As to the changes in courses due to the state requirements changing--yes it does make a difference. We still offer graduate degrees related to gifted. The degree focus that includes GT is now called Cognition, Creativity, Instruction & Development. We do not offer separate GT courses--because the demand disappeared once the GT endorsement was lifted. The endorsement required teachers to get 15 graduate hours in GT. Out market now is those who want a Masters of a PhD. In these cases--people want the degree program to be broader--so our courses infuse Intelligence, Giftedness and Creativity together. At one time we had 3 separate courses on gifted and two on creativity. Now we have two courses that cover the entire area of gifted-intelligence --creativity. Much of the work done in that area comes from students engaging in directed studies and research projects related to giftedness.
What I could offer--which would reflect the change--would be an undergraduate course in gifted education. That would have more demand right now than graduate courses. Of course the problem is--it is difficult for students to grasp the classroom differences related to teaching gifted when they have not been in the classroom except for limited work in specific areas.
Everything is tied to dollars--we hire teaching staff to match the demands of students. Obviously when the demand dropped with the lifting of GT endorsement--the department assigned out teaching time to the areas which were in demand. Every thing at a university is really related to the people who are teaching there. I suspect that the day I retire both the emphasis on gifted and the emphasis on creativity will leave with me. Someone with new interests will offer new courses in a new area.
Joyce
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Joyce E. Juntune, Ph.D.
Institute for Applied Creativity
http://creativity.tamu.edu <http://creativity.tamu.edu/> <http://creativity.tamu.edu/>
Department of Educational Psychology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4225
979-776-9347
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Comments
The problem with removing issues of giftedness from an undergraduate program and de-emphasizing it from state education requirements is that graduating teachers are less likely to recognized gifted students. There are many overlaps of gifted behavior with other behaviors: seeking the company of adults vs. age peers, knowing a large number of facts, distraction over classroom work, etc. Without knowing the why behind the behavior, gifted students could be misidentifed as having Asperger's Syndrome, ADD/ADHD, bipolar syndrome, etc.
If you don't mandate gifted education, you don't have to educate teachers in what to look for. If teachers don't know what they are seeing and misinterpret their students behavior, the results can be disastrous.
I urge Texas NOT to remove this piece of teacher education even if they cannot afford to provide an appropriate education for the gifted population at this time.
Thank you. I couldn't say it better myself.
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