I’m honoured to be moderating the early #gtchat tomorrow (UK time 4.00PM; US EDT noon). Thanks to Deborah Mersino for trusting me with the task!
If you are new to #gtchat here is some background and guidance.
And here’s a link to a scheduler to enable you to check the time in your timezone.
I thought I should choose a topic within my comfort zone that would also be interesting and relevant to the full range of potential participants, so I’ve opted for:
‘Designing the Perfect National/State Policy for Gifted Education’
I want to give participants the opportunity to think about this beforehand, so I’ve set out below a broad structure for the discussion, using the question-based format that Deborah has introduced.
It’s quite likely that we won’t cover all of this territory, particularly if we get hooked into some of the earlier questions, or depart from the routemap, but I thought it would be helpful to you to see the map anyway!
Potential Questions to Consider
Q1. What are the good and bad points in my country’s/state’s existing gifted education policy (if any)?
Q2. In what ways does that policy not meet my needs?
Q3. If I were redesigning the policy, what would I want to achieve? (ie core objectives)
Q4. What ‘non-negotiables’ – essential core principles – would I establish as foundation stones?
Q5. How would I balance flexibility and prescription?
Q6. How would I secure compliance and improve quality?
Q7. How would I embed my gifted policy in my state’s/country’s wider education policy?
Q8. What are the the big risks I can foresee?
Q9. How can I make my policy affordable at a time of budget cuts?
Q10. How will I know if I’ve been successful?
Online resources
You might want to take a quick look at the policies you have in place, to remind yourself what you think of them.
If you think your policy is particularly good, or if you know of others you would prefer to follow, please don’t hesitate to post them under the #gtchat hashtag before or during the discussion.
In thinking comparatively about policies, you might find it helpful to check out some or all of these resources, which I’m posting now so you have a chance to sample them ahead of the discussion:
- US NAGC’s Gifted Education Programming Standards
- England’s suite of National Quality Standards
- This Dutch self-assessment instrument for schools (p23ff)
- This Action Plan from Queensland, Australia
If you have other examples of helpful documents of this kind, please don’t hesitate to post them, either today or during the chat!
And if you have any further comments, suggestions, ideas ahead of tomorrow’s chat, please don’t hesitate to post those either!
See you tomorrow!
Postscript
Thanks to all the participants for an invigorating and interesting #gtchat. Here is the transcript.
GP
March 2011
Gifted Phoenix 