University of Northeastern Philippines

Iriga City

Master of Education Major in English

2nd Semester 2022
.

KAREN N. IMPERIAL DR. IMELDA B. ALBERO

Teacher I / Student Professor

Insights / Reflections
Article No. 1

Identifying gifted students – teacher misconceptions

Jan 12,2021
Author: Michelle Lucas
https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/identifying-gifted-students-teacher-misconceptions

The underachievement of gifted and high-achieving students is, in part, propagated by

the dangerous myth that they will succeed regardless.

There is a five to six year grade level discrepancy in mixed ability classrooms (Masters,
2020) and if we continue to believe our high achievers will succeed regardless, they are
likely to continue to be stifled by simple content and an inappropriate curriculum.

The need to develop each student to their potential is clear. Here in New South Wales, a
refreshed gifted education policy  was released by the state Department of Education,
to be implemented from the start of 2021 in all government schools. It brings a renewed
focus on the needs of gifted students and, specifically, the need for additional support
and differentiated learning experiences.

From misconception to alarm

When I began as Gifted and Talented Coordinator, my first task was to pore through the
profiles of identified gifted students. I had taught many of them in Mathematics or
Science and my first impression of most was that they were successful learners – after
all, they were almost all ‘A grade’ students. Equating this with successful learning is a
common misconception among teachers (Heyder et al., 2018). A closer look at the
profiles raised my alarm.

1. There were many gifted students who were maintaining an A grade but achieving far
below their potential – the gap between their achievement and others in their grade was
closing as they progressed through senior school.
2. There was less diversity among the population of gifted students than expected from the
school context and general population.
3. There were many gifted students whose grades had declined over the last one to two
years.
All of these groups were evidence of underachievement. Underachievement is the delta
between expected achievement and actual achievement. The expected achievement
may be based on individual IQ test scores, past achievement scores, creativity scores,
teacher observations, or a combination of these (Rimm et al., 2018). In my case, I was
using past achievement scores and teacher observations, as well as IQ scores where
they were available.

The below discusses why each of these groups of students represent underachievement
and why we should be alarmed.

Group 1: The high-achieving underachievers

After meeting with gifted students who were maintaining an A grade and viewing work
samples from English and Science, it was clear that they were hitting the ceiling on
these grade level assessments. There was no differentiation of assessment and at least
half of what was assessed had been mastered by these students the year before.

These findings are similar to what has been documented in research literature (Burrell et
al., 2017; Callahan & Hertberg-Davis, 2018; Reis & Renzulli, 2012). The lack of growth
among high achievers has substantive evidence. A US study found that 30-50 per cent
of initially high-achieving students declined in their performance over time (Xiang et al.,
2011).

In Australia, PISA data shows the proportion of high performing students decreased in
each of the three assessment domains between 2000 and 2018 (Thomson et al., 2019).

Group 2: The invisible underachievers

The lower diversity I found among the profiles of gifted students is evidence of the
existence of ‘invisible underachievers’, whose ability is underestimated (Chaffey et al.,
2015). In the course of my first year in the role, I received psychometric testing for a
student who was achieving below grade level that indicated he was a gifted child. After
speaking to some of his class teachers, they dismissed the suggestion, commenting that
he 'couldn’t possibly be gifted’.

Teachers frequently expect to find gifted students among high achievers, and often
refuse to entertain the idea that a low-achieving student could be gifted (Campbell &
Smith, 2013; Russell, 2018). This is to the detriment of students as it results in the
under-representation of minority groups in gifted programs (Ford, 2010; Worrell et al.,
2019) and the lack of appropriately differentiated instruction in regular classrooms
(Imbeau, 2018).

Research tells us that gifted students are a non-homogenous group (Reis & Renzulli,
2010). The gifted students at my school have different backgrounds, talents and traits.
There is, however, a lower portion of gifted students from disadvantaged groups than
represented in the wider school population. In our context, this lack of identification of
students from certain sub-groups is tied to underachievement, since the inference is that
students with high potential are not achieving and not being included in programs and
services provided and therefore don’t have the same opportunities to develop their
talent.

