those listed can “drive” a TAG program. • All students (not just TAG students) can benefit from an educational program that takes into consideration the underlying concepts of the listed ideas.

6. Part 2: Foundations • "Ability will never catch up with the demand for it." (Confucius, 551 - 479 BC) • “When you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man may acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns then he forgets…” (Plato, 427 - 347 BC) • "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." (Albert Camus; French novelist, essayist and playwright, who received the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature.)

7. Quick participant response survey question Clearly, some students learn faster than others. What best describes the upper 10% of your students in terms of learning speed: • They learn about 1 1/3 times as fast as average • They learn about 1 2/3 times as fast as average • They learn about twice as fast as average. • They learn about 2 1/3 times as fast as average • They learn about 2 2/3 or more times as fast as average.

8. Rates of learning • On average, students in the 75 to 80 IQ range learn about half as fast as IQ 100 students. • On average, students in the 125 and above IQ range learn twice or more times as fast as IQ 100 students. • This is a factor of four or morebetween the higher IQ andlower IQ groups.

9. Small group discussion In small groups, share examples and ideas of how you—as an educator—accommodate the individual needs of the huge range of rates of learning you encounter in your teaching. What roles, if any, does ICT play in your accommodation efforts?

10. Quality of learning & upper potentials • Quality tends to have to do with depth of understanding and ability to use learning to solve complex and challenging problems and tasks. • Upper potentials tend to dowith being able to graduatefrom various levels ofschooling, up through adoctorate or post doctorate level.

11. Whole group activity • Find out what disciplines the participants teach. • Ask about the nature and extent to which they teach problem solving in their disciplines. • How about roles of ICT in problem solving?

12. Problem solving includes • Recognizing, posing, and “solving” • Question situations • Problem situations • Task situations • Decision-making situations • Using higher-order, critical, creative, and wise thinking to do all of the above. • Using tools that aid and extend one’s physical and mental capabilities.

13. Critical thinking(Diane Halpern, 2002) • analyze complex issues and make informed decisions; • synthesize information in order to arrive at reasoned conclusions; • evaluate the logic, validity, and relevance of data; • solve challenging problems, and; • use knowledge and understanding in order to generate and explore new questions.

14. Adaptive/assistive technology:ICT as “auxiliary brain/mind” • After a person learns to read and write, reading and writing serve as a major brain/mind aid. • A word processor with spelling and grammar checker, along with Internet and Web connectivity, is a brain/mind aid. • Problem-solving capabilities of ICT systems serve as major brain/mind aids.

15. Whole group: Whose brain & mind is helped most by ICT? • Lower IQ students? • Mid range IQ students? • Higher IQ students?

16. Whose brain & mind is helped most by ICT? (cont.) Answer: Probably this is a dumb question. All are helped. The nature and extent of the help depends heavily on the situation and the nature of the needs and interests of the person.

17. G, Gf, and GcNature and Nurture • g is general intelligence, consisting of: • Gf fluid intelligence (nature), the biological component; increases into one’s early 20s, and then begins decreasing. • Gc crystallized intelligence (nurture), developed through informal and formal education and experience; increased into mid to late 50s if one works at it hard enough. • The aging brain …

18. Multiple Intelligences The work of Howard Gardner and others provides good evidence that we need to think about a person having different intelligence levels in different areas. • Linguistic • Logical/mathematical • Spatial • Musical • Etc.

19. Question to ponder Some people seem to be very much better than others in the learning and use of ICT. Should ICT be one of the Multiple Intelligences on Howard Gardner’s list?

20. Differing rates of learning in different areas of intelligence I have a doctorate in math. I doubt if I could have earned a bachelors degree in foreign languages, and I am quite sure I could not have achieved this level ofdegree in the performanceareas of art or music.

21. Whole group activity Think of one of your areas of greater natural ability, and one of lesser natural ability. Share some examples with the whole group on: • Do you find it helpful (or not) to have this knowledge about yourself? • How schools helped you deal with this when you were a student. • How you have helped yourself deal with this.

22. Part 3Gifted vs. Talented This tends to be a nature vs. nurture situation: • Giftedness, ability, and potential tend to mean the same thing. • Talent, attainment, and developed potential tend to mean the same thing. • I often hear sports announcers use the word athleticism. I think they mean a high level of athletic giftedness, ability, and potential.

23. Definitions of TAG Gifted and talented children are those identified by professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities are capable of high performance. These are children who require differentiated educational programs and/or services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program in order to realize their contribution to self and society (Sidney Marland, US Commissioner of Education, 1971).

24. Information used in TAG identification From ERIC Digest (Coleman, 2003) • multiple types of information (e.g., indicators of student's cognitive abilities, academic achievement, performance in a variety of settings, interests, creativity, motivation; and learning characteristics/behaviors); • multiple sources of information (e.g., test scores, school grades, and comments by classroom teachers, specialty area teachers, counselors, parents, peers, and the students themselves); and • multiple time periods to ensure that students are not missed by "one shot" identification procedures that often take place at the end of second or third grade.

