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2.8.5 Recognizing and Serving Diversity in Rural Gifted Populations
It is our responsibility as educators to recognize and serve every gifted student. A three-year, federally funded project explored barriers to and supports in identifying and serving traditionally under-represented students including low-income, English language learner, Hispanic, and Native American students in rural areas of a western US state. Project activities included interviews, leadership webinars, instructional strategies and identification process training, coaching, site-based gatherings, networking sessions, and a state-wide symposium. This mixed-method study indicates that problem recognition and intensive and systemic interventions produce positive results. Project activities, lessons learned, field recommendations, and suggestions for further study will be shared.
Author(s):
Norma Hafenstein
norma.hafenstein@du.edu
University of Denver
United States
Norma Hafenstein, PhD, is the Daniel L. Ritchie Endowed Chair in Gifted Education at the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver. She is co-principal investigator for the Right4Rural Project, a Jacob K. Javits federally-funded initiative to identify and serve giftedness in traditionally underrepresented groups in rural Colorado. Dr. Hafenstein’s research interests include information processing styles, social and emotional development in gifted populations, program effectiveness and adult and generational giftedness. She advises graduate students and teaches courses including Psychological Aspects of the Gifted, Program Development, Leadership and Communication and Research as Problem Identification, Intervention, Application and Defense.
Kristina Hesbol
kristina.hesbol@du.edu
University of Denver
United States
Kristina Hesbol, PhD is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department at the University of Denver. Her professional work examines the impact of values and beliefs of school and district leaders, filtered through the intersecting issues of disrupting systemic inequity and leading sustainable improvement. As an investigator on a Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Grant, she studies the underrepresentation of traditionally marginalized gifted students in rural contexts. She recently launched a Rural Innovative School Leadership Networked Improvement Community, in which university faculty and rural/remote practitioners collaborate, using improvement science tools, to accelerate improvement.