To better understand this group, I considered three sub-groups frequently

underrepresented in gifted programs.
Twice exceptional (2e)

These are high-potential students with a diagnosed disability or disorder. An estimated

20 percent of gifted students are twice exceptional (De Bonte, 2019), however, these
students are often overlooked (Harwin, 2019) and under-represented in both gifted and
support programs (Reis & Renzulli, 2012). Many 2e students are unidentified because of
the masking effect, where their disability masks their talent and vice-versa (Maddocks,
2018). I realised that with only 9 percent of the gifted students at our school having a
diagnosed disability, it is likely we have not identified all the 2e students, since we
should expect to find closer to 20 per cent of the gifted population with a disability.

Low socioeconomic status

Students from lower income families have been shown to be as much as four times less
likely to be selected for gifted programs (Grissom et al.,2019). Compounding this, low
SES students lack the opportunities to learn and develop their talent due to poverty.
Underachievement is more significant in this sub-group, with a school drop-out rate twice
that of their peers (Wyner et al., 2007). I found that not one of the identified students at
my school was from a low SES family.

Culturally or linguistically diverse

Research is clear that students outside the main cultural group are frequently under-
represented in gifted programs (Ford et al., 2014). Part of the problem is that students
from culturally diverse backgrounds commonly score lower on IQ tests (Ford, 2004) and
may also be held to lower teacher expectations (Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011). Without
multiple methods of identification that include non-verbal and culturally sensitive tests we
will continue to exclude some high potential students. Returning to our own context, a
particular ESL (English as a Second Language) student came to mind. I began to
interview her teachers and parents and, after collecting information, included her as a
gifted student and invited her to join the school’s gifted program.

Group 3: The low-achieving gifted students

This group of students seem to be the target of many research-based interventions to

arrest underachievement. This lack of achievement may be driven by affective issues,
such as a lack of motivation, or environmental factors, including family and teacher
effects. It should not be surprising that gifted students do not necessarily succeed as the
definition of gifted and talented described by Gagné’s (2004) differentiated model,
makes distinction between inherited gifts and demonstrated talents. It describes a talent
development process which is not achieved without the necessary catalysts for success,
including a supportive environment, goal-management, and favourable physical and
mental traits. These areas, along with chance elements, may become inhibitors rather
than catalysts impeding talent development.

Despite the dedication of teachers, catering for diverse student needs is a challenge. In
interviews with gifted students at my school, students have indicated they feel they have
little in common with their peers. Other impeding factors can include a lack of challenge
and belonging, family environment, and self-effects such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, or
negative emotions attached to the context or task.

The impact of these factors on underachievement is severe. If interventions are not

made for these students, underachievement not only continues but they may even drop
out of school. Renzulli and Park (2000) found approximately five percent of gifted
students drop out of school, but up to 25 per cent has been reported (Robertson, 1991).
Considering all three groups discussed above, the underachievement among gifted
students is extremely high – up to 57 per cent (Peterson & Colangelo, 1996). There is no
doubt of the detrimental effects of teacher misconceptions about gifted students, and the
myth that they will succeed regardless.

References

Burrell, M., Horsley, J., & Moeed, A. (2017). Identification of, and Academic Provision for High-Ability
Science Students: What Does the Literature Say? European Journal of Science and Mathematics
Education, 5(2), 110-118.

Callahan, C. M., & Hertberg-Davis, H. L. (2018). Fundamentals of gifted education : Considering multiple

perspective. Routledge.

Campbell, J., & Smith, L. M. (2013). Families, education and giftedness: Case studies in the construction of
high achievement (Vol. 3): Springer Science & Business Media.

Chaffey, G. W., Bailey, S. B., & Vine, K. W. (2015). Identifying high academic potential in Australian
Aboriginal children using dynamic testing. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 24(2), 24-37.

