Successful Collaboration Among Various Educational Sectors in Nurturing Gifted Learners

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Successful Collaboration Among Various
Educational Sectorsin Nurturing Gifted Learners

• Anna Hui
• Center for Child Development
• Hong Kong Baptist University

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If you are a gifted

• Infant
• Toddler
• Young child
• School child
• Adolescent
• Young adult
• Parent
• Adult

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You probably have met

• Home educators
• Play group volunteers
• Early childhood educators
• Elementary school educators
• High school educators
• University educators
• Counseling professionals
• Psychologists
• Coach or instructors in talented areas
• Other professionals from all walks of life

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School-Based Collaboration (Kochhar-Bryant, 2008)
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Division of Labor

• Family education needs
• General education needs
• Advanced education needs
• Talent education needs
• Career-vocational education needs
• Emotional and psychological needs
• Peer relation and social needs

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Collaboration Partners in Education Sectors

• Elementary school educators
• High school educators
• University educators
• Counseling professionals
• Psychologists
• Coach or instructors in talented areas
• Other professionals from all walks of life

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Point 1 Basis for Collaboration

• col (together) laboratus (work)
• Enter a collaboration because of a shared passion
  and vision about education and optimal
  development of potentials of learners.
• Its not just a school or government project,
  its about developing potentials in individual
  children and talents for the school and community.

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The Convention on the Rights of the Child

• All rights apply to all children without
  exception or discrimination of any kind (article
  2).
• That the best interests of the child must be a
  primary consideration in all actions concerning
  children (article 3).
• That States have an obligation to ensure that as
  much as possible every childs survival and
  development (article 6).
• Childrens views must be taken into account in
  all matters affecting them (article 12).

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Point 2 Opportunities for Collaboration
(modified from Kochhar-Bryant, 2008)
Elementary
Junior High School
Senior High School
College/ Post-High
Collaboration Activities at Student, Family,
School levels Transition Planning Support Servic
es Postsecondary Partnership
Collaboration Activities at Student, Family,
School levels Pre-referral Support Transition
Support Family Partnership
Collaboration Activities at Student, Family,
School levels Related Services Transition
Support Family Partnership
Collaboration Activities at Student, Family,
School levels Inter-agency plan Transition Planni
ng Family Partnership
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Point 3 Interface between Gifted Education
General/Quality Education (Tomlinson, Coleman,
Allan, Udall, Landrum, 2004)

• Collaboration between Gifted Education
  General/Quality Education balance the roles of
  equity and excellence to the benefit of all
  students
• Equity Maximize capacity for all learners,
  including the gifted
• Excellence Promote talent development for all
  students

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Collaboration facilitates shared common goals and
benefits the total school community

• Rich content
• Regular expectations for critical and creative
  thinking
• Development of meaningful products
• Establishing expectations for high quality and
  hard work

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Point 4 Collaboration to Improve Perceptions
about Gifted Education

• Take clear, consistent, proactive public stands
  that gifted education is part of the movement to
  improve education for all students
• Use broadened conceptions of intelligence, focus
  on gifted education as a resource for talent
  development in a broad range of students
• Develop videotapes of effective examples of
  gifted education and share them broadly with
  educators of various subject domains (e.g. Gifted
  Strategies, EDB, 2008)

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An Infusion of Creativity Project

• Level 1 Various Subjects infuse creativity
  into subject learning and teaching (Level IA
  whole class, general enrichment)
• Level 2 Creative Problem Solving for Able
  Students (Level IIC pull-out, creativity
  training)

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Point 5 Collaboration to Effective Instructional
Practice Programming

• Team members contribute their best to analyze,
  develop and make more effective educational and
  support practices
• Focus on how to assess student needs and
  interests, and how to design responsive
  instruction
• Example of HKRSSTPSS (Level IID Pull-out
  Mathematics on Solid Geometry)

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Point 6 Collaborative Identification through
the Regular Classroom

• An interactive process that enables teams of
  people with diverse expertise to generate
  creative solutions to .. problems. The outcome ..
  produces solutions that are different from those
  that any individual team member would produce
  independently (Idol, West Lloyd, 1988)
• Example of LSTYKH Secondary School (Level IIC
  Pull-Out, Critical Thinking Visual Media)

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Identification
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Point 7 Promote Collaboration between
Specialists in gifted education and Other
Educators

• Create and share specific models of
  differentiated instruction and flexible grouping
  in the regular classroom
• EDB (2008) Resource CR-ROM

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Torrances Incubation Model of Teaching for
Creativity (Level IA whole class, general
enrichment)

