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| Lesia Patterson | ||
 Coordinator of Gifted & Talented Program (864) 231-1730 |
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Philosophy
The Gifted and Talented Program is committed to providing gifted students with an educational program that recognizes their unique characteristics and needs. Differentiated instructional opportunities encourage hands-on exploration, research, and inquiry that will develop a “love of learning,” lead to a strong student work ethic and life-long desire for excellence and achievement.
Definition of Gifted
Gifted and talented students are those who are identified in grades 3-12 as demonstrating high performance ability or potential in academic and/or artistic areas and who therefore require an educational program beyond that normally provided by the general school program in order to achieve their potential. Gifted and talented abilities for South Carolina Regulation 43-220 include:
- Academic and Intellectual Ability: Students who have the academic and/or intellectual potential to function at a high level in one or more academic areas.
- Visual and Performing Arts: Students who have the artistic potential to function at a high performance level in one or more of the fine arts.
Vision
All children are unique and have special strengths and abilities. Some are advanced academically and some are interested in the arts. Many excel in sports. The Gifted and Talented Program provides curricular and instructional modifications designed to meet the learning needs of students who possess the potential to excel in academic areas of performing arts areas.
Belief System
The Gifted and Talented Program is grounded in three fundamental beliefs:
- The gifted have a right to an appropriate education that recognizes individual differences and unique learning needs.
- Gifted students and advanced learners need a rigorous and complex curriculum that meets or exceeds the South Carolina Standards and that is responsive to individual learning rates and styles.
- Gifted students and advance learners function best in an instructional environment that encourages and nurtures inquiry, flexibility, and divergent thinking.
Complex Conclusions
1. Gifted students make the greatest gains in achievement and social/emotional areas of development when grouped with intellectual peers.
2. Gifted students are not good role models for low achieving students. They aren't similar enough, nor do they consistently have exemplary behavior.
3. Grouping strategies should depend on purpose, not convenience of scheduling.
4. Peer tutoring is a very powerful strategy (metacognition). It should not be used as exploitation of the gifted. Average and below average students should be allowed to tutor others in skills they have just mastered, or are still learning.
5. When the outcomes are creative, cooperative groups should be heterogeneous. When the outcomes are convergent, skill oriented, groups should be homogeneous. With convergent outcomes, you will never achieve "positive interdependence" in heterogeneous groups.
6. Higher level thinking does not occur if the answer is easily accessible.
7. Equity means that every student has the right to a curriculum that is just beyond his reach, so he has to stretch to be successful. Every students has the right to be challenged to his greatest potential.
8. The best strategy for low ability groups is enrichment, mixed with high expectations.