Lisa DaVia Rubenstein

Honors Students’ Perceptions of Their High School Experiences: The Influence of Teachers on Student Motivation

Academic motivation is important for students’ task persistence, academic performance, and college selection. The goal of this qualitative study was to understand academic motivation from the students’ perspective. Focus group discussions with 28 university honors freshman revealed that students most often attributed their interest and motivation in high school to their interactions with their teachers. These findings supported the theoretical foundations of the Achievement Orientation Model and demonstrated how effective teachers can influence all components of that model as they encourage students’ growth and satisfaction (building self-efficacy), as they make the content meaningful and challenging for their students (creating task valuation), and as they shape students’ perception of support in their environment through building positive relationships and being knowledgeable about the content (fostering a positive environmental perception). Teachers with extensive depth and breadth of content knowledge are better able to foster student motivation. These teachers have the background to be comfortable differentiating content, straying from the familiar textbook territory, and delving into a variety of instruction strategies, such as in-depth discussions, with their students.

Teaching for Creativity Scales: An Instrument to Examine Teachers' Perceptions of Factors That Allow for the Teaching of Creativity.

Creativity is valuable for individuals and society; it is thus important to understand how creativity can be fostered and encouraged. Teachers have a unique opportunity to promote creativity among their students. Teaching for Creativity Scales analyze constructs that influence teachers’ perceptions of teaching for creativity. Approximately 650 teachers completed the survey. In the exploratory factor analysis, the items fit a 4-factor structure, producing 4 subscales: teacher self-efficacy, environmental encouragement, societal value, and student potential. The instrument was revised and distributed to additional teachers for a confirmatory factor analysis. With a few item deletions, the proposed model was a good fit for the data (CMIN/df = 1.819, CFI = .923, TLI rho2 = .917, RMSEA = .053). With continued testing and revisions, this instrument could be useful for measuring perceptional changes due to designed interventions, comparing different populations of teachers, and describing creativity perceptions at a given school.

Using TED Talks to Inspire Thoughtful Practice.

How can teacher educators provide relevant and important content in an educational environment that is rapidly evolving? TED.com is a website that provides content that meets these criteria in its ...

Evaluating the Efficacy of Using Predifferentiated and Enriched Mathematics Curricula for Grade 3 Students: A Multisite Cluster-Randomized Trial

Despite the potential of differentiated curricula to enhance learning, limited research exists that documents their impact on Grade 3 students of all ability levels. To determine if there was a difference in achievement between students involved in 16 weeks of predifferentiated, enriched mathematics curricula and students using their district’s curricula, we conducted a multisite cluster-randomized control trial with 43 schools in 12 states. A series of three-level models, using pre- and postachievement test data, failed to show a main effect for treatment, but the results suggested a treatment by achievement-level interaction that was moderated by the achievement level of the school. As a result, the highest achieving students in the lower achieving schools seemed to receive the greatest benefit from the treatment curricula. An analysis of researcher-developed unit tests revealed that treatment students successfully learned and applied the curricula’s challenging mathematics. Thus, using the predifferentiated and enriched mathematics curricula with heterogeneous ability students appeared to “do no harm”—students who completed the treatment curricula did as well as their control counterparts, on average. Evidence of its achievement-related benefits is more ambiguous; however, the findings do suggest some benefits for the highest achieving students in lower achieving schools.

Lived Experiences of Parents of Gifted Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Struggle to Find Appropriate Educational Experiences

The purpose of this phenomenological, qualitative study was to illuminate the lived, shared experiences of parents of gifted children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Thirteen parents were interviewed and the interviews were transcribed and qualitatively analyzed. This article specifically examines the parents’ experiences navigating the educational system for their children. All participants described the challenges associated with finding appropriate educational placements for their children due to the children’s unique social and academic needs. Parents recognized the incompatibility between their child’s characteristics and typical educational environments, and this incompatibility required parents to take an active role in designing and finding appropriate educational opportunities. These findings provide insight for school personnel and parents as they develop flexible services for twice-exceptional students.

