Associate Director Indigenous Students Leap Ahead (ISLA) Centennial, Colorado, United States
Short Description: Culturally and linguistically gifted and talented students are under-identified. White GT children are fully represented, but 46.7% of Black GT students, and 47.6% of Hispanic GT students are missing. 55% of Native American gifted children are never identified. Standard GT programing is unsuited for gifted Native American kids, whose many cultures value visual-spatial and interactive methods, collaboration, and community success over individual excellence.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the difference in pedagogy between visual-spatial and auditory-sequential and how that affects assimilation, processing, and communication of ideas and information.
Define how inappropriate pedagogy disconnects learning, for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native students, and especially how that blocks identification and programming for GT students.
Advocate for appropriate changes in teaching, identification, and programming for otherwise underserved students, with a target of finding the full 8.0% of GT students from each student group.
