3.1.12 Supporting Gifted Students’ Need for Choice and Challenge to Maximize Gifts, Talents, and Potential

Part of understanding giftedness is recognizing the affective and academic need for choice and challenge in school. This session will provide teachers with a rationale for including these components in their instruction and with resources they can immediately utilize in their own classrooms. We will provide examples of strategies that can be used with any content area and grade level and will also share resources to support gifted learners in evaluating both their own learning process and the products they create.

Author(s):

Amy Graefe
amy.graefe@unco.edu
University of Northern Colorado
United States

Amy is a professor and co-coordinator of gifted education at the University of Northern Colorado, where she teaches graduate-level courses in gifted education. She is also the co-director of the Summer Enrichment Program, a nationally recognized summer program for gifted learners in grades pre-K-12 that focuses on the whole gifted child. In addition, she serves on her local school district’s Gifted and Talented Advisory Council and on the Gifted Education State Advisory Committee for the Colorado Department of Education. Her primary research interests include secondary gifted education, creativity, and underserved gifted learners.