4.2 Keynote - Karen Rogers

Professor Karen Rogers
University of St. Thomas

Worth the Effort:  Finding and Supporting Twice Exceptional Learners in Schools

A recent search through the literature on twice exceptionality raised the issue (for me) of why there is a huge body of writing out there on twice exceptional learners, from early childhood to adulthood, but so little of it documents school practices in identification and programming to take advantage of the creative gifts these unique learners have the potential to contribute if they are found and supported. Is it that schools find it “just too difficult” to identify such students accurately or is it “just too difficult” to figure out what to do for these students and who in the school will or should do it? This presentation will focus on the extraordinary impact twice exceptional learners have made for the betterment of society and how these learners have been able to overcome even more than just having a disability connected to their giftedness and being neglected in school. The presentation will share a wide variety of evidence-based identification strategies, instructional support strategies, and resources that can help us come to our own conclusions about whether or not we have the capabilities needed to find and support these extraordinary learners.

Karen Rogers is excited to be back in Australia after her 3-year sojourn here from 2005-2008 as Director of Research for GERRIC at UNSW. She is Professor Emerita at her beloved University of St. Thomas, but has continued receiving government research grants to further field-based investigations of what works or doesn’t work with both twice exceptional and other gifted underserved populations. She continues to teach 2-3 courses per semester, but no longer attends committee meetings or engages in any kind of activity that she feels is unproductive! She has written, co-written, and co-edited 7 books, published approximately 200 articles, and conducted 98 program evaluations and field based studies via grants and contracts.  She currently sits on the Advisory Boards of the US Department of Defense Overseas Schools, Grayson School for the Gifted, College of William & Mary Gifted Education Center, and the Minnesota Department of Education Gifted Committee. She is a reviewer for most of the major journals that specialize in gifted education and has supervised doctoral dissertations for 37 applicants and reviewed 25 completed dissertations for a variety of universities in Australia and Asia. Since retirement she has been able to maintain a good balance between her professional and personal lives, incorporating loads of time with her 10 grandchildren and many weeks a year traveling with her husband to many of the places on her voluminous “bucket list.”