25. Highly & profoundly gifted Highly and profoundly gifted students are children whose needs are so far beyond "typical" gifted that they require extraordinary resources. When tested with a Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), their scores range from 145 to 159 for highly gifted and above 160 for profoundly gifted. In those ranges, these children are as different in intellectual abilities from gifted children (usually 130 to 144) as gifted are from a typical regular education population. IQ scores do not tell the whole story; however, they are a useful indicator of individual differences, particularly when used to inform instruction (ERIC, Profoundly Gifted, n.d.)

26. Identification is a challenge • Roles of teachers • Roles of parents • Roles of TAG specialists • Roles of IQ tests • Roles of the student in self-identification; available of self-assessment instruments on the Web.

27. Whole group sharing • Share examples of the good and the not so good processes of identification of TAG students that you are familiar with. • How well does the “system” in your school or district seem to be working for minorities?

28. Part 4Expertise • "In short, learning is the process by which novices become experts. " (John T. Bruer. Schools for Thought, 1999, page 13, brain scientist) • "An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." (Niels Bohr, 1885-1962, physicist)

29. TAG students and expertise A student who learns faster and better than average is able to “accumulate” or achieve more islands or areas of expertise, at a higher level, than an average student.

30. Expertise as a point on a scale

31. “Be all you can be.” • When applied to students in general, this refers to the idea of developing levels of talent consistent with one’s level of giftedness, ability, and potential. • In my opinion, our goal as educators is to help students be all they can be. • We are not nearly as successful with gifted students as we could/should be.

32. Lower and higher-order knowledge and skills Food for thought: • Computers are far better than humans at memorization and quick recall. • How much school time and student learning time is “wasted” by over emphasis on lower-order knowledge and skills?

33. Lower-order and higher-order

34. Islands of expertiseSmall group activity • Think of some quite specific (perhaps quite small) area in which you have a high level of expertise relative to your peers. • What led you to developing this island of expertise? • How long did it take you to develop this island of expertise.

35. Building a high level of expertise • To be much better than one’s peer schoolmates in a narrow area (an island of expertise) may take a modest period of time. • To achieve one’s potential in a broader area such as musical performance, math, or writing tends to take 10 to 15 years of very hard work and the help of very good teachers and coaches.

36. Whole group question • How long does it take for a teacher to come reasonably close to being all he or she can be?

37. Part 5Total Talent Portfolio (TTP) • The TTP idea comes from Joseph Renzulli, perhaps the leading TAG person in the US. • It is applicable to all students. • The basic idea is for students to learn about themselves as learners, and learn to take increased responsibility for their own learning.

38. Whole school approach “After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.” (Benjamin Bloom, Developing Talent in Young People, 1985)

39. Renzulli’s Three Ring Model • The three factors of his three-ring model are above average: • ability • task commitment • creativity. • He supports multiple intelligence ideas and approaches.

40. Renzulli’s Operation Houndstooth. TAG is much more than IQ

41. Components of a Total Talent Portfolio • Special strengths and abilities. • Special weaknesses and challenges. (** Not included in Renzulli’s model.) • Interest areas. • Style preferences: • Instructional style • Learning environment • Thinking style • Expressions and performance style

42. Strengths/abilitiesWeaknesses/challenges • Self assessment, and learning to self assess. • Comparison with classmates, friends, etc. • Comparison with other’s performance on state and national tests, Q tests, and so on.

43. Small group discussions • Share your insights into whether your students know their strengths and weaknesses. • Share your insights into whether your students understand the meaning of, uses of, consequences of, etc. their strengths and weaknesses.

44. Instructional style preferences • Computer-assisted instruction. • Demonstration. • Drill and practice. • Lab and/or other hands-on. • Learning station (rotation to) • Independent study. • Individual Project-based Learning (PBL) • Individual tutoring. • Lecture. • Small group discussion. • Small group PBL. • Student reports (presentations) • Whole class discussion.

45. Small group discussion What do you know about the instructional style preferences of your students, and what do you do with this knowledge? What do your students know about their instructional style preferences, and what do they do with this knowledge?

46. Who does what? • In creating a student’s TTP? • You (the teacher) • The student • Others • In making use of a student’s TTP? • You (the teacher) • The student • Others

47. TTP within a discipline area such as ICT • Last spring my preservice elementary education teachers tried out the TTP/ICT idea in elementary schools where they were doing field experience activities. It worked well, but it was time consuming. • ICT may be a useful, not so threatening area in which to experiment with your students.

48. Renzulli’s Schoolwide Enrichment Model The heart of Joseph Renzulli’s Schoolwide Enrichment Model is a school decision to devote a half-day per week to project-based learning (PBL). During that time, all students in the school are engaged in PBL. A specific project may involve students from many different grade levels.

49. Whole group questions • Do any of you make extensive use of PBL in your teaching? • Do any of you know of schools that have implemented something akin to the Renzulli, half-day a week, PBL model? • Have any of you experimented with TTP?

50. Part 6Project-based Learning (PBL) • "Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand." (Confucius around 450 BC) • "You don't just learn knowledge; you have to create it. Get in the driver's seat, don't just be a passenger. You have to contribute to it or you don't understand it." (Dr. Edwards Deming; industrial quality control guru)