Creative Gifted Students

Characteristics

Before jumping into the multitude of different characteristics that creatively gifted students can have, I think it is first important to take a look at what creativity itself entails. According to Sally Reis and Joseph Renzulli, creativity includes "1) fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought, 2) being open to new experiences and ideas, 3) being curious, 4) being willing to take risks, and 5) being sensitive to aesthetic characteristics" (Reis & Renzulli, n.d., para 7). Therefore, all of the characteristics that are to follow, should align in some way with any of the 5 ideas surrounding creativity. Another definition of creativity, coming from Taylor Thompson and Steven Pfeiffer, is "Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e., original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e., useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)" (Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, p. 54). It is also crucial to note that many characteristics, personality traits, or environmental factors (nature vs. nurture), will play a crucial role in the development of creativity, especially in regards to giftedness. In a Ted Talk given by Sir Ken Robinson about creativity in school, he made 4 statements about intelligence, that I thought tied in beautifully with how we should look at creative students and their intelligence. The four statements were:

Intelligence is diverse.
Intelligence is dynamic.
Intelligence is interactive.
Intelligence is distinct.

(Robinson, 2007).

In other words, no student will be the same. They will not portray the same characteristics, learn the same ways, or create/produce the same products. However, their intelligence and their giftedness should be developed, hence why it is so important to know the characteristics of this population in order to identify them correctly and as early as possible. Below is a list of numerous characteristics that creatively gifted students could portray. First, let me list a few "negative" traits, which I put in quotations because they could be seen as challenges, but could be stemming from a strength, and a different perspective could be put on these, unfortunately they are just listed as negative.

Temperamental
Emotional
Stubborn-rebellious
Uncooperative
Overactive physically and mentally
Indifferent to conventions and courtesies
Questions rules, laws, authority
Egocentric
Intolerant
Tactless
Careless
Disorderly
Impatient
Demanding

(Stith, 2019).

Despite this decently long list of challenges that these students might showcase as potentially "negative" characteristics, there are many more positives to outweigh it. Due to the fact that there are so many positively framed characteristics, I have created one infographic to include all of the different ones from various resources. Some had overlaps so it will only be mentioned once, but I figured it would be easier than me listing out all of the different ones from each source over and over again, and instead could be in one concise infographic.

As we can see, there are a multitude of diverse characteristics that this special population can portray. It is more than just "thinking outside the box" for creativity, but is an ability to create new and original ideas, while also making connections between ideas and concepts and to always continue creating and developing. This is a large group of strengths, that if developed properly, can result in many new creative contributions from these students.

Effectiveness of Current Programming Options

In order for students to be successful in their creative exploration and talent development, it is important that the student's social and emotional needs are being met. This requires a variety of support mechanisms, and denial of those could result in massive challenges. Already mentioned above, creatively gifted students are more likely to thrive in environments where risk taking is valued, and where there is less pressure to conform to conventional standards. In addition, creative talent requires a "need for understanding from others to convey confidence in abilities" (Reis & Renzulli, n.d., para 17). In other words, creating a learning environment that promotes curiosity, but also a place where students feel understood by others in order to create more self-confidence will be beneficial for the success of these students. Unfortunately, many teachers tend to focus more on how to increase achievement test scores, rather than developing creativity by freedom of choice or excitement within the learning process, which results in rigid, bored, uncreative students (Reis & Renzulli, n.d., para 34). However, despite the fact that creativity in giftedness is not one of the more well-known areas, there are quite a few programming options that are helpful in meeting the needs of these students.

I have bullet pointed a few different programming options along with a short description of how/why they would be effective for this population. Some are more broad and could take different forms, such as enrichment/acceleration, and others are more specific such as the Odyssey of the Mind program. Obviously there is no one-size-fits-all model, and for each child, there might need to be some differentiation, but overall, these strategies and programs could definitely be used in order to help the child succeed in the classroom with their creativity.

