Gifted Services

MISSION:

The mission of gifted services is to provide a stimulating educational environment for bright and creative children. These services seek to address the unique abilities, interests, and needs of gifted students through its identification procedures, differentiated curricula, and enrichment experiences.

GOAL:

The goal of gifted services is to provide learning objectives and strategies, which include:

Promoting cognitive strengths in a challenging environment,
Developing creativity and independent inquiry strategies,
Providing opportunities for interaction with intellectual peers, and
Supporting educators through the sharing of methods, techniques and strategies for working with gifted children.

STRENGTHS:

Gifted services provide the following:

Intellectually challenging, demanding, and stimulating curriculum,
Student interaction with peers at the same intellectual level,
A focus on individual strengths and weaknesses,
An increased student role of independent work, responsibility and independent thinking,
Stimulation of creativity and imagination,
Problem solving and decision making strategies, and
Advanced levels of task difficulty.

Supervisor of Gifted and
Enrichment Services:
Deb Jackson
419-674-2288 ext. 309
jacksond@hardinesc.org

Gifted Intervention Specialist:
Cammie Honaker
419-674-2288 ext. 503
honakerc@hardinesc.org

Serving:
Hardin Northern
Ridgemont
Upper Scioto Valley

GIFTED IDENTIFICATION AREAS:

Superior Cognitive Ability

Children who are gifted in superior cognitive ability demonstrate or show potential to demonstrate high levels of ability in cognitive areas, i.e., problem solving, abstract thinking, reasoning, memory, or comprehension. These children acquire skills at a faster rate, with more depth and greater complexity, than other children of their age, experience, or environment.

Specific Academic Ability

Children who are gifted in specific academic ability perform or show the potential to perform at high levels of achievement in one or more content areas: mathematics, science, reading, writing, or a combination of both reading and writing, and /or social studies. These children acquire skills at a faster rate, with more depth and greater complexity, than other children of their age, experience, or environment.

Creative Thinking Ability

Children who are gifted in creative thinking ability are capable of being fluent in producing ideas, generating original ideas, elaborating on ideas, making unusual associations, being flexible in thinking, sensing when problems exist, acting spontaneously, visualizing mentally, making guesses and hypothesis, taking risks, and working with concentration. These children demonstrate the potential to look at the ordinary in an unordinary way.

Visual and Performing Arts

Children who are gifted in visual and performing arts ability perform, or show the potential to perform at high levels of achievement in one or more artistic areas: drawing, painting, sculpting, music, dance, and drama. These children acquire skills in these fields at a faster rate, with more depth and greater complexity, than other children of their age, experience, or environment.

Ohio's Definition of Gifted Children

Section 3324.01 (B) of ORC defines children who are gifted as follows: 'Gifted' means students who perform or show potential for performing at remarkable high levels of accomplishments when compared to others of their age, experience, or environment and who are identified under divisions (A), (B), (C), or (D) of section 3324.03 of the Revised Code.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GIFTED STUDENTS:

CHARACTERISTICS	POSITIVE ASPECT	NEGATIVE ASPECT
Rapid Learner	Memorizes and masters basic facts quickly	Gets bored easily, disturbs others, daydreams
Intensive Reader	Reads many books and uses library on own	Neglects other responsibilities
Advanced Vocabulary	Communicates ideas well	Shows off, invokes peer resentment
A quantity of information can be retained	Exhibits recall and responses	Monopolizes discussions
Long attention span	Sticks with a task or project	Resists class routine, dislikes interruptions
Curious, has a variety of interests	Asks questions, gets excited about ideas	Goes on tangents, no follow-through
Independent learner	Creates and invents beyond assigned tasks	Refuses to work with others
Alert and observant	Recognizes problems	Corrects adults in inappropriate ways
A good sense of humor	Laughs at self	Plays cruel jokes or tricks on others, cutting wit
Comprehension skills and recognition of relationships	Solves social problems alone	Interferes in the affairs of others
High academic achievement	Does school work well	Brags, egotistical, impatient with others
Fluent, verbal facility	Leads peers in positive ways, forceful with words and numbers	Leads others into negative behaviors
Individualistic, challenges ideas	Asserts self and ideas; has a sense of own uniqueness	Has few friends, nonconforming, stubborn in beliefs
Self-motivated, self-sufficient	Requires minimum teacher direction or help	Is over-aggressive, challenges authority

ENRICHMENT OPPORTUNITIES:

Fourth Grade Hardin County Courthouse Tours
Senior National Honor Society Trip
Hardin County Spelling Bee
Quiz Bowl Program
M.I.S.S.I.L.E.
(MI.ddle S.chool S.tudents I.nvolved in a L.iterary E.ncounter)
Hardin County Young Authors' Conference
S.P.A.R.K.
(S.tudents P.aving A.venues for R.esearching K.nowledge)

Fourth Grade Hardin County Courthouse Tours

The Hardin County Educational Service Center, in coordination with the Hardin County Courthouse Officials and tour guide volunteers, provide all Hardin County 4th graders with an up-close and personal look at the county election process and the officials elected as a result of this process. Each year approximately 400 Hardin County fourth grade students get to experience the history, architecture, and internal workings of the Hardin County Courthouse.

These Hardin County Courthouse tours were created in 1998 by Hardin County teachers to enhance the 4th grade Social Studies curriculum and to provide students with the opportunity to witness their elected officials in action.

The tours last 2 hours and include stops at all the elected officials’ offices in the Courthouse. The tours end with a greeting by the Hardin County commissioners, a presentation by the Board of Election that reviews the voting process and a question/answer period regarding the artifacts housed in Veteran’s Hall. Many courthouse offices also present students with souvenirs of their visit.

