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Assessment & Programming

Assessment

Assessment instruments to determine eligibility for gifted education services measure diverse abilities, talents, strengths, and needs in order to provide students an opportunity to demonstrate strengths. Cognitive assessments may include:

  • CogAT- Cognitive Abilities Test
  • DAS- Differential Abilities Scales
  • WPPSI- Wechsler Preschool & Primary Scale of Intelligence
  • WISC- Wechsler Intelligence Scale
  • Stanford Binet
  • NNAT- Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test
  • Ravens Coloured and Progressive Matrices

Assessments to determine gifts and talents in other areas include:

  • Betts/Neihart Behavior Checklist
  • Hispanic Bilingual Gifted Screening Instrument
  • Slocumb-Payne Teacher Perception Inventory
  • Environmental Opportunities Profile
  • Renzulli Scale for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students
  • Specific Academic Achievement

Programming

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

  • Acceleration: Acceleration offers standard curricular experiences to students at a younger-than-usual age or lower-than-usual grade level. Acceleration includes early entrance to kindergarten or to college, grade skipping, or part-time grade acceleration, in which a student enters a higher grade level for part of the day to receive advanced instruction in one or more content areas.
  • Ability Grouping/Cluster Grouping: Ability grouping is defined as using test scores and school records to assign same-grade children to classes or instructional groups that differ markedly in characteristics affecting school learning. Cluster grouping is a form of ability grouping in which 3 to 6 students are clustered according to their identified strength areas in a mixed-ability classroom.
  • Curriculum Compacting: A systematic procedure for modifying or streamlining the regular curriculum to eliminate repetition of previously mastered material, upgrading the challenge level of the regular curriculum, and providing time for appropriate enrichment and/or acceleration activities.
  • Differentiation: A means of addressing the particular characteristics and promoting the continual growth of students in an environment that is respectful of individual differences through modification of pace, depth, and complexity of curriculum and instruction.
  • Flexible Pacing: A form of "acceleration" in which the pace at which material is presented and/or expected to be mastered has been sped up.
  • Guided Independent Study: A process through which student and teacher identify problems or topics of interest to the student, plan a method of investigation, and identify a product to be developed.

ADVANCED PROGRAMS & COURSES

  • Advanced Placement (AP): Advanced and challenging courses designed to foster the critical skills of thinking, analyzing, and problem solving. AP prepares students for specific content area examinations that may award credit to be applied toward college.
  • Honors Program: School-site developed courses taught at an advanced level to promote critical thinking and depth of knowledge.
  • International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program: A rigorous international standardized curriculum designed to prepare high school juniors and seniors for examinations leading to an IB diploma, which receives significant credit at most universities.
  • IB Middle Years Programme (MYP): The MYP, for grades 6 through 10, provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connectons between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers.  The program is also designed to prepare students for the IB Diploma program.
  • IB Primary Years Program (PYP): The IB Primary Years Programme, for grades K through 5, focuses on the development of the whole child as an inquirer, both in the classroom and in the world outside.