Keynote Speakers
A Technology Based Program that Matches Enrichment Resources with Student Strengths
Joseph S. Renzulli
The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut, USA
Remarkable advances in instructional communication technology (ICT) have now made is possible to provide high levels of enrichment and the kinds of curricular differentiation that facilitate advanced learning services to students who have access to a computer and the Internet. But in order to maximize the potential if ICT it is necessary to construct programs that are based on learning theory that goes beyond the didactic and prescriptive models that have resulted in too much worksheets-on-line and electronic encyclopedias. The Renzulli Learning System (RLS) uses a strength-based learning theory called the Enrichment Triad Model that is purposefully designed to promote advanced level learning, creative productivity, and high levels of student engagement by focusing on the applicationof knowledge rather than the mere acquisition and storage of information.
The Renzulli Learning System is a comprehensive program that begins by providing a computer-generated profile of each student’s academic strengths, interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression. A search engine then matches Internet resources to the student’s profile from fourteen carefully screened data bases that are categorized by subject area, grade level, state curricular standards, and degree of complexity. There are also hundreds of enrichment activities that can be down loaded and reproduced for individual or group learning activities. A management system called the Wizard Project Maker guides students in the application of knowledge to teacher or student selected assignments, independent research studies, or creative projects that individuals or small groups would like to pursue. Students and teachers can evaluate the quality of students’ products using a rubric called The Student Product Assessment Form.
Students can rate each site visited, conduct a self-assessment of what they have gained from the site, and place resources in their own Total talent Portfolio for future use. RLS also includes a curriculum acceleration management system for high-achieving students that is based on the many years of research and widespread use of a popular differentiation process called Curriculum Compacting.
Lost Prizes: Recognizing and Nurturing Talent in At-Risk Populations
Ken McCluskey; and Andrea McCluskey Winnipeg University, Winnipeg, Canada
This keynote speech explores the expansion of enrichment programming to include hitherto marginalized populations:
nonconformists, dropouts, the "tough bright", children and youth from minority groups, and young people whose talents surface in domains other than reading, writing, and arithmetic. Reference is made to several made-in-Manitoba initiatives which have successfully employed Creative Problem Solving - in combination with mentoring, career awareness, and other interventions - to reclaim talented but troubled high-school dropouts (Lost Prizes), to turn around the lives of marginalized Aboriginal youth (Northern Lights), to reduce the recidivism rate of Native Canadian inmates (the Second Chance program), and to support inner-city students at risk for alienation, school failure, and gang involvement (the Inclusive Prototype Enrichment Project). “The true ‘cost’ of talent delayed or denied is virtually impossible to discern.
What is the cost of a symphony unwritten, a cure not discovered, a breakthrough not invented? In today’s complex world, and in preparing for tomorrow’s certainly more complex one, we can scarcely afford such waste of ‘talent capital’ and human potential” (McCluskey & Treffinger, 1998, p. 216). The Lost Prizes project was designed to recapture talented high-school dropouts. Their talents notwithstanding, the young people in question had been lost to the system. At best, they were floating aimlessly; at worst, they were in serious trouble with the law. The hope was to reconnect with these at- risk individuals, awake dormant creative potential, and encourage reasoned decision making. This flexible off-site program featured career exploration, growth plans, job experience, and CPS training. It worked successfully in a number of countries, including Canada, for many dropouts, whose talents were identified, appreciated, and nurtured.
Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC)
Todd LubartUniversité Paris Descartes, Paris-France
This keynote will address a new tool, the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC 2009). It is a new battery that allows creative giftedness to be measured. It includes verbal and graphic subtests that measure the two key modes of creative cognition “divergent-exploratory” thinking and “convergent-integrative thinking” in elementary and middle school students.
The instrument can be used as an efficient diagnostic tool to identify creative potential and to monitor progress, using pre- tests and post-tests, in educational programmes designed to enhance creativity. Easy to use by psychologists and educators, this instrument can, for example, help school psychologists to identify, in regular schools, children with creative potential. An original, internet-based scoring system that enhances inter-rater reliability is integrated in the battery. Initially developed in France, this instrument will be available in 2011 in other languages with local norms for different cultures.
EPoC is a comprehensive evaluation tool that combines an approach to creativity by domain and by mode of thought, allowing a profile of creative potential to be assessed. The EPoC system provides opportunities to add additional domains to the assessment (such as the musical domain, currently under development). EPoC includes a training program for evaluators to facilitate test use and scoring.
Dogmatism and High Ability: The Erosion and Warping of Creative Intelligence
Don Ambrose
Editor, Roeper Review, Professor of Graduate Education,
College of Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences, Rider University, USA
Today's biggest problems (e.g., the global economic crisis; climate change) derive largely from the dogmatic thinking of highly creative and intelligent, gifted people. For example, dogmatic adherence to self-aggrandizing neoliberal ideology and narrow-minded neoclassical economic theory enabled gifted, creative but ethically vacuous “masters of the universe”
on Wall Street to create clever ways to circumvent and dismantle financial regulations, thereby catalyzing a global financial crisis that destroyed the livelihoods of millions. In order to discover the ways in which dogmatism distorts and suppresses the development and manifestation of creative intelligence I initiated an interdisciplinary project, soliciting contributions from eminent scholars in creative studies, gifted education, history, sociology, economics, psychology, educational critical theory, and theoretical physics. I teamed up with Robert Sternberg to bring all of these contributions together into a common, interdisciplinary bridge-building forum. This session provides some of the results of the project.
