August 2021

WATG Mission: To educate about and advocate for the needs of gifted in Wisconsin.

NEWS Upcoming WEBINAR: August 17, 2021, 8pm “Meeting Them Where They Are: Practical Strategies for Challenging Gifted Students in Your Classroom” As we prepare to enter another school year with reports of COVID still looming, many teachers are wondering how to meet the needs of all returning students. This research, New Research Predicts Steep COVID Learning Losses will Widen Already Dramatic Achievement Gaps Within Classrooms by Rambo-Hernandez, Makel, Peters & Plucker (2020), suggests that there will be an even wider gap in readiness for learning as students return to school. Research from NWEA, Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing, suggests that the combination of typical “summer slide” and “COVID slide” may mean that the variance in a classroom may be up to 9 levels!  In academic journals, much attention is being paid to accelerating the learning for students who have lost academic ground, and yet there has not been much attention devoted to the needs of gifted learners as they return this fall. Some research suggests that these students may not have suffered as much learning loss as other students (and may have even made some dramatic gains), and so educators must be prepared to challenge and support them at their level of re-entry. How can teachers best do this? What are some tried and true methods that work in the classroom? How can teachers manage the remediation and extension of learning simultaneously? If you are looking for some “boots on the ground” ideas, join Jackie Drummer on Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 8pm for a webinar entitled, “Meeting Them Where They Are: Practical Strategies for Challenging Gifted Students in Your Classroom.” Read More Register How Does WATG's Conference Benefit YOU? Aside from fulfilling your personal professional development goals, by attending the WATG Annual Conference, you will be able to bring expertise and knowledge back to your school, district, family, and friends. Here are some benefits for attending the conference: Stay on Top of Trends in Gifted and Talented Education: With 2 keynotes and over 30 breakout sessions, you will be informed of what is important in gifted education. You will build your repertoire of effective strategies for differentiation, personalization, and acceleration, refine your program and practices, and learn strategies to equitably identify and meet the range of diverse learner needs. Expand Your Professional Network: During the conference, you will connect with knowledgeable speakers and session leaders, as well as experience peer-to-peer networking opportunities to learn from and build relationships with others in the field. Keep Students Engaged and Excited About Learning: Speakers from across the state will share insights and strategies for student success. Read More REGISTER TODAY!

WATG to Offer FREE Parent Memberships!

At our summer planning meeting, WATG’s Membership Committee explored ways to expand our organization’s parent memberships. Parenting gifted children can be an exciting, yet challenging journey, and WATG is committed to providing information, resources, and networking opportunities for parents and caregivers of gifted children. An action step of our goal was to expand parent membership by offering FREE memberships to all parents beginning now and extending through September of 2022. Benefits of WATG membership include: Support for educational outreach Support for parents/caregivers and advocates Voting privileges Consultation and coaching And so much more! WATG desea extender un enorme agradecimiento a la Esther Vazquez por traducir este artículo al español para nuestras familias y educadores hispanohablantes. La traducción también se puede encontrar en los blogs de nuestro sitio web. Es un extracto del informe de Aceleración de WATG.

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En Español

WATG Blogs

News From the Board - Welcome, Roxane! In our July newsletter, we hinted that we would have some exciting news about the hiring of an Executive Director for the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted. WATG is pleased to announce the hiring of Roxane Hagedorn as our new Executive Director, effective August 1, 2021. Roxane will join Nancy Woodward, our outstanding Executive Assistant, in furthering the work of our association. WATG has been growing exponentially in service to gifted and talented students, their families, and educators, and the time was right to grow our organizational administrative staff.  READ MORE En Español (WATG extiende un sentido de gratitud al Dr. German Diaz de las Escuelas Públicas de Milwaukee por ayudarnos con la traducción de este artículo en Español para nuestras familias de habla hispana y nuestros educadores. Esta traducción también se puede encontrar en nuestra página web).

