Can’t find the term you’re looking for? Want more information on one of these terms? Try the NAGC Glossary of Frequently Used Terms in Gifted Education
504 – A provision of the civil rights measure the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ensuring equal educational access for those with disabilities; under section 504 of the ADA, the disability must have a significant impact on the student’s life; a 504 plan is often used to guarantee accommodations in the classroom for students with ADD/ADHD
ADD/ADHD – Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are neurological conditions characterized by difficulty concentrating, poor impulse control, and difficulty organizing thoughts and tasks. ADHD has the additional characteristic of hyperactivity – near-constant, unconscious, non-directed physical movement that usually is only absent in sleep
Ability grouping – also called readiness grouping; placing students into instructional groups by academic need or readiness for the content; groups can be formed and reformed to meet varied instructional purposes (flexible collection)
Accelerated learning – also called accelerated pacing; students progress through the curriculum faster as the teacher speeds up the presentation rate to match the quicker learning rate of intellectually and academically advanced students.
Acceleration – the process of either shortening the number of years a student spends learning the K-12 curriculum (also called grade-skipping) or allowing a student to work ahead in a curriculum that is above their current grade level (subject-skipping); both forms of acceleration are well supported by research (see A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students, downloadable at nationdeceived.org)
Achievement test – a test that measures both prior knowledge and current levels of performance in a specific subject or course
Advanced Learning Plan (ALP) – an individualized educational plan required in Colorado that documents student strengths and interests and serves as an instruction guide. The ALP is based on student needs and interests and may include such programming options as acceleration, differentiated instruction, enrichment activities, and affective counseling and guidance.
Affective – the domain of learning that addresses attitudes, feelings, values, appreciation, and perception of self and others; motivation is a part of the affective domain that greatly influences achievement and success
Aptitude – undeveloped natural or innate potential or ability
Articulation – the communication about the transition of students between grades and learning levels
At-risk – a descriptive term for students who may underachieve, drop out of school, or come to harm. Unmet economic, physical, emotional, linguistic, and academic needs may inhibit a student’s ability to learn or to attend school.
Assessment – formal or informal methods of determining learning progress, including mastery or prior knowledge of skills, knowledge, or concepts; assessment may occur before instruction (pre-testing or pre-assessment) to assess student needs and to set goals during education (formative assessment) to guide teachers in planning and to help students track their learning, and after education (post-testing or summative evaluation) to give feedback to teachers, students, and parents on education that occurred
Asynchronous development – differing rates for physical, cognitive, and emotional development, also known as asynchrony, that occur in all children, but more remarkably in the gifted; for example, a gifted child may be chronologically 13 years old, but may appear intellectually like an 18-year-old, emotionally like an 8-year-old, and physically like an 11-year-old. The discrepancies are most significant for the general population at the chronological age of about 13. Still, the extremes displayed by gifted children have led some experts to define giftedness itself as asynchronous development.
Bell curve – describes a statistically normal distribution of naturally occurring scores within a population. The pattern of all scores follows a curve that shows the most significant number of scores falling within the middle range and fewer scores in the fields on the outer ends on either side.
Cluster grouping – the intentional placement of a group of students with similar ability or readiness in an otherwise heterogeneous classroom for a particular learning activity or a particular unit or course
Cognitive – the domain of learning that addresses knowledge and understanding of concepts and facts and their relationships; the mental field also deals with thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
Cognitive test – a test not linked to a specific curriculum that is used to predict a student’s future performance and general level of intellectual functioning; cognitive abilities are present at birth, are influenced by experiences both in and out of school, and continue to develop throughout the lifespan
Cooperative learning – an instructional strategy in which small, usually heterogeneous, groups of students work collaboratively to accomplish a particular task; the purpose of such knowledge is to prepare students to work with others, to help them understand group membership and group dynamics, and to allow them to practice the skills of leadership and group membership
Creative thinking – a type of thinking that includes skills for generating, focusing, and evaluating ideas, for synthesis, creating a new product, or problem-solving. Creative thinking comprises attitudes and dispositions such as openness to new ideas, a love of novelty, intellectual risk-taking, tolerance for ambiguity, and perseverance.
Critical thinking – a type of thinking that emphasizes the development of analytical thinking for decision-making and making judgments. Critical thinking includes attitudes such as sustained attention to details and facts, a focus on accuracy and depth, and a willingness to allow one’s mind to be changed. Skills such as analyzing, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of an argument, seeing others’ points of view, and reaching sound conclusions are part of good thinking.
Cross-grade/Multi-age grouping – a grouping strategy that mixes children of different ages for instruction
Curriculum compacting is a process that gives students credit for what they already know by documenting their mastery of the material and replacing planned activities with activities promoting new learning. The curriculum is mastered in less time by eliminating repetition, minimizing drills, and accelerating instruction, enabling gifted students to engage with more challenging material.
Differentiation – meeting the diverse needs of learners through adapting curriculum and instruction using modifications in complexity, depth, and pacing through various teaching and learning strategies; differentiation depends upon ongoing assessment of student progress and readiness so that grouping can remain flexible. The teacher makes adjustments based on the student’s interests, preferred ways of learning, and academic readiness. Teachers may adjust the learning environment, the content of lessons, learning activities, and assessments.
