Goal: Collaborate with teachers to brainstorm ways to better serve gifted learners in the classroom and to build on the wonderful work our teachers already do

email: marleen.seckendorf@adams12.org

Mountain Range High School: 720-972-6394/Blue Conference Room in front of study area upstairs (Thursdays/Fridays)

Northglenn High School: 720-972-2744/Office: 314B (next to counseling) (Mondays/Tuesdays)

Teachers’ Next Steps for Identified Gifted or Talent Pool Students

      Your student has been identified gifted or placed in the talent pool…..now what? 

• Thinking and learning descriptors, or how a student’s brain works, are indicated through various cognitive batteries. View the student’s cognitive scores (CogAT, NNAT, IQ) to identify the higher scoring batteries, which are relative for each student. Look at the battery descriptions on the Snapshots guide. This will help you provide various instructional opportunities to target the student’s “thinking strengths,” which may transfer into any academic and/or talent area. See Gifted 101 to learn more. 

• Student & Parent Input resources will help you learn more about your student’s strengths, interests, and challenges by collecting information from both the student and the family. This information will also influence your planning and instructional opportunities. 

• Talent Pool students should be included in the GT Program at your school but do not have an Advanced Learning Plan (ALP). See Talent Pool: A Guide for Teachers to learn more.

• Identified Gifted students will need an ALP written and signed by the family within 30 days. ALP’s are meant to be a collaborative process, which include: 

  • a brief summary of the student & parent input collected.

  • at least one academic strength goal and one social-emotional goal. These SMART goals should be standard-aligned and include relevance and applications. 

  • differentiated instructional strategies that you, as the child’s teacher, will focus on in the classroom. What will you intentionally do differently for this student?

  • Please see the ALP Teacher Worksheet to guide you with goal writing and to prepare you with Talking Points when discussing the ALP with your student and family. 

  • The ALP information will be entered into EWS using the Entering K-8 ALPs instruction guide. You will also find the ALP Milestone requirements and due dates in this guide. Some ALP goal examples can be found here. 

• Differentiation is key when thinking about best practices for gifted and talent pool learners. This includes a variety of evidence-based programming options that enhance performance in the cognitive, academic, and social-emotional areas. These practical strategies should take place in the classroom throughout the day. See the differentiation guide and video (13 min.)

• Multiple alternative approaches to accelerate and enhance learning. This is adjusting the pace, depth, and complexity when appropriate for the student.

• Use the current units of study and supplementary resources, along with enrichment and extensions to deepen learning when applicable. Task Ideas 

• Multiple forms of flexible grouping, which may include reading or math groups, groups by interest, topic, readiness, ability, social-emotional purposeful grouping, inquiry and exploration, ideas, etc. not just age-mates or all of the GT kids in one, fixed group. 

• Current technologies to enhance programming, including online learning options, assistive technologies, applications, STEAM integration, etc. 

• Respond to the affective needs of the student using appropriate strategies.

To Reach Me: 

email: marleen.seckendorf@adams12.org

Mountain Range High School: 720-972-6394/Blue Conf Room

Northglenn High School: 720-972-2744/Office: 314B (next to counseling)