(WATG extiende un sentido de gratitud al Dr. Martha Lopez de las Escuelas Públicas de Milwaukee por ayudarnos con la traducción de este artículo en Español para nuestras familias de habla hispana y nuestros educadores. Esta traducción también se puede encontrar en nuestra página web).  En Español See You in September.... Jackie Drummer, WATG Advisory Board Member and Past President In the five decades that I taught and served as a gifted and talented coordinator, differentiation specialist, and educational coach, I had the great fortune of working with colleagues in all departments and all grade levels K-12 in multiple schools, districts, and states. I engaged in educational modeling, co-teaching, observation, and coaching some of the finest educators, and learned far more from them than I’m sure they learned from me. I often joked that I was the “conduit,” carrying best practice and great ideas from teacher to teacher, essentially serving as “professional development on legs,” -- and I always shared the credit for the strategies and learning. Additionally, as a gifted and talented coordinator, I was always on the lookout for ideas and practices that best served our most able learners so that we could maximize the learning for all. READ MORE

Ask the Doctor - Attention to Detail One of the things some parents of gifted children tell me is that their child “doesn’t miss a thing,” even at a very young age. Parents say their children who are gifted pick up on verbal information, cues, opinions, and statements - and will often remind the speaker of what they said at a later date. Some of the time this reminder is appropriate, and other times it can be quite uncomfortable for the speaker, depending upon the setting. Many children who are gifted also take in vast amounts of information visually. They pay close attention to their environment and analyze what is in the environment, what happens in the environment, who is there, including interactions between people, things, animals, and many other observations. READ MORE Dr. Wanda Routier Past WATG Board Member

Ruth Robinson, WATG Past President GT Meanderings - Project STREAM Project STREAM, Support, Training & Resources for Educating Able Minorities, was a project funded by federal Javits Grant money and supported by the University of Wisconsin Extension & the Department of Public Instruction. The grant was authored and administered by Dr. Donna Rae Clasen at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. It ran from the late 1980s until 2002. During that time, hundreds of middle and high school students spent a week on campus. The ultimate goal was to increase the graduation rates of minority students and then have them enter and complete a university or technical college degree program.  READ MORE

Talent Development The concept of “gifted education” has been controversial mainly because it implies an over-focus on high cognitive abilities and an exclusionary approach to other skills. The talent development view is a perspective shift from the long-standing belief in the importance of high cognitive abilities to a domain-oriented approach. There are different talents in life that require different paths to reach their full potential. According to Olszewski-Kubilius and colleagues (2018), this talent developmental model has seven fundamental principles. READ MORE Dr. Uzi Ogurlu WATG Board Member En Español

Dr. Sharon Y Alexander WATG Board Member Building on Our Passion for Equity As we entered the 2020-21 school, we were all asked to consider what we were passionate about. Was it our freedoms, our ability to be together with a collective voice, or a realization of how much we had steered away from what we are most passionate about? The Oxford dictionary defines passion as “showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief” and the pandemic taught us many things. It afforded us time to think about what is most important in this world. The timing of the pandemic, coupled with the murder of George Floyd, caused many of us to acknowledge that at times we have not always seen experiences similarly to others, especially those who may look different or share a different experience in this world. For many of us, our passion for building a strong understanding of equity in the world, especially in the world of gifted and talented, took on an even greater urgency. We share a desire to examine inequities, and we are committed to the efforts we must make to improve the opportunities for all students. READ MORE

Doubled Funding and Future Policy Plans! WATG Government Action Committee The state budget passed on July 8th and with it a DOUBLING of the funding for gifted and talented education in the state! WATG poured countless hours into building relationships with two key offices to make this happen. We have a LONG way to go in our state but this is a fantastic start! All of this funding is earmarked for the existing grants program, and DPI is hard at work to determine a fair and equitable way to distribute the additional funds. Read More

Any organization mentioned in this newsletter does not constitute an endorsement by or partnership with WATG. No recommendation regarding the services of these organizations is being made by WATG. Families and educators are urged to perform due diligence in researching all organizations.

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