Examples of findings include the following: acts of genocide are fomented by gifted leaders for several key reasons;
otherwise gifted, intelligent policymakers and military leaders dogmatically believe that military action is a viable first-
choice policy option even though it tends to be a disastrous crapshoot; the dogmatism of neoclassical economics suppresses the ascendance of ethical, altruistic gifted individuals to positions of leadership in today’s societies while elevating gifted psychopaths to the most powerful leadership positions; dogmatic, mechanistic philosophical assumptions encourage the implementation of shortsighted, shallow accountability systems that drive creative intelligence out of our schools and seriously erode the life chances of future generations. After presenting and analyzing these and other insights about the suppressive, warping effects of dogmatism on creative intelligence I provide some ideas about how we can insulate gifted young minds from dogmatic thought and action.
Development of Representational Skills in Childhood and Adolescence
Wolfgang Schnotz
University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Teaching and learning as well as thinking and problem solving makes generally use of multiple forms of representations.
In particular, creative thinking is based on a flexible interplay between different kinds of external representations and their mental counterparts. Whereas learning to read and learning to write play a major role in contemporary educational systems, usage of other forms of representations such as pictures, maps, diagrams, graphs for comprehending complex subject matter and for creative problem solving has not received much attention yet.
The keynote will analyze different forms of representation and their perceptual as well as cognitive demands on learners from the perspectives of cognitive science, developmental psychology and educational psychology. Whereas even very young children are able to recognize objects and scenarios easily on the basis of realistic pictures, comprehension of more abstract forms of representations combined with text requires more sophisticated procedures that are difficult for younger children and develop only gradually. Empirical findings will be presented regarding the development of corresponding representational skills with children and young adolescents. Perspectives for further research and instructional practice will be pointed out.
Gifted Education, Talent Development, and International Practices: Past, Present, and Future
Taisir Subhi Yamin
General Director, The International centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE), Germany.
The educational system should be concerned with the right of each individual to develop his or her potential; and also should be concerned with individual differences (e.g., abilities, interests, learning styles, and motivation level).
Educational democracy implies that each individual has the right to access appropriate education provisions. Our mission is to empower every person to become a responsible, self-directed, lifelong learner through a positive partnership of families, teachers, scholars, ministries of education and community. This keynote speech will shed light on the gifted programmes and practices in different parts of the world, and will address strategies for extending thinking in addition to the importance of programmes designed to develop productive thinking. These programmes aimed at helping teachers create environment and activities that allow learners to engage in productive thinking, and helping learners to build the competences they need for living in the 21st century. Fostering use of technology in educational settings is a priority to meet today's instructional demands. Based on years of practical experience, this speech presents audience with a framework to meet the needs of diverse students, to match a appropriate technologies to target projects and populations, to employ a combination of approaches that facilitate creativity in the learning environments and innovation in teaching methods. There is increasingly interest and focus on the latest developments concerned with the use of e-Learning in different fields of knowledge. For example, inside the open source e-Learning environments teachers could offer students self-paced instructional materials, collaborative assignments, decision making and problem solving activities, and online discussions. If the educational systems are to achieve the potential of the digital world then they need to do a lot of work to optimise the use of technology and computerised platforms and systems in educational settings. The future will witness a number of programmes and special provisions, including: tele-mentoring; online enrichment clustering; e-learning and virtual learning environments; teaching for productive thinking; global networks and forums aimed at sharing: knowledge, experience, interests, values and outcomes and benefits. In the context of the current situation, a number of questions should be addressed. First, do we have the necessary tools to do our job well? Second, if the tools are not there, can we create them, and can we convince public decision makers to help us create them? Third, is it any wonder that we have been unable to impact the major engines of change our societies? Fourth, what happen when gifted programs are eliminated and gifted students are put back into the general education program? Fifth, is gifted education a support system for general education, or a separate entity?
Mentorship and the Realization of Potential in Gifted, Talented and Creative Individuals
Trevor J. Tebbs
Psychology Department, Castleton State College, Castleton, Vermont, USA
Mentoring has been a cornerstone of human growth and development worldwide for millennia. Although not always referred to as mentoring, the powerful influence of older, wiser, knowledgeable and pedagogically-disposed individuals in the lives of others is an experience common to humankind irrespective of epoch, culture, geographical location, language and other conditions separating groups of people. A few stories recording such relationships survive the passage of time, assume mythological proportions and enter the cannon of global knowledge. Other no less powerful and instructive stories remain hidden, securely guarded by family or tribe or culture or race or country. The collective human mind can only speculate on the untold benefits founded upon a relationship between mentor and mentee.