Access to peer groups: being able to be with students who have similar passions and abilities helps creatively gifted students cope with the realities of competition and stardom that could be characteristics of future creative careers. Mentorship programs where students are paired with older students or adults of similar interest could also fall under this. Peer modeling and group assignments can also help students to be able to feed off each other's ideas.
Curriculum compacting: modified curriculum by eliminating previously mastered content. This guarantees finding time for more creative and appropriately challenging activities.
Enrichment experiences: Specifically the Enrichment Triad, based on the theoretical approach underlying the SEM (Schoolwide Enrichment Model). Goal is to encourage creative productivity by exposing them to various topics, and to further train them to apply the content to other areas. There are three types of enrichment experiences:
- Type 1: exposure to new topics, areas and issues
- Type 2: thinking skills, problem solving and methods training within content areas
- Type 3: small group or individual self-selected studies in academic of artistic areas
Resource Room programs: students leave their regular classroom and spend time doing creative projects or independent studies on topics they select, pursuing both individual interests and creative work
Odyssey of the Mind: a national program in which teams of students use creative problem solving to design structures, vehicles, and solutions to problems.
History Day: when students work individually or in small groups to research an historical event, person from the past, or invention related to a theme that is determined each year. Students prepare research papers, projects, media presentations or performances as entries.
Creative Idea Generator: a step-by-step strategy for teachers to work creativity training into their existing curriculum, on a lesson-by lesson basis
Creative Training Programs: typically involve a structured curriculum, with worksheets, projects, and activities emphasizing different elements of creative thinking. They focus on a variety of tactics, including developing cognitive processes, practice, receiving feedback, teamwork, and real-world problem solving. Examples of programs include:
- Purdue Creative Thinking Program
- New Directions in Creativity Program
- Khatena's Training Method

(Reis & Renzulli, n.d. paras 19, 24-25, 32-34) (Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, pp. 58-60)

Again, not all of these programs will work for every single student, but the fact that there are so many potential resources, should give encouragement to educators that they will be able to help cultivate a creative classroom in which students who are gifted in this area will blossom and be able to create new and original ideas, projects, research, etc., without the fear of pressure to conform or be unoriginal.

Effectiveness of Identification and Assessment Practices

Most identification and assessment tools for this population, focus on looking at 4 different categories of divergent thinking: originality of thought, fluency, elaboration, and flexibility of thought (Stith, 2019). Whether it be through informal or formal assessment measures, the student's work and product is being compared to those four categories in order to determine if they should be put into the gifted program for creativity. In the same SEM mentioned above, a talent pool of 15-20% of above average ability, creative, high potential students are identified through a variety of measures including: achievement tests, teacher nominations, assessment of potential for creativity and task commitment, as well as alternative pathways of entrance (self-nomination, parent nomination, etc.). (Reis & Renzulli, n.d., para 22). However, there are a few different methods on how to screen students and identify them in order to get them into that talent pool of 15-20%. According to Jenny Stith, a practical method of identifying students who are creatively gifted would look something like this:

Create a Google form (teachers, parents, and/or students)
Ask them to nominate 2-5 students who exhibit creativity, look fors/characteristics, HOPE scale, writing samples, products, etc.
Give all of the nominated students 2-3 screeners
Use jot downs, checklists, or student work rubrics for additional identification criteria
Students who can produce 3 pieces of identification criteria would be nominated for creativity.

(Stith, 2019).

That looks relatively simple. However, choosing the screeners, and then scoring them based on those four categories can be a challenge. I have listed a few different types of assessments and screeners that are commonly used for identifying this population, as well as a few pictures of what some of the screeners look like as examples of what we, as educators, would be giving to the students in order to check for creative giftedness.

HOPE Scale: designed to measure social and academic components of giftedness and talent
Creative work samples/products
Creativity Jot Down: a quick evaluation method where individuals are asked to rapidly generate a large number of ideas or solutions to a given prompt
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (most widely used assessment of creative talent): focused on divergent thinking as the basis for creativity and constructed tests that emphasized the assessment of divergent thinking
Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT): Subjects are asked to create something (a product) and experts independently evaluate the creativity of those products. Used more in creativity research and less widely in schools, but can be used to assess creativity for admission to special programs such as gifted.
Checklists: rate each child individually and not make post hoc score comparisons. The validity of creativity checklists depends on how well the assessors know the students, how well they understand the questions and theory of creativity that underlies them, the objectivity of the assessors, and the appropriateness of the questions/theory of creativity that underlies them. Meant to be a small piece of an assessment combined with other measures.
Self-assessment: people judge their own creativity
Learning style assessments: Informal and formal methods are used to create or identify students’ interests and to encourage students to further develop and pursue these interests in various ways. Learning style preferences which are assessed include: projects, independent study, teaching games, simulations, peer teaching, programmed instruction, lecture, drill and recitation, and discussion.