Rimm, S. B., Siegle, D., & Davis, G. A. (2018). Education of the gifted and talented (7th ed.). pp 233-236.
Pearson.

De Bonte, A. (2019). Beyond the neuropsychological evaluation: Finding the right professionals to support
your 2e child's needs. Parenting for High Potential, 8(4), 15-18.

Ford, D. Y. (2004). Intelligence testing and cultural diversity: Concerns, cautions, and
considerations. National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Ford, D. Y., Coleman, M. R., & Davis, J. L. (2014). Racially, ethnically, and linguistically different gifted
and talented students. Gifted Child Today, 37(3), 133-134. doi:10.1177/1076217514533277

Gagne, F. (2004). Transforming gifts into talents: The DMGT as a developmental theory. High Ability
Studies, 15(2), 119-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359813042000314682

Grissom, J. A., Redding, C., & Bleiberg, J. F. (2019). Money over merit? Socioeconomic gaps in receipt of
gifted services. Harvard Educational Review, 89(3), 337-369. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-
89.3.337

Harwin, A. (2019, November 25). Schools struggle to widen access to gifted classes: 'Twice exceptional'
students often get overlooked. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/twice-
exceptional-students-miss-out-on-gifted-classes/2019/11

Heyder, A., Bergold, S., & Steinmayr, R. (2018). Teachers' knowledge about intellectual giftedness: A first
look at levels and correlates. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 17(1), 27-44.

Imbeau, M. B. (2018). Evidence-based curricular/instructional suggestions for meeting the needs of all
learners including those who are advanced. Gifted Child Today, 41(1), 5-
6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1076217517735904

Masters, G. (2020). Nurturing Wonder and Igniting Passion, designs for a new school curriculum: NSW
Curriculum Review. NSW Education Standards
Authority. https://www.nswcurriculumreview.nesa.nsw.edu.au

Maddocks, D. L. S. (2018). The identification of students who are gifted and have a learning disability: A
comparison of different diagnostic criteria. The Gifted Child Quarterly, 62(2), 175-
192. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0016986217752096

Peterson, J. S., & Colangelo, N. (1996). Gifted achievers and underachievers: A comparison of patterns
found in school files. Journal of Counseling & Development, 74(4), 399-407.
 Plunkett, M., & Kronborg, L. (2011). Learning to be a teacher of the gifted: The importance of examining
opinions and challenging misconceptions. Gifted and Talented International, 26(1-2), 31-46.

Reis, S. M., & Renzulli, J. S. (2010). Is there still a need for gifted education? An examination of current
research. Learning and individual differences, 20(4), 308-
317. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2009.10.012

Reis, S. M., & Renzulli, J. (2012). Challenging gifted and talented learners with a continuum of research-
based interventions strategies. In M. A. Bray & T. J. Kehle (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of School
Psychology (pp.456-482). Oxford University Press.

Renzulli, J. S., & Park, S. (2000). Gifted dropouts: The who and the why. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44(4),
261-271. doi:10.1177/001698620004400407

Robertson, E. (1991). Neglected Dropouts The Gifted and Talented. Equity & Excellence in
Education, 25(1), 62-73.

Russell, J. L. (2018). High school teachers' perceptions of giftedness, gifted education, and talent
development. Journal of Advanced Academics, 29(4), 275-
303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1932202X18775658

Thomson, S., De Bortoli, L., Underwood, C., & Schmid, M. (2019). PISA 2018 in Brief I. Student
performance. Australian Council for Educational Research
(ACER). https://research.acer.edu.au/ozpisa/34

Wyner, J. S., Bridgeland, J.M., & Dilulio, J.J. (2007). Achievement trap: How america is failing millions of
high-achieving students from lower-income families. Gifted Child Today, 13.