Elitism – a frequent criticism of gifted education; gifted education designed to serve the legitimate needs of those who differ from the general population is not inherently elitist. However, if students receiving gifted programming or their parents act as if they are socially or morally superior, or if the process supports the social order rather than identifying and serving all talented students, then charges of elitism have merit. Ideally, gifted programming serves gifted students from all social classes and ethnic groups without regard to their area of giftedness, whether they are achievers, underachievers, or students with disabilities.
Gifted – having a comparatively rare level of mental ability, intelligence, or potential in one or more domains of value to society. “Giftedness” identified during the school years is possible for the later manifestation of giftedness in an area of intense interest. Gifted students can grasp concepts and skills at a speedy rate earlier than their age peers and also exhibit unique affective traits.
Grouping – dividing students into groups by academic readiness/ability, interest, or learning style for instruction. Groups can be formed and reformed flexibly to meet varied instructional purposes. Grouping usually refers to the within-class collection, although it may also refer to the cross-class bunch. (See also Ability grouping Cross-grade/Multi-age grouping and Cluster grouping.)
Highly gifted students are those whose intelligence level is several years above their age level; due to the difference between them and children of more average abilities, their sense of isolation may be significant. Their affective qualities are often very different from the usual. They also may exhibit talent far beyond their years, in which cases they are often referred to as prodigies.
Heterogeneous grouping – placing children of various abilities, interests, and learning styles together in a classroom or instructional group
Homogeneous grouping – placing children of like abilities, interests, and learning styles in the same classroom or instructional group
Inclusion – integrating students with unique needs into regular classrooms
Independent study – self-directed learning, often using self-selected resources and driven by student interest; includes more or less teacher or mentor monitoring or supervision at regular intervals, depending on the age of the learner; generally culminates in a product or service related to the topic or issue; independent study may also refer to self-directed progress through a prescribed course.
Individualized instruction – customized education that includes progressing through or bypassing the curriculum using learning activities that align with each student’s learning style, social-emotional concerns, interests, abilities, creativity, and task commitment; usually used in tutoring settings rather than in classrooms
Intensities/Overexcitabilities – intense sensitivities experienced by people in various domains: psychomotor, sensual/aesthetic, imaginational, emotional, and intellectual; the term “overexcitability” was first coined by Kazimierz Dabrowski, a Polish psychiatrist and psychologist who lived at the time of both World Wars. Dabrowski developed a complex, hierarchical theory of human development focused on moral and creative potential. One aspect of his approach is categorizing certain perceptual traits that appear to play a role in the upward movement of a person’s development on the hierarchy. Dabrowski and his colleague and pupil, Michael Piechowski, found that the overexcitabilities appear linked in frequency and intensity to intelligence levels. Gifted children will often exhibit behaviors of one or more overexcitabilities to a greater degree than their non-gifted peers.
IQ (intelligence quotient) – a numerical calculation that represents the ratio of an individual's mental age to their chronological age multiplied by 100. Only a few cognitive tests yield IQ scores. Standard IQ scores compare the mental periods considered normal for all those of the same chronological age; the mean IQ for any age group is 100, representing a perfect correlation between mental and chronological age, according to that particular test. Cognizant of the body of research that shows little correlation between IQ scores and adult achievement, modern gifted educators often agree with this tongue-in-cheek saying about IQ tests, “Intelligence is whatever IQ tests measure.”
Learning styles – the different ways in which an individual attends to, processes, internalizes, and remembers new and challenging academic knowledge (e.g., auditory/visual/spatial/kinesthetic; linear/global; sequential/random; analytical thinker/creative thinker; left-brained/right-brained; group-oriented/individual learner practical/analytical/creative)
Mentorship - a cooperative arrangement between a student and a professional adult with common interests in a particular skill, domain-specific knowledge, or career orientation to educate the student (protégé) in the area of the adult’s expertise
Multiple Intelligences – Howard Gardner’s theory that intelligence exists and can be expressed in various ways within a society. Gardner states that intelligence is defined through problem-solving, combining traditional views of intelligence, such as rapidly processed knowledge and skills, with creativity. The theory identifies at least eight intelligences: linguistic, musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, spiritual/naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
Perfectionism- the desire to execute tasks flawlessly; gifted children may develop perfectionism upon entering school when they perform better than their classmates and believe they must continue to outshine their peers. Later, such perfectionism may lead to avoiding challenges to avoid appearing imperfect.
Pretest – a test given before instruction to determine the current level of performance in a specific skill or current level of knowledge and understanding; results are used for planning education and setting goals (see Assessment)
Pull-out – classes and activities held for certain groups of students during the school day but outside the regular classroom.
Rubric – a scoring guide used as an assessment scale to determine performance levels according to pre-determined criteria in categories of importance.
Tracking – full-time, often permanent, assignment to achievement groups across all academic areas. Twice Exceptional – a gifted student with other diagnosed learning/physical needs, such as ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome, behavioral disorder, hearing or visual impairment, or a Specific Learning Disability – abbreviated adequately as 2e, although you will sometimes see 2X
Underachievement – a significant discrepancy between recognized potential or ability and actual academic performance
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