From gifted education to programming for talent development

We need programming for talent development that will necessarily take forms that are different from those of the ”gifted education” tradition out of which it is emerging, Mr. Treffinger maintains.

The challenges facing public education today are at least as formidable as they have ever been, and the expectations we hold for educators may be even higher. Moreover, the stakes are probably higher as well, because the consequences of failure in our education system are likely to be not just personal and local, but national and even global. As knowledge and technology continue to expand explosively in quantity and complexity and as our children and youths face ever more difficult personal, career, and social challenges, the burden we expect education to bear only continues to increase. We must recognize the importance of knowledge and competence as well as the need to nurture talent, imagination, judgment, and ethical conduct among all our young people.

Our need for accomplishment across many different talent domains is too great for us to permit any student’s strengths to be overlooked, disregarded, or squelched. We recognize the need for talented accomplishments in many areas that will be essential to human progress, to the quality of life and the enjoyment of leisure, and perhaps even to survival itself. Educators must play a very important role in nurturing the many and varied talents of our youths in such areas as:

science, medicine, technology, and engineering so that we may solve the problems of hunger, disease, and the destruction of our environment;
leadership, social and behavioral sciences, and organizations so that we may pursue justice and equality for all people;
arts, culture, and entertainment so that we may enhance and celebrate the creative expressions that add joy and meaning to life;
ethical and moral principles and philosophical analysis so that individuals and groups may understand and deal effectively with the complex challenges of human existence; and
personal fulfillment so that people may be enabled to live mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy lives and to celebrate their own talents as well as those of

At the same time, we should not be too sanguine about our ability to select those young people who display the greatest potential for accomplishments in these areas or in any other specific talent dimensions. In truth, such accomplishments often unfold over an entire life span, and they are the products of many complex factors beyond specific experiences in school. Nonetheless, we must make every effort possible to discern students’ special needs, interests, and potentials and to provide educational opportunities that nurture their talents.

Herein lies an essential paradox facing educators: we acknowledge the need for and critical nature of talent and the contributions of talented individuals, but at the same time, many educators and members of the public are apprehensive or even hostile to “gifted education” or gifted/talented programs in the schools. We wish to have a cure, but we are not certain at all about the medicine. As a result, interest in and support for gifted programs have experienced cycles of growth and decline in American education.¹

Let us consider an alternative construction of the challenge. What if the primary challenge lies not in the interplay of or the relationship between gifted education, as it has typically been practiced, and the rest of the educational setting, but rather in the task of formulating a new and more constructive approach to identifying and developing talent? Perhaps, in order to meet the needs and expectations of today’s complex educational realities, we need programming for talent development that will take forms different from those of the “gifted education” tradition out of which it is emerging. These emerging reconstructions address three fundamental themes or issues: 1) new views of talents and abilities, 2) more complex and varied approaches to programming, and 3) more powerful alternative views of the nature and role of identification.

Our new approach to programming for talent development can be described as a “Levels of Service” (LoS) approach. We have been designing this approach since 1986 and have worked at the school, district, and state levels to implement it and to conduct initial evaluations and case studies.² The LoS approach has been influenced by contemporary theory and research from several disciplines, including cognitive and developmental psychology, educational psychology, human resources and organizational psychology, gifted education, creative studies, educational administration and leadership, and curriculum and instruction. We have drawn on our own work, as well as on the work of many others, in our efforts to articulate the approach and to formulate operational guidelines.³

New views of talents and abilities

In brief, I propose that talent be defined as the potential for significant, creative contributions or productivity in any domain of inquiry, expression, or action over an extended period of time. Talent emerges from aptitudes and sustained involvement in areas of strong interest or passion. It is not simply a natural endowment or a “gift.”

Talent arises from the interactions of four important components: characteristics of the person, the context in which the person functions, the content domain or area of expertise in which the person acts, and the operations, processes, tools, and strategies the person employs in being expressive and productive.⁴ Personal characteristics include cognitive aptitudes and abilities, styles and preferences, personality, and intrinsic motivation. Context includes the supporting “ecosystem,” the climate, and any appropriate extrinsic motivation. The content domain includes a student’s areas of interest, opportunities for challenging study, and any opportunities for mentorship. The strategies employed include the entire array of thinking, research, and metacognitive skills.

The emerging approach to talent development differs from its predecessors in gifted education in several ways. For example, in traditional gifted and talented settings, some sort of accelerated or enriched “program” was the norm; in the LoS talent development model, programming involves making individual decisions on the basis of student strengths, talents, and sustained interests. With older models of giftedness, giftedness was usually defined as a set of abilities that the school decided to recognize and nurture; with the talent development model, talent refers to unique characteristics that lead to modifications in many instructional areas.

More complex approaches to programming

Indeed, in the LoS approach to programming, we address four levels of services or activities, ranging from a broadly inclusive array of services to a particular set of services crafted to respond to the strengths demonstrated by a rather small number of individuals.