ARTICLE NO. 1 INSIGHTS/REFLECTIONS:

Identifying gifted students – teacher misconceptions
January 12,2021 / Author: Michelle Lucas

Gifted students
Article No. 2

Students' motivation to succeed at school

September 10,2018
Authors: Rebecca Vukovic
https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/students-motivation-to-succeed-at-school

Australian students are more motivated to succeed at school than their OECD peers, but
results from a new report released by the Australian Council for Educational Research
(ACER) show high levels of motivation do not necessarily correspond to high
performance.

PISA Australia in Focus Number 3: Motivation analyses data produced by the 2015

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey. Overall,
Australian students reported higher levels of motivation than 26 of the 35 OECD
countries that participated.

However, the data also show that motivation is significantly affected by disadvantage, as
well as cultural and geographical groupings within Australia.

‘The data show that disadvantage continues to negatively affect Australian students, with
those from Indigenous and low socioeconomic status backgrounds, and those in regional
and remote areas, less motivated to achieve academically,' ACER Deputy CEO
(Research) Dr Sue Thomson says.

‘This is important because motivation to achieve plays a key role in educational success,
and in an individual's drive to set and attain education and career goals.'

The report specifically looks at two kinds of motivations.

Achievement motivation
The report discusses the importance of achievement motivation and acknowledges that
motivating students to achieve is one of the major challenges that teachers face in their
classrooms.

‘Teachers provide their students with a plethora of learning opportunities in the hope of
spurring enthusiasm, sparking curiosity and capturing and inspiring interest to pursue
goals for their future aspirations,' the report reads.

How achievement motivation was measured in PISA 2015

PISA 2015 collected data about students' achievement motivation using their responses
to five items: I want top grades in most or all of my courses; I want to be able to select
from among the best opportunities available when I graduate; I want to be the best,
whatever I do; I see myself as an ambitious person; and, I want to be one of the best
students in my class.

Achievement motivation across the globe

The report compares Australian data with 11 other countries, including both high
performing countries (Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Japan, Macao
(China), and Singapore) and culturally similar English-speaking OECD countries (New
Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States).

Australian students reported having a significantly higher level of achievement

motivation compared to their OECD peers. Australia's mean index score was 0.33, and
the OECD average was -0.01. By comparison, Finland scored -0.63 and Macao (China)
scored -0.50, indicating that high performance in PISA testing does not necessarily
correspond to high achievement motivation. In fact, some countries with the highest
scores on achievement motivation were some of the lower performing countries.

Within Australia, students in New South Wales reported the highest levels of
achievement motivation, while Tasmania reported the lowest across the country.
Female, non-Indigenous, high socioeconomic status (SES) and metropolitan-based
students were more highly motivated to achieve than their peers, while Australian-born
students recorded the lowest motivation levels, compared to first generation and foreign-
born students.

Instrumental motivation
PISA measures reading literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. Testing has
taken place every three years since 2000. Survey information about student motivation
has also been collected in each cycle, focusing on the major test domain. The focus for
the 2015 cycle (as in 2006) was scientific literacy.

‘A student's instrumental motivation refers to how relevant they view different subject
areas to their own lives and the external rewards they expect to receive from mastering
the content and skills associated with the subjects (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). In other
words, instrumental motivation can be described simply as the answer to the question
“What's in it for me?”' the report explains.

How PISA measures instrumental motivation in science

PISA 2015 collected data about students' instrumental motivation to learn science using
their responses to four items: Making an effort in my science subject(s) is worth it
because this will help me in the work I want to do later on; Studying my science
subject(s) is worthwhile for me because what I learn will improve my career prospects;
What I learn in my science subject(s) is important for me because I need this for what I
want to do later on; and, Many things I learn in my science subject(s) will help me to get
a job.
 Instrumental motivation across the globe

Students in Singapore reported the highest levels of instrumental motivation with a mean
index score of 0.51, followed by students in Canada (0.46) and New Zealand and the
United Kingdom (both 0.38).

