WATG 2024 Annual Conference

What do YOU imagine it would look like to have classrooms, schools, districts, and a state that all champion gifted and talented students? Join members of WATG's Government Action Committee to share your own stories about what's happening on the ground, learn about WATG's past and future advocacy actions, create your own personal advocacy statements in a supportive environment, and take away a "toolbox" of strategies to advocate for gifted children at the local and state level!

In this session, participants (parents/caregivers and educators) will explore five facets of working with gifted children. We will delve into cognition, creativity, curiosity, compassion, and confidence as pillars of the gifted child's experience. In this workshop, we will imagine, innovate, and inspire adults to discover and nurture these unique and promising characteristics of gifted children. The workshop will provide lots of resources, ideas, and thought-provoking discussion and activities.

This session aims to present a unique approach to engaging parents as part of a rich discussion about how to nurture and develop students’ passions and talents. Research shows that parents of gifted children seem to fully recognize the uniqueness of their children, but only a few understand their child’s ability profile and emotional peculiarities.Therefore, they may struggle to manage their child’s socioemotional needs, passions and special interests. Parents often struggle when they realize their child is gifted. Trying to provide a framework, regarding the profiles of gifted children, of the challenges faced by their parents, is a complex issue. Not only because of myths and misconceptions about giftedness, but also because of parents' high expectations.

Recent studies have questioned the traditional conception that considers giftedness as an immutable trait of the person, linked merely to the individual’s cognitive abilities. Indeed, innate abilities play a role in the emergence of giftedness, however other key factors relating to psychological and social dimensions appear to be central to the development and expression of individual potential. This evidence allows us to reinterpret giftedness from a developmental perspective, which considers the complex interdependence of different variables at the individual, familial, educational, and societal levels. Gifted children are first and foremost children and therefore, it is crucial to create the environmental conditions that can best support the gifted child’s harmonious development of cognitive and socio-emotional competencies in schools and at home.

To respond to the needs of gifted students with disabilities, the 2E Milwaukee Project is responding through the implementation of comprehensive systems that include culturally responsive, research-based practices that have been shown to a) increase the ability of educators to use culturally effective tools and assessments to identify and serve 2e students from underrepresented populations; b) increase gifted identification rates among students with special needs; c) increase access to Gifted and Talented (GT) services for 2e student through enrichment opportunities in and out of the regular school day. This session shares the different paths and learning of this project’s journey and invites participants' input.