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Elementary TAG Activities

TAG services are delivered to students K-3 through flexible groupings during daily WIN time.

4th Grade services are delivered through a pull-out program.

Activities include problem solving activities, project based learning, and independent study.

Elementary ELP

All elementary (K-4) ELP opportunities are guided by Mrs. Johnson. Students are challenged with enrichment activities that build on the core subjects taught throughout elementary school. Program delivery will be provided to small groups with activities to enhance content area instruction on a weekly basis. Students K-3 will be recommended by classroom teachers based on district assessment data and/or the Renzulli Survey with CoGAT testing added in 2nd grade. Fourth grade students will be identified through MAP testing, Iowa Assessments, CoGAT results and Renzulli Survey.

Mission Statement

The Grundy Center School’s “community” will empower its individuals with the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to become responsible, productive, and fulfilled citizens.

Definition:

The talented and gifted are those children and youth whose abilities, talents, and potential for accomplishment are so outstanding that they will require special assistance, opportunities, and challenges to meet their educational needs.

Philosophy:

The Grundy Center School District believe that talented and gifted students are those children who have been identified by professionally qualified persons, and who by virtue of outstanding intellectual abilities are capable of high performance. Children capable of high performance include those that demonstrate achievement and those who have potential ability. These are children who require a differentiated educational program and /or services beyond those normally provided by the regular school program. The program will provide a foundation for students to develop their ability to think, reason, create, and evaluate while balancing their cognitive and affective needs, thus realizing their potential contribution to self and society and becoming autonomous learners.

Program Goals of Gifted Education

  1. To integrate gifted education into the total school program through service and project options; which are flexible, dynamic, and inclusive.

  2. To provide an array of services and opportunities to students which support individua growth at varying levels of abilities, needs, and interests, and allows top student to learn and move through advanced material at their own pace.

  3. To develop an identification procedure using multiple criteria to appraise student need for differentiated services and the kind of services needed.

  4. To provide a comprehensive staff development program to enable teachers to more appropriately serve the needs of advanced learners.

  5. To actively involve students, parents, and community members in the effort to enrich our gifted students’ lives, both in and out of school.

How we meet these goals:

  1. Program delivery is on a set weekly schedule that is flexible to student and teacher schedules. The projects that students can complete are designed to cover all curricular areas and in most cases, projects topics are student generated and specialized to meet the interest and passions of individual students.

  2. Criteria are set from past identification process and from current assessment schedule. All student scores from all standardized test are all entered into a weighted matrix to determine an overall score. Students with the higher overall score are looked at more closely as possible participants in the ELP program.

  3. Professional development information about the needs and services provided to ELP students will be communicated either by face-to-face meetings or through electronic means. All staff members will be provided a complete overview of the services provided to ELP students as well as differentiated instructional strategies that they can use to help challenge and enrich all students. All projects and activities provided to ELP students will help to reinforce the core curriculum shared by all classroom teachers. Collaboration between the ELP coordinator and classroom teacher will be facilitated whenever needed.

  4. Parents and community members will be encouraged to volunteer their time and resources to support the annual ELP pork dinner fundraiser, be asked to help supervise field trips, and provide help organizing other activities and fundraisers as needed. Parents and community members will also be asked to help ELP as activity mentors and specialists.

Mechanics of the Program

Talented and gifted students need:

  1. Activities that enable them to operate cognitively and affectively at complex levels of thoughts and feeling.

  2. Opportunities for divergent thinking (originality, fluency, flexibility, and elaboration.)

  3. Challenging group and individual work which demonstrates process/product outcomes.

  4. Discussions among intellectual peers.

  5. A variety of experiences that promote understanding of human values.

  6. The opportunity to see interrelationships of all bodies of knowledge.

  7. Special courses in the their area of strength and interest which accelerate the pace and depth of the content.

  8. Great exposure to new areas of learning within and outside the school structure.

  9. Opportunities to apply their abilities to real problems in the world.

10.Emphasis on the skills of critical thinking, creative thinking, research, and problem solving.

Therefore, the Grundy Center Community School District will identify the academic strengths of students and then use appropriate strategies, addressing a variety of abilities, preferences, and learning styles. Consequently, whole groups, small groups, and individual students will engage in a variety of curriculum enrichment and acceleration experiences.

Identification Process

Who is considered talented and gifted?

257.44 Gifted and talented children defined.

  1. "Gifted and talented children" are those children who are identified as possessing outstanding abilities and who are capable of high performance. Gifted and talented children are children who require appropriate instruction and educational services commensurate with their abilities and needs beyond those provided by the regular school program.

  2. Gifted and talented children include those children with demonstrated achievement or potential ability, or both, in any of the following areas or in combination:

a. General intellectual ability. b. Creative thinking. c. Leadership ability. d. Visual and performing arts ability. e. Specific ability aptitude. 89 Acts, ch 135, §44; 2010 Acts, ch 1069, §72

Who Participates?

Students in grades 3rd-12th, who are nominated, identified and selected are based on the following multiple criteria:

Nominations (Teachers, Parents, and/or Students)

Test Scores ( CogAT, ITBS, ITED, NWEA/MAP)

Observations: Teacher Assessment (Renzulli's Scales for Intellect and Creativity) Professional Intelligence Testing- Example: Belin-Blank Center, U of I *Test and survey results are entered into a ELP Identification Matrix and a numerical value is given for all students.

Students that participate in ELP continue to: -score above 95% in 2 or more areas on ITBS or ITED. -CogAT scores of 200 or 95% or above -score above 95% on NWEA. Using the MAP RIT scores (using the Fall/Spring Screening and Placement Guidelines for Gifted Students)

All assessments scores and survey scores are entered in an Identification Matrix spreadsheet provided by the Gifted Education Department at the University Northern Gifted Education program.

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