Students in Australia had a mean index score of 0.16 on the instrumental motivation
index, which was significantly higher than the OECD average of -0.14. While Australian
students reported having a level of instrumental motivation that was significantly higher
compared to students across the OECD, their instrumental motivation in the domain of
science was substantially lower than among students in many of the countries selected
for comparison here.

References

Eccles, J.S. & Wigfield, A. (2002). In the mind of the achiever: The structure of adolescents' academic
achievementrelated beliefs and self-perceptions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 215–225.

Underwood, C. (2018). PISA Australia in Focus Number 3:

Motivation. https://research.acer.edu.au/ozpisa/32

ARTICLE NO. 2 INSIGHTS/REFLECTIONS:

Students' motivation to succeed at school

September 10, 2018 / Author: Rebecca Vukovic
Article No. 3

Teaching students to reflect

June 22,2021
Authors: Lia Sharma
https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/teaching-students-to-reflect

‘Know thyself’ – pithy self-help aphorism? Impossible task? Life-changing wisdom? What
really is the value of reflection? And how is it effectively taught?

In a world characterised by hurry, progress and efficiency, reflection requires a change

of pace. It requires that we pause, breathe, and shift our future-orientation to dwell
instead on what has been. This does not come naturally to many of the students in our
classrooms (perhaps not even to ourselves).

Spurred on by research which links self-reflection to effective learning and memory

formation (Briggs, 2015), personal growth (Feize & Faver, 2019) and wellbeing and life
satisfaction (Harrington & Loffredo, 2011), the Christian Studies teaching team at
Roseville College in New South Wales has been reading, sharing, experimenting and,
indeed, reflecting on how we can help our students better know themselves. Here is
some of what we have learned.

What is ‘good’ reflection?

We found it helpful early on to clarify what is meant by ‘good’ reflection’. It is  not self-

absorbed rumination and mere navel-gazing. It is not superficial or cliché. It is not about
ticking boxes or saying what someone else wants to hear. Importantly (for this is where
we realised we had significant scope to improve our practice), good reflection is far more
than summarising, generalising and judging. Simply collecting student testimonials about
how good or bad they found a particular experience is not pushing hard enough.

Instead, good reflection is ultimately transformative. While a wide range of definitions

exist in the literature, they all tend to acknowledge that good reflection involves
processing the past so as to change the future. It is marked by the search for deep
understanding, honest examination, holistic integration and informed and deliberate
growth. As educator Peter Drucker said: ‘Follow effective action with quiet reflection.
From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.’

What good reflection requires of teachers

As with many aspects of teaching, facilitating good reflection in our classrooms required
that we be prepared and purposeful. As teachers, we needed to put in place the
necessary supportive structures. These included having a stated purpose, surrounding
discourse which is at an appropriate level of complexity, clarity regarding evidence of
learning and possible methods of assessment, metacognitive guides, and opportunities
to share and receive ongoing feedback throughout the process. However, much of this
list applies to learning in general. What is specific to teaching students to reflect?

The literature here seems to highlight three themes worth exploring:

1. The first is the importance of the stimulus. Be it a mining question, an emotive

experience, an effective sentence stem or another tool entirely, this stimulus must be
sufficiently targeted to elicit relevant reflections, sufficiently engaging to invigorate the
mind, and sufficiently open-ended to allow for authenticity and depth.
2. The second theme is the value of modelling. Bain and colleagues (2002) use the
terminology of the five R’s to describe different levels of reflective thought. Articulating
our own thinking in a way that demonstrates these various levels is of enormous benefit
to students. But this requires a degree of humility and vulnerability; we must position
ourselves as lifelong learners, works in progress, change agents, so as to encourage our
students to see themselves thus.
3. This brings us to the final distinctive theme, and that is the environment. Poole,
Jones & Whitfield (2013) have written insightfully about the inherently threatening nature
of good reflection and the associated need for a truly safe environment. They highlight
the importance of autonomy, access and connection to others, feedback, time,
meaningful links to objectives and significant performance demands, arguing: ‘These
conditions acknowledge the emotional consequences of honest reflection, with its
potential to challenge long-standing beliefs about the way the world works and the kind
of person our student believes him or herself to be.’