Level 1: Services for all students.

This is the most inclusive level of service. We believe that the essential foundation of programming for talent development is the instruction that takes place every day in every classroom. Level 1services and activities in any classroom offer all students appropriate and challenging instruction.

Many methods and activities that have been commonly proposed as elements of a “differentiated program for gifted students” are clearly important and relevant as we endeavor to hold high expectations for learning by all students. Higher-level thinking skills? Without question, for all. Thematic instruction based on broad concepts, issues, and problems? A staple of engaging, contemporary, and multidisciplinary instruction in any classroom. Nurturing the skills of teamwork and leadership, along with independence and self-direction? Foundations for anyone preparing to enter the workplace of tomorrow. Responsiveness to the unique learning style preferences and needs of learners? Emphatically yes, for every student!

Level 1 in the LoS approach sets out the expectation unambiguously: let there be high-quality teaching and learning, in processes and content, in every classroom; if that “raises the bar” for some classrooms or schools, all the better. Level 1 services create an authentic platform for teachers (and students) to seek and nurture the strengths and talents of all students.

The goal is to find an appropriate educational response for any student.

Level 2: Services for many students.

Many school activities and services might be offered for all students, even though not every student will be involved in them at any given time. Level 2 services involve a rich array of options and services to help students discover, use, and extend their strengths and talents. Participation in these activities may be influenced by personal interests, by the options available, or by logistics of time and scheduling. Rather than place students in these activities through an arbitrary selection process (e.g., only those “identified” as gifted and talented students), participation is determined by choice (e.g., a student is more interested in the multimedia laboratory than in the choral ensemble), by exploration and discovery (e.g., a student takes a variety of minicourses and finds an area that really sparks interest), by experience and preparation (e.g., a student has a really exciting idea for a new invention for our “Invention Convention”), or even by audition (e.g., trying out for band or the basketball team).

Level 3: Services for some students.

Level 3 services are not intended to be voluntary or freely chosen. Instead, they are offered on the basis of specific evidence of appropriate entry or prerequisite skills or qualifications. Level 3 services provide opportunities for students to extend and deepen their involvement and learning in specific talent areas. In a talent development approach, these activities — and the requirements for participating in them —are defined in relation to the specific content and process demands of that talent area or topic. The criteria for inclusion in Level 3 services are not generic labels or cutoff scores on measures of general ability.

The criteria for inclusion are authentic (i.e., specific and plausible in relation to successful involvement and participation in the activities or services). For example, we do not announce, “We will be offering a calculus course during fourth period, and anyone who wants to enroll should just drop in.” We can certainly state some specific expectations about the preparation and background expected of students in a high-level math course. Level 3 services involve challenging the school to offer or provide for high-level learning opportunities across a number of talent domains (which should extend beyond the traditional core academic content areas) and to make deliberate efforts to locate and serve students who have the appropriate preparation, ability, and interest in those opportunities.

Level 4: Services for few students.

Level 4 activities involve advanced and very challenging opportunities, with emphasis on productive thinking and original inquiry as well as on advanced content or topics, within any talent area or domain. No one knows whether or when a school will encounter a student whose strengths, talents, and interests in any one area (or even in several) far outstrip the customary curricular and instructional provisions of the school. Level 4 services in the LoS approach ask the school to remain open to the possibility that this can occur with some regularity and to accept the responsibility of creating an appropriate, challenging, and “customized” response when it does. Level 4 services challenge the school to ask, “How might we respond to the unique strengths of this student?” rather than to seek ways to prove that it can’t be done or that the student is not really “that good.” Examples of Level 4 services might include early admission to school, a variety of accelerated options, dual credit, cross-enrollment at various levels, and early graduation.

The LoS approach to programming differs from its predecessors in gifted education in a number of specific ways. In the LoS approach, many services and activities are blended with other school activities in order to respond to students’ talents, strengths, and sustained interests. Teachers are not in competition with other school programs, and they participate in designing and conducting a variety of services and activities. The approach is never a “one size fits all” model and always offers many options, depending on the range of interests and abilities of the students. And the nature and duration of activities is determined by an ongoing analysis of students’ strengths and talent needs.

More powerful views of the nature and role of identification

In the LoS approach, “identification” is a deliberate, ongoing, diagnostic process, in which educators use many kinds of data to help recognize each student’s strengths, talents, sustained interests, and preferred ways or styles of learning. The goal of identification is to help educators understand how to plan and carry out (or assist in carrying out) instructional activities or experiences that will be appropriate and challenging for the student. Identification is not viewed as an effort to categorize, classify, or label a student as “gifted” or “nongifted,” nor is it an effort to select or place a student in (or exclude the student from) a generic program, group, or track. Rather, identification focuses on recognizing student characteristics to which effective instruction