(Stith, 2019) (Kaufman et al., 2012, pp. 62, 65-68) (Reis & Renzulli, n.d., para 23)

The main point of listing these, is to showcase that not one singular assessment can, or should, determine a student's creativity ability for giftedness. As it says in the practical method, students who can produce 3 pieces would be nominated. Therefore, it is important to get a full profile of a student's creativity before accepting or denying their nomination for creativity. Otherwise, students will be left out or misidentified based on sole criteria. Below I have shared some pictures and questions from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, just to give an idea of what educators would be asking of students.

Students would be asked to complete drawings using these 9 squares. They could make them individual things, create one or two big pictures, use color, etc. It's completely up to them.

(Sample Torrance Questions, 2024)

Students would be asked "Ask him how did this happen?" Then, "what will happen next?"

(Sample Torrance Questions, 2024)

Additional questions could be:

How many new ways can you think to use a water bottle?
Suppose you could be invisible for a day. What problems might that create? What would the benefits of being invisible be?
How would you solve the problem in this nursery rhyme?

Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the cupboard

To get her poor doggie a bone,

When she got there

The cupboard was bare

So the poor little doggie had none.

(Sample Torrance Questions, 2024)

Suggested Practices for Teaching

In order for students to be able to develop their creativity, it is also important for teachers to be equally as creative when servicing these students. For example, in order to have a creative classroom, one must take into account the physical space. Therefore, the environment must be able to meet basic needs, such as safety and shelter, with a comfortable setting for learning and reflecting, as well as a variety of interesting and stimulating resources, materials, objects, and learning experiences in order to promote imagination and creativity (Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, pp. 55-56). In order to do that, teachers should encourage students to ask all types of questions, and reward students for any answers, solutions, or attempts given in order to make the student feel safe and encouraged to continue trying. Formal assessments should also be limited when students are brainstorming in order to allow them to explore new ideas without any sort of confinement or restriction (Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, p. 56). Hence why freedom is such an integral part of developing creativity in the classroom. This could look like self-government, self-evaluation, or even simply free time/play time in the classroom (Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, pp. 56-57). Anytime that students are able to have more intrinsic motivation or feel as though they have a say in their education, will result in more engaged and enthusiastic learners. However, in order to see that creativity in the classroom, educators must expect it, setting high expectations and sticking to them across the board, not allowing for biases to creep in. Below I have bullet pointed some other suggested activities or strategies for teaching this special population, most of which work on engaging and promoting creative thinking in the classroom. I also created a four way infographic to showcase different activities that work well with each type of divergent thinking category that was mentioned in the identification and assessment section in order to help educators understand not only the differences in activities, but also how they could connect and help develop them in students more individually.

Modeling: social learning and modeling play a strong role in creativity development. Both creative attitudes, actual products, educators, and fellow peers can serve as models
Physical Space (again): ensure that it is safe, comfortable, interesting, and stimulating. Consider outdoor activities. Create a psychologically safe space, free of peer ridicule
Protect and prioritize time: brainstorm ways to incorporate creativity-building strategies into the existing curriculum and lesson plans
Make expectations: Students do not always understand when and to what extent using their imagination is desirable
Normalize the hard work of innovation: Students need to grasp that true achievement typically derives from extended effort, as well as trial and error
Group work: Incorporate well-designed group work to help students build off each other's ideas. Successful groups typically have guidelines and monitoring from a teacher and also involve some kind of individual processing time.

(Thompson & Pfeiffer, 2020, pp. 58, 63-64).

(Stith, 2020).

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