As a mentor himself, Dr. Tebbs has long advocated for mentoring as a means whereby gifted potential may be more fully realized. He believes it is not only a simple and convenient way to accommodate exceptional needs of highly able individuals but also profoundly wise from multiple personal, socio-emotional, psychological and societal perspectives.
While recognizing the burgeoning incidence of mentoring and the differences in understanding regarding the form and function of mentoring, Dr. Tebbs takes a close look at this relationship as it exists and might yet exist, especially in the context of the world’s most highly able, talented and creative young people. His considerations spring from more than a quarter of a century of experience as a teacher, educational psychologist, counselor, educational consultant, assistant director of an honors program and college professor working in the context of highly able, talented and creative young people.
Problem Based Learning as a Learning Environment for the Gifted Students
Heinz Neber
Universität München, Germany
Students should be more active in the pursuit of knowledge. Discovery learning approaches may help in attaining this objective. They contribute in establishing learning environments that support the development of personal skills, self- regulatory competencies, and they support the acquisition of more meaningful and transferable knowledge. Such environments contribute in meeting specific needs and strengths of highly gifted students. By varying the degree of structure of learning tasks and by employing different kinds and amounts of support, discovery learning may be adapted to individual differences among students. Thus, the versions of discovery approaches which will be presented in the speech may help in challenging all students on adequate levels.
Help! Technology is Here!
John P. Anchan
Winnipeg University, Winnipeg, Canada
The emerging and increasingly shrinking world with dismantled borders and international networking of technologies has overwhelmed the traditional thinkers in the field of education. From traditional communication to social networking; locus-bound systems to wireless mobile technologies; F2F (Face-to-Face) to online/distance learning systems (LMS); snail mail to lighting and immediate SMS communication; and paper to dynamic multimedia, the world has evolved dramatically. As we struggle to keep up with the Cyberlingo and the Technospeak, many of us are both enamored and perhaps, ambiguous about evolving technologies influencing our daily lives. This is more so, in the world of education.
The education system appears to be increasingly subject to the imposing technology that subsumes the substantive content. At times, there exists an apparent culture of dissonance among the “plugged-in and the clued-out.” This culture of disconnection has nurtured the, “Smart, Rich and Unaware.” In McLuhan’s global village, we have an increasing preponderance to expect the technologically proficient generation lacking the liberal education, political acumen, intellectual rigor and the traditional fervour for established knowledge. In a world of silicon culture that epitomizes dot.com billionaires and tech savvy young and precocious teens, there is no time for Shakespeare, opera, the classics, sports, nature, or history. A world of smart but uninformed rich population has redefined the concept of success, education, and political discourse. Anyone not belonging to these technophiles would either be faced with contempt or at the least, immense apathy. A technophobe is considered to be, “cultureless” and clueless. In this topsy-turvy world of enamoring paradox entranced by skewed logic – where individuals, institutions, corporations, and governments ascribe a holy pedestal to anything that smells of information technology, the technologically adept workers comprise of a rich and successful assemblage of highly specialized but overall deficient generation. In a world of acronyms, where capital letters conjoin to form any permutation to mean anything, it is a new world order. To those who are uninitiated into the world of information technology, such language is esoteric, intimidating, and perhaps even exclusively intellectual and brilliant. Not discounting the many knowledgeable and bright individuals who seem to appear like silver lining in a cloud of parochial techno-jargon world of numbers and acronyms, this is a new world. While most professions have their technical conduit for understanding and dissemination of knowledge, the IT world seems to be one of those few areas where such vocabulary exudes a semblance of intelligent discourse. Those who do venture beyond the margins retract to their comfortable zones of knowledge – knowledge that pays quite well, too. So, who cares whether Zambia is in Africa or Australia? What difference does it make to talk about homelessness or the political leadership in Myanmar? What is Myanmar? Does anyone care that Iranians are not Arabs? Alas, in a world of emerging technologies, we have no time for sustained interest to ask these questions. In a world of constant change, how do we relate to a networked generation?
What can teachers do to bring the excitement in reading? How do adaptive teachers respond to changing classrooms that are no more homogeneous? What can the global educator offer utilizing the cyberspace? Where does the V-Generation stand on assumed expertise in information technology? Where planned obsolescence is the norm, how do educators utilize emerging technologies? How do evolving universities relate to emerging technologies? These are some of the questions we need to ask.
The Circle of Courage™: A Strength-Based, Resilient Model for Child and Youth Development
Steve Van Bockern
Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
The Circle of Courage is a strength-based model that challenges traditional deficit-based mindsets about challenged and challenging youth. The Circle of Courage suggests belonging, mastery, independence and generosity are universal growth needs for all children. When the “circle is broken” and needs aren’t met, youth are placed at risk for a host of undesirable outcomes. The Circle of Courage model is described by Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg and Steve Van Bockern in their book Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future. The model has become a lens for many throughout the world that informs their work with all children and youth.