• Primary Secondary Chinese English Language
  Experts textbook student sensitive
• Chinese Education Experts curriculum sensitive
  for best practice
• English Education Experts curriculum sensitive
  for best practice
• Gifted Creativity Education Experts
  individual difference sensitive

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Salt Water Crocodile Pui PuiHong Kong Wetland
Park - Exhibition Galleries - Pui Pui's Home

• A Chinese text for Primary 5 students
• Heightening Expectation
• Deepening Understanding
• Keeping the Curiosity or Creativity Going

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Point 8 Collaboration for Preservice, Inservice,
and Graduate Preparation

• Encourage university level educators of the
  gifted to volunteer to teach preservice courses,
  and take part in preservice seminars
• Encourage university level educators of the
  gifted to collaborate with other educators to
  develop and teach models of differentiated
  instruction for academically diverse classrooms

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Point 9 Facilitate and Create Opportunities for
Collaboration to Influence Policy and Political
Action

• Plan conferences to enable interested parties to
  meet one another
• Nurture support which now exists for gifted
  education
• Support educators of the gifted and other
  advocates for gifted child education in becoming
  administrators, school board members, committee
  board members, PTAs and other policy-making
  groups and positions

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Point 10 Sustain Influence through Research and
Dissemination Efforts

• Encourage educators to take the lead in action
  research projects on topics related to high
  ability learners
• Provide funding for research and studies
  (qualitative, quantitative, longitudinal) related
  to gifted learners and their developmental needs
  in families and schools
• Conduct longitudinal efforts to study and modify
  teacher attitudes about giftedness

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Two Teacher Training Courses offered by CCD
commissioned by EDB

• To enhance teachers knowledge and skills in
  helping and nurturing gifted students
• To enrich teachers knowledge of giftedness,
  leadership, creativity and critical thinking
• To facilitate teachers self-understanding and
  development
• To foster teachers understanding of the
  affective characteristics, needs and development
  of gifted students
• To reinforce teachers skills through practicum
  in school and sharing in class.
• Workshops lectures (33 hours), practicum (3
  hours) recognized as continuous professional
  development

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Demographic details of Participants
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Subscales of Scale on Teachers Role in
Gifted Class (Yang,1985)

• Class teaching how to teach and maintain a
  gifted class
• Student counseling counseling gifted students
  and fostering their holistic development
• Curriculum how to help gifted students research
  and excel and how to accommodate the course
  contents and cater for gifted students special
  educational needs
• Communication communicating with gifted
  students, their parents, other teachers and
  counselors and establishing a close relationship
  with them
• Administration and research conducting gifted
  research, taking further study, evaluating gifted
  students needs and talents, providing
  extracurricular learning activities, and getting
  support from school head and coworkers

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Table 5b. Participants mean scores of
implementation in Scale on Teachers Role in
Gifted Class at Time 1 and Time 2 and t-values
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Positive Attitudes Beliefs about
Collaboration (Kochhar-Bryant, 2008)

• Belief in the human drive for community and
  growth
• Belief in the power of collective vision
• Belief that collaboration is essential for
  educating the whole child
• Belief in the value of self-determination
• Belief that systemic change is rooted in
  individual change and learning
• Belief in the participation of all who will be
  affected by the change

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References

• Tomlinson, C. A., Coleman, M. R., Allan, S.,
  Udall, A., Landrum, M. (2004). Interface
  between gifted education and general education
  Toward communication, cooperation and
  collaboration. In C. A. Tomlinson (Ed.),
  Differentiation for gifted talented students
  (pp. 1-15). Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press the
  National Association for Gifted Children.

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References

• Cropley, A. J., Dehn, D. (Eds.). (1996).
  Fostering the growth of high ability European
  Perspectives. Norwood, NJ Ablex Publishing
  Corporation.
• Idol, L., West, J. F., Llyod, S. R. (1988).
  Organizing and implementing specialized reading
  programs A collaborative approach involving
  classroom, remedial, and special education
  teachers. Remedial Special Education, 9 (2),
  54-61.
• Israel, S. E., Sisk, D. A., Block, C. C. (2007).
  Collaborative literacy Using gifted strategies
  to enrich learning for every student. Thousand
  Oaks, CA Corwin Press.
• Kochhar-Bryant, C. A. (2008). Collaboration and
  system coordination for students with special
  needs From early childhood to the postsecondary
  years. Columbus, OH Pearson Merrill Prentice
  Hall.
• http//www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?langno1nodeID2
  377

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Collaborative Effort in Child, Gifted/Talented
Development

• It takes a whole village to bring up a child
• It takes many different villages to bring up the
  G/T potential in every child