Increasing Native American Indian involvement in gifted programs in rural schools

Abstract

Native American Indian students are not identified or served at the same rate as their majority counterparts. Javits Grants are part of a small federal program providing funding for direct service research and demonstration projects. The purpose of the grants is to resolve the problems in identifying and meeting the needs of underrepresented gifted populations. Herein is a description of Project LEAP, which was designed to identify and meet the needs of rural high school students who have gifts, talents, or high potential. The project was funded for three years. The information provided in this discussion was collected through on-site interviews with all project staff and written reports from students at the end of each project year. The project was planned with four conceptual goals: community collaboration, partnership with parents, culturally relevant identification, and appropriate curriculum. Two themes emerged from an analysis of the interview and project documentation data regarding the implementation of the four Project goals: (a) the rural linkages that existed and were forged and (b) the authenticity infused into all project activities to discover and nurture gifts, talents, or high potential.

School-to-school cooperation as a strategy for improving student outcomes in challenging contexts

“…With regard to pupil attainment, studies by Montgomery (2001) and Greenberg (1996) are cited as evidence of high impact. Bielefeldt, Moursund, Underwood, and Underwood (1999) also offer evidence of increases in student skills and progression.…”

Planning to Unmask Potential Through Responsive Curriculum: The “Famous Five” Exercise

“…Isolated attempts to reframe the role of curriculum by providing open access to curriculum designed for high-ability students (Awaya, 2001), implementing ongoing assessment in conjunction with access to culturally relevant opportunities for gifted Native American students (Montgomery, 2001), incorporating developmental portfolios of assessment information from varied sources in the identification process, bolstering curriculum in line with efforts to recognize potential in disadvantaged students, and enabling access to curriculum designed for gifted students to those who would not be identified using traditional identification methods (Borland, Schnur, & Wright, 2000;Wright & Borland, 1993), by using performance assessments to identify giftedness in economically disadvantaged and minority students (VanTassel-Baska, Johnson, & Avery, 2002) and by helping teachers and parents reframe their assessment of minority students through the provision of curricular modifications along with mentoring and family outreach (Moon & Callahan, 2001) are among those that have shown promise. Tomlinson's (2001Tomlinson's ( , 2003 model of differentiation is founded on the premise that matching curriculum and instruction to learners' readiness, interest, and learning profile needs is key to enabling all students to develop and demonstrate their potentials in the classroom; in this way, the model acknowledges the centrality of quality curriculum in efforts to unmask potential.…”

Results of national and international research on innovation school networks

“…Verfahren N * Studien (Zuordnung siehe Literaturverzeichnis) interviews 35 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,12,14,15,16,19,24,25,26,30,32,35,37,38,39,41,42,43,44,46,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,57 Fragebögen 20 6,9,12,14,15,18,25,32,37,38,40,41,43,44,45,47,48,52,...…”

“…eine ähnliche Abstufung im Anspruch des methodischen Vorgehens lässt sich bei den erfahrungsberichten erkennen. neben eingereichten Berichten der lehrkräfte ohne methodische Vorgaben (rué 2005) steht hier auch der systematische einsatz der "Critical incidents Technique" (gettinger et al 1999 22 6,9,14,15,18,19,22,24,25,26,30,32,34,35,40,41,45,47,51,52,55,57 einmalige Datenerhebung 11 2,5,7,16,37,38,39,43,44,46,53 Beschreibung/exploration 22 3,4,8,10,11,12,13,17,20,23,27,28,29,31,…”