Entry #3

ENTRY #3 - Chapter 9:

Select at least two of these questions (although you can select as many as five) and at least 4 hyperlinks . Your post should be at least one page (around 500 words). Students who integrate quotes from the assigned reading will earn more points than those that do not.
PLEASE NOTE THAT FOR THIS THIRD POSTING YOU MUST UPLOAD A DIGITAL IMAGE TO SUPPORT THE CONCEPT OF DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION. CONSIDER THE PHOTOGRAPHY ACTIVITY - HOW WAS THAT AN EXAMPLE OF DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION? If you are not clear, I expect you to Google "Differentiated Instruction, photography, learning". This should help you think about and reflect on your understanding of the topic of this chapter.
I'm looking for your opinion, but also want that opinion to be backed up by course content. This post is due Thursday, September 17th.

1. What are some characteristics of children with gifts and talents?
2. Define and discuss the concept of twice exceptional.

Students with gifts and talents are called prodigies because they develop their talent or gift extraordinarily fast. These children normally come from a family that is close and willing to nurture and help the child develop their gift to its full potential. Students with gifts or talents seem to be more prominent in males over females (Kirk 295). These talents though do not come without a cost. Students with gifts and talents seem to be linked to having issues with “depression, delinquency, perfectionism, suicide, and response to stress” (Kirk 295). These issues that students with gifts face are hard topics to handle. Since they are already stressed by being known as a prodigy they feel as if they need to keep this title along with its high standards. Some of these students seem not to be able to handle the stress of this perfectionist title they hold and slowly fall under the weight of this title. So lash out and commit acts of delinquency while others do not feel the need to leave if they can’t be this perfect person.

Children with disabilities who have gifts and talents are known as twice exceptional (Kirk 304). It is believed that if a student can’t see, talk, or walk they are not intellectually talented (Kirk 304). In the end though, it means we are over looking the special talents they have and we need to take time and help them find those talents they have. So they can work on them and develop those talents to their full potential. In our book, Educating Exceptional Children, Coleman found out that “the students who had gifts and learning disabilities had constructive coping strategies”, whereas other students did not have the ability to cope with situations as well. There are “three general educational objectives for programs for students who have gifts and talents: (1) Mastering important conceptual systems that are at the level of their abilities in various content fields (2) Developing skills and strategies that enable them to become more independent and creative (3) Developing pleasure in and excitement about learning that will carry them through the routine that is an inevitable part of the learning process (Kirk 305).”

Differentiated instruction is the ability to develop a lesson plan that will be able to change to work with all the different type of learners in the classroom. So in the end of the lesson, they all learned something about the same topic just in a different process that fits their ability and learning style. In the photography lesson in class, we all went and searched for different pictures of shapes and lines. Through this process, we all were able to work at our own pace to come up with our own ideas on shapes and lines. Some of us came up with simple photos of lines and shapes. While others showed a more artistic idea of shapes and lines. We all accomplished the same task, just with different abilities that were shown. For example, my photo is of many different lines going in many different directions. This to me, in an artistic stand point is just craziness but to look at it in a significant way shows how a teacher must search through all the lines and points to be able to find out were her/his students are.