Putting our learning into practice

We are building deliberate reflection opportunities into all of our high school classes, and
experimenting with different forms and approaches. Here are three examples.

In Year 9, we are trying to create a regular practice of quiet personal reflection where our
students respond to open-ended prompts. These prompts pick up on Biblical teachings
we’ve been exploring, and we link these to the broader lives and cultural contexts of our
students, covering themes such as conformity, resilience, gratitude and freedom.
Students are given a lot of autonomy both in their responding and their sharing.
Recently, they chose portions of their written reflections to be reviewed by their teachers
and we have been encouraged by the growth we have seen. Most notably, we see
progress over time in their ability to articulate their self-understanding in detail and to
think critically about significant issues and key cultural messages.

In Year 10, our students engage in a study of apologetics, exploring varied responses to
big philosophical questions about the connections between faith and science, or
suffering, or the concept of truth. In line with our learning about reflection, we have
adapted and applied the concept of empathy mapping. This is a simple visualisation
model, often used in marketing and User Experience, which helps students consider
where some of these complex and, often, emotive questions are coming from both with
regards to their own assumptions and influences, and those of others. One of the most
interesting outcomes of this strategy has been a shift in discourse, with class
conversations becoming more sensitive and nuanced.

In Year 11, we teach an extended unit on Comparative Religions. But it is one thing to
know some facts about other faiths, and another thing entirely to engage empathetically
with people of other faiths while still holding firm to one’s own convictions. For our
students, we want the latter. To this end, we took a new approach to assessment,
adding creative and reflective layers. Students researched the life and practices of
another religious tradition, and then reflected on how these compare to their own life and
practices. They expressed this comparative reflection in a creative format of their
 choosing with an accompanying rationale. While we enjoyed the spread of artworks,
daily schedules, diary entries and other creative submissions, we particularly
appreciated the depth of reflection that had enabled our students to find (sometimes
surprising) areas of commonality, along with an appreciation for diversity.

Teacher reflective practice

For our Department team, improving our reflective practice is an ongoing journey. We

are reading widely, drawing on the expertise of others, experimenting with different
models, carefully integrating reflection into our assessment practices, trying to build
classroom environments grounded in trust, and developing a reflective culture within our
team.

Our ultimate goals are lofty: experts argue that regular and meaningful self-reflection
ultimately promotes well-being and personal growth (Harrington & Loffredo, 2011).

In the late 70s, theologian Richard J Foster, made this call: ‘…the desperate need today
is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people’
(Foster, 2008). In teaching our students (and ourselves) to truly ‘know thyself’, we join
the pursuit of this depth.

References

Bain, J.D., Ballantyne, R., Mills, C., & Lester, N.C. (2002). Reflecting on practice: Student teachers’
perspectives. Flaxton, QLD: Post Pressed.

Briggs, S. (2015). What meaningful reflection can do for student learning. Accessed online

<opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/meaningful-reflection>.

Feize, L. & Faver, C. (2019). Teaching self-awareness: social work educators’ endeavors and
struggles. Social Work Education, 3892, 159-176.

Foster, R. J. (2008). Celebration of discipline: the path to spiritual growth. Hodder & Stoughton.

Harrington, R., & Loffredo, D. A. (2011). Insight, rumination, and self-reflection as predictors of well-
being. Journal Of Psychology, 145(1), 39–57.

Poole, G., Jones, L., & Whitfield, M. (2013). Helping students reflect: lessons from cognitive
psychology. Advances in Health Science Education, 18, 817-824.

ARTICLE NO. 3 INSIGHTS/REFLECTIONS:

Teaching students to reflect

June 22,2021 / Authors: Lia Sharma