Reversing the Underachievement of Gifted Middle School Students: Lessons From Another Field

Underachievement often begins in middle school for gifted students. Unfortunately, there is no single intervention that will ameliorate underachievement for all gifted students. To date, interventions aimed at reversing the underachieving behaviors of gifted middle school students have been inconsistent and inconclusive. To create an effective plan to reverse gifted underachievement, the field of gifted education must look closely at the research-based practices of special education. Functional Behavioral Analysis (FBA) is a viable way to accomplish this task. A team of individuals invested in the student’s success first target the source(s) of the student’s underachieving behavior, and then, together, they develop an individualized intervention plan. Although there is no magical cure for underachievement, steps can be taken to help middle school gifted students become achievers. This article will explore who the middle school gifted underachiever is and why he or she may begin to underachieve, review interventions that have been researched for this population, and provide a step-by-step plan for the reversal of gifted underachievement at the middle school level.

Transformational Leadership Using TED Talks

There is an ongoing debate about the efficacy of professional development with the field of gifted education. While some studies have found a positive relationship between professional development and teachers’ knowledge and attitudes toward gifted students, others found that such training had no effect on teachers’ attitudes toward the gifted or gifted education in general, but the trained teachers were more likely to perceive themselves as gifted than teachers who had no professional development. To address this issue, this article proposes a new professional development paradigm, anchored by TED talks. Educational leaders can become more effective by learning from leaders in other disciplines. The leaders highlighted in the article demonstrate the importance of a shared purpose. Professional development in the gifted education field should focus on a shared purpose that highlights the importance of increasing the expectations and engagement of all, not just gifted, students. TED can offer inspiration on how teachers can take an active role in this purpose and then how they can share the results of their efforts.

Teachers' Reactions to Pre-Differentiated and Enriched Mathematics Curricula.

Modern classrooms are often comprised of a heterogeneous student population with varying abilities. To address this variance, third-grade teachers implemented researcher-designed, pre-differentiated, and enriched math curricula in algebra, geometry and measurement, and graphing and data analysis. The goal of the curricula was to provide academic rigor for all students, including students with high abilities. These units prompted educators to recognize learning differences in their classrooms and provide appropriate lessons for each group. Qualitative analyses revealed the treatment teachers’ successful use of preassessments and grouping practices to accommodate students in their academically diverse classrooms. This study demonstrated the value of pre-differentiated and enriched curricula and professional development. Treatment teachers discussed how important it was that the curricula provided preassessments for each unit, and most lessons provided tiered activities directly connected to students’ preassessment performance. Providing teachers with more meaningful and cohesive tiered activities will support teachers’ efforts in academically challenging students of all levels.

Measuring What Matters: Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process:

The field of gifted education has a rich history of proposing and implementing innovative pedagogical practices to develop students’ creative and critical thinking, yet less attention has been given to the assessment of these learning experiences. If creative and critical thinking are both inherently important in developing global problem solvers and further represent the goals of gifted curriculum, then classroom assessments must be designed to measure student development of these process skills. Many assessment rubrics emphasize the end product or superficially address process skills. This article provides sample rubrics to assess creative and critical thinking skills independently. Then, we consider anchoring larger projects’ assessment within the Design Thinking Model (DTM), which embeds creative and critical thinking skills into the design process. Teachers may tailor these rubrics to assist in measuring the essential, yet complex, cognitive processes, and clearly convey to students the characteristics and practices of a good thinker and designer.

Unified Program Design: Organizing Existing Programming Models, Delivery Options, and Curriculum

A persistent problem in the field of gifted education has been the lack of categorization and delineation of gifted programming options. To address this issue, we propose Unified Program Design as a structural framework for gifted program models. This framework defines gifted programs as the combination of delivery methods and curriculum models. By considering both the delivery methods and the curriculum, coordinators and teachers will be able to visualize the available options that address each component, making designing and describing gifted programs more consistent. Implications for research, evaluation, and program practice are also discussed.