Terms and Definitions
The following is a list of terms and definitions related to gifted education.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Acceleration: a program that provides opportunities for students to program through material or a program at a faster or younger age than is conventional.
AP: Advanced Placement is a College Board program of college level courses taught by high school teachers; some colleges give credit for these courses upon successful completion of the AP Exam.
Bloom's Taxonomy: a frequently used model for teaching higher level thinking in which each of six levels includes and depends on all those below it. The six levels of thought processes are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Brainstorming: a group problem solving technique in which the ground rules are 1) withhold judgment of ideas; 2) encourage wild ideas; 3) quantity counts; 4) piggyback on the ideas of others.
Case Studies: involves gathering as much information as possible on a gifted youngster from as many different sources as are available and using this information in making programming decisions.
Contract: written agreements between teachers and students that outline what students will learn, how they will learn it, in what period of time, and how they will be evaluated.
Convergent Thinking: focusing on one particular/singular answer. Most intelligence tests require convergent thinking.
CPS: Creative Problem Solving engages students in divergent and convergent thinking at each of five steps of fact finding, problem finding, ideas finding, solution finding, and acceptance finding.
Critical Thinking: goal directed thinking that uses logical reasoning and objective criteria as foundations for evaluation and decision making.
Curriculum Compacting: a system designed to adapt the regular curriculum to meet the needs of above average students by either eliminating work that has been previously mastered at a pace commensurate with the student's ability. Appropriate enrichment and/or acceleration activities may be used in this time which is gained.
Deductive Thinking: inference that begins with a general statement and proceeds to the specific.
Delivery Model: the framework within which the gifted education program is provided to the students.
DI: Destination ImagiNation is an international program that teaches creative problem solving strategies, teamwork and life-long skills. A team of up to 7 students select one of six problems and create a unique solution at the local or regional Destination ImagiNation tournament.
Differentiated Curriculum: that process of instruction which is capable of being integrated into the school program and is adaptable to varying levels of individual learning response in the education of the gifted and talented. Content, process or method of instruction and product or outcome may be modified.
Discontinuance: the procedure used to determine whether or not an identified gifted student should continue participation in the program.
Divergent Thinking: focuses on many answers, coming up with new and unique ideas about things.
Enrichment: refers to richer, more varied educational experiences that replace, supplement, and extend instruction normally offered by the school.
FPS: Future Problem Solving is a competitive program that teaches students to use an effective five-step creativity model gathering information, identifying problems, generating ideas for the main problem, itemizing criteria, and evaluating ideas and preparing the best solution for presentation.
Gifted Underachiever: a student who appears to possess considerable intellectual potential but is performing in a mediocre fashion in the educational setting.
High Ability Learners: students who are accelerated, advanced, high interested in a topic, or bright but bored. (Lois R. Roets)
Inductive Thinking: inference that starts with specific information and leads to generalization.
Itinerant Teacher: a teacher who provides services in more than one attendance center, or in more than one school system.
Junior Great Books: using a method known as "shared inquiry", trained discussion leaders work with groups of students in an effort to lend new insights to literary works of the world.
KIDS KITS: Kids Interest Discovery Studies Kits is a multimedia approach to motivating students to ask and answer questions ontopics of interest to them. Each kit contains high interest materials that promote independent, self-directed learning; thinking and questioning skills; research and study skills; and awareness and use of learning resources.
Mentorship: individual students would work with an assigned adult or other resource person on a regular basis in some area of interest to the student.
Multiple Intelligence: an instructional model that emphasizes both academic and creative talents. The MI theory was first
developed by Howard Gardner. He lists at least eight intelligences: Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Body/Kinesthetic,Logical/Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Musical/Rhythmic, and Nature.
Omnibus: designed as a community volunteer program for gifted and talented that provides enrichment in the sciences or the humanities through numerous prepared study units.
Parent Nomination: a method by which parents can provide information about their child's advanced abilities and knowledge in addition to that which is available in school.
Peer Nomination: a method by which pupils are asked to list students who they would like to have help them with various academic tasks, those who are good at various tasks, subjects, have original ideas, etc.
Pull-Out Program: children leave their heterogeneous classroom for a specific time each week to participate in special classes with their gifted peers.
Schoolwide Enrichment Model: a combination of the Renzulli Enrichment Triad Model and the Revolving Door Identification Model. It is a method of identifying high -potential youth and of promoting the development of gifted behaviors and creativity in young people.
Self-Nomination: a method by which an individual nominates him/her self for a gifted program.
Talents Unlimited: a program for elementary and secondary levels using divergent thinking processes to the understanding of the academics. The TU skills developed are Productive Thinking, Forecasting, Planning, Decision Making, and Communication.
GATE Program