Senior National Honor Society Trip

In December Senior National Honor Society members and advisors from Hardin Northern, Ridgemont, Riverdale, and Upper Scioto Valley travel to Columbus for a one day visit to the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio State Capitol. While in Columbus the students observe cases being presented to the Supreme Court, tour the State Capitol with statehouse guides, and meet with our district’s state representative and state senator. This first-hand experience gives seniors a chance to observe our state government in action.

Hardin County Spelling Bee

The Hardin County Spelling Bee follows the traditional spelling bee format and features the top 21 spellers in grades 5–8 from the four Hardin County Local Schools: Hardin Northern, Ridgemont, Riverdale, and Upper Scioto Valley. This annual event is held in early February at Veteran’s Hall in the Hardin County Courthouse. The winner of the Hardin County Bee then proceeds to the Columbus Dispatch’s Regional Spelling Bee on the campus of The Ohio State University. If successful in Columbus our Bee champion could then be part of the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Quiz Bowl Program

The Hardin County Quiz Bowl Program consists both of junior high and high school quiz bowl competitions. Our year begins with 3 practice meets: October, November, and January. We then enter the season’s competitions. The Hardin County Junior High Tournament and Hardin County High School Tournament are annually held in February. Our tournaments are double elimination tournaments which consist of 50 question matches. In March our county hosts the Hardin County High School Quiz Bowl Invitational where Hardin County students compete with quiz bowl teams from surrounding counties for Invitational positions and the chance to advance to regional competition.

M.I.S.S.I.L.E.
(MI.ddle S.chool S.tudents I.nvolved in a L.iterary E.ncounter)

MI.S.S.I.L.E. is a literary competition for Hardin County 7th and 8th grade students. The program centers on three specifically chosen themed novels. All student participants will have read these three novels prior to the MI.S.S.I.L.E. competition day.

The MI.S.S.I.L.E. day involves the following activities which are based on the themed novels:

an individual book test,
group writing activities,
group art activities,
dramatic presentations, and
game competitions and challenges.

Objectives of the MI.S.S.I.L.E competition for students are as follows:

analyze the use of a genre to express a theme or topic,
compare and contrast the character, setting, plot, and theme from three theme related novels,
identify similar recurring themes across different works, and
respond, through a variety of writing, art, and drama extensions, to novels read.

Hardin County Young Authors' Conference

The Hardin County Young Authors’ Conference is a day long event held each April at Ohio Northern University’s Mc Intosh Center. The conference honors 130 selected student authors in grades 1-6 from Ada, Hardin Northern, Kenton, Ridgemont, Riverdale, and Upper Scioto Valley.

A featured visiting children’s author speaks to the students sharing about the writing and illustrating process. While the guest author presents to half of the students the other half of the conference participants are in small group breakout sessions creating work centered on the author’s literature. Each of the participating school districts has lead teachers who work with the small group student breakout sessions.

Previous visiting children’s authors/illustrators have been the following:

1998 – Tedd Arnold
1999 – Tracey E. Dils
2000 – Chris Soentpiet
2001 – Judith Caseley
2002 – Peter Catalanotto
2003 – Paul Brett Johnson
2004 – Tracey Campbell Pearson
2005 – Eileen Christelow
2006 – Barbara Mc Clintock

S.P.A.R.K.
(S.tudents P.aving A.venues for R.esearching K.nowledge)

The S.P.A.R.K. Experience is an opportunity for identified gifted 6 th graders to meet and work with gifted peers using theme based in-depth content related activities. Students move through learning stations which focus on higher order thinking skills. Each station involves students in participatory activities. Guest presenters from many fields of study are featured at these learning stations.

S.PA.R.K. started in 2001 as a collaborative effort between the Hardin County and Auglaize County Educational Service Centers and has continued yearly as an extension of the gifted curriculum.

At the end of the S.PA.R.K. day participating gifted students and gifted intervention specialists complete an evaluation of the experience as a data collection tool to set the direction for future S.P.A.R.K. experiences.

GIFTED WEBSITES:

Ohio Department of Education, http://www.ode.state.oh.us/
Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC), http://www.oagc.com/
National Association for Gifted Children, http://www.nagc.org
Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/ - fabulous resources on all facets of gifted education.

OTHER WEBSITES:

Center for Talent Development (Northwestern University), http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/
Coolmath4kids, http://coolmath4kids.com/index.html
Council for Exceptional Children, http://www.cec.sped.org/
DestiNationImagination, http://destinationimagination.org/
EPGY (Education Program for Gifted Youth, Stanford University),
http://www-epgy.stanford.edu/
Eric Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education, http://ericec.org
ExploreMath.com, http://www.explorelearning.com/
ExploreScience.com, http://www.explorescience.com/
Gifted Development Center, http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/
Gifted Education Resource Institute (Purdue University), http://www.geri.soe.purdue.edu/
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), http://www.hots.org/
JASON Project, http://www.jasonproject.org/ Science, math and technology get the focus.
Just Write.org, http://www.justwrite.org/
Learner's Link (Franny McAleer Learner's Link), http://www.learnerslink.com/
BrainBashers, http://www.brainbashers.com/
Cool Math Links, http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/cool/index.htm
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
The Grey Labyrinth, http://www.greylabyrinth.com/index.htm
Math Archives, http://archives.math.utk.edu/index.html
MATHCOUNTS, http://mathcounts.org/
MathForum@Drexel, http://mathforum.org/
MegaMath, http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/welcome.html
The Ultimate Puzzle Site, http://www.dse.nl/puzzle/index_us.html
National Foundation for Gifted and Creative Children, http://www.nfgcc.org/
National Geographic Kids Network, http://www.nationalgeographic.com
National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html
NEAG Center for Gifted Education & Talent Development, http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/
Science Olympiad, http://www.soinc.org/
SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted), http://www.sengifted.org/