Gifted and Talented Education within a Response to Intervention Framework
Combining gifted education and talent development services with Response to Intervention (RtI) provides a comprehensive set of responsive services to all students, including those with identified and potential talent. RtI is designed to bring together information about the child’s strengths and needs with evidence-based instructional approaches that support the child’s success. Services span all grade levels and areas of gifted and talented identification and provide a variety of opportunities to students with a wide array of gifts, talents, and sustained interests.
RtI components are common factors in the gifted education field and are similar to tiered instructional models in the field’s history. Major differences, however, exist between former models and RtI:
- the tiered levels are fluid, not fixed;
- a problem-solving approach involves stakeholders;
- student data drives instruction; and
- students are monitored more deliberately to determine if the instructional strategy or intervention is improving student learning.
These differences have the potential to significantly impact the learning of students with gifts and talents.
In Wisconsin, gifted and talented education is part of the state’s Response to Intervention Roadmap. According to the RtI Roadmap, students who are likely to exceed benchmarks within a rigorous core curriculum should have additional opportunities for enrichment, compacting or acceleration. Additionally, students exceeding benchmarks should have increased monitoring of their progress and collaboration between educators in order to determine the effectiveness of the additional challenge for an individual student’s learning. Students’ needs are monitored within a balanced assessment system that includes formative, summative and benchmark assessments.
One of the key components of RtI is early intervention prior to identification. For gifted children, early intervention focuses on nurturing potential to support the child’s area(s) of strength. Early recognition of and response to the child’s strengths is important for all children, but it is essential for young gifted children from culturally/linguistically diverse and economically disadvantaged families. The focus on early nurturing of potential (talent development) helps to ensure that each child is placed on a trajectory for maximum success.
Another component of RtI is a tiered approach to supports and services based on intensity of need. This is essential for addressing the full range of learners’ skills, interests, and learning profiles. Through a tiered service delivery model, students identified as having an educational need are provided with research-based interventions and instructional strategies at increasing levels of mastery, depth and complexity. At a practical level, RtI is pre-assessing students through a strategic process, collaborating with other educators to make modifications in accordance to a student’s displayed needs, and monitoring student progress employing a tiered approach in order for higher student outcomes to be realized.
A challenge for educators is adjusting to a major national change in the identification process. In the past, the first step in the gifted education process was to identify who was and was not “gifted.” The label became the key to services and programming. The need for the gifted label is no longer the gatekeeper to services and programming associated with gifted and talented education. Through Response to Intervention, when students display the characteristics and/or behaviors associated with giftedness the school system is able to respond to student needs for enrichment or acceleration.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s document entitled What Is Giftedness? :
“Continually identifying student needs and responding to those needs improve the likelihood that potential will be recognized and maximized." As previously discussed, this is because gifts and talents are dynamic. This contrasts with the practice of labeling students, a more static model which tends to result in students being “in” or “out” of a gifted program. In a dynamic approach it is acknowledged that student needs may change over time or be exhibited in a particular context.”
Initial referrals for gifted and talented services usually come from the screening of student assessments or from the classroom teacher, who has in-depth knowledge and understanding of a student’s abilities. Principals, other educational staff, or parents may also initiate screening of student performance based on:
- District assessments such as the NWEA MAP assessments
- Classroom assessments and performance data such as portfolios
- Teacher or parent rating scales (Scales for Identifying Gifted Students)
Identification of gifted and talented services for students is an ongoing and continuous process. All students are considered for gifted services in kindergarten through 12th grade.
The referral and identification process is included in plans for the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of gifted and talented services.
Areas of identification and information on identifying advanced learning needs are found here and additional resources for parents or guardians are organized here.
|