From "Possibilities for Learning" website.
Brilliant Behaviors
Finding
Bright and Gifted Students With Brilliant Behaviors
Historically, testing has been the
most common lens used to inspect students’ potential. Today, concerns regarding
the use of many tests with students from culturally and economically diverse
backgrounds has reduced confidence and reliance on them.{{112}} More
contemporary approaches that respect this diversity can be supported by using
the Tools provided here.
Students indicate their need for more
challenge in a variety of ways, some more direct than others. Some students
demand, some ask and some have to be found. This section provides
guidance for stimulating students’ potentials during classroom
activities. It includes alternate formats of a tool, the Brilliant
Behaviors checklist, for observing students to assess the nature and extent of
those behaviors during that activity.
Students
should be observed for signs of the Brilliant Behaviors while they are engaged
in theirstrongest subject(s), their passions. Students’ greatest academic strengths are the areas in which there
is the greatest need for curriculum differentiation.
This
list of Brilliant Behaviors focuses attention on 13 observable characteristics
which will directly help teachers challenge students in their areas of
strength. Many other, longer lists of behavior characteristics are available for
use in identification procedures (for example, Clark, 1997; Martinson, 1974;
Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan, & Hartman, 1976). The Brilliant Behaviors
list is not meant to be exhaustive. It includes only those behavior
characteristics which will be the keys to determining the curriculum
differentiation strategies most appropriate for each student. See the
section Matching Strategies to Strengths for
the Tools (the Guides) used to do this.
The Brilliant Behaviors and
descriptions are based on a list developed by Kanevsky, Maker, Nielson and
Rogers (1994) which first appeared in Maker & Nielson’s Curriculum
Development and Teaching Strategies for Gifted Learners (2nd edition). That
list was an adaptation of the traits, aptitudes and behaviors Frasier and
Passow{{113}} felt contributed to giftedness. All of these authors sought
behaviors that would appear in many cultures, in girls as well as boys, in
students with strengths in any subject area or type of intelligence, and in
“meek or macho” students. In other words, the list is intended to be sensitive
to brilliance in students of different cultural backgrounds, genders, subject
areas and temperaments.
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Alternate Formats
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You will find seven versions of the
Brilliant Behaviors in this chapter. Each is used to collect similar
information but in different contexts and by different observers (teachers, or
parents, or student self-observations). Offering different observers the same
lenses to view students in different settings and activities provides
consistency in the observations. This facilitates later conversations among the
observers and decision-makers when everyone has been looking for the same
things.
§ The first three individual forms can
be used in observation activities. The first is the basic Brilliant Behaviors form; the second is a set of descriptors to supplement any of the other forms;
the third is a screening version with a frequency
rating scale.
§ The self-assessment checklist asks students to rate
themselves.The group observation form is
for whole class or group observations.The referral form is to be completed by teachers when
determining who should be offered opportunities to participate in special
programs.Theportfolio conferencing checklist is
completed by teachers following a discussion with a student regarding the
contents of her or his portfolio. Each version of the Brilliant Behaviors
appears with directions for its use and interpretation.
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Applications
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Although the Brilliant Behaviors can
be used for referral, nomination or assessment, they are not intended to be the
sole means of identifying or labeling gifted students. For that task, other
information must be collected and considered (student products and portfolios,
test scores, etc.). There is no cutoff score or minimum number of behaviors
that must be found; one is sufficient to move on with the process of
differentiating curriculum.
The
data from these Tools can complement tests scores or avoid the need for them
depending upon the decision to be made. If no official “gifted” designation is
needed, just transfer information collected from the Brilliant Behaviors to
the Guide for Selecting Differentiation
Strategies to continue with the curriculum differentiation
process without labeling.
If official designation is necessary
for access to alternative services and placements, one or more versions of the
Brilliant Behaviors can be used to collect data to use in the identification
process. The individuals involved in making this determination should meet
prior to collecting data to make some crucial decisions:
§ What services and placements are
available?
§ What sorts of students will benefit
most from these opportunities?
§ How many students can be
accommodated?
The answers to these questions will shape
the answer to efforts to the even more complex problem of finding students.
Once they are resolved the big problem can be addressed: How can these students
be found?
A solution to the last question will
involve Tools, the data they collect and a process to apply criteria for
selection to these data so decisions and placements can be made. The Tools,
data and decisions must locate the students best suited to the types of
programming to be offered. Different possibilities include self-paced
individual projects, creative problem solving groups, or differentiated
curricular experiences in the regular classroom. One or more of these options
would be appropriate for some students and inappropriate for others.
Before undertaking data collection,
the individuals involved should understand the role each kind of information
will play in the final decision. Individuals involved in the process also need
a clear understanding of their roles in data collection, decision-making and
program planning. Timelines for data collection, meetings and decision-making
should also be clear to all participants in the process including students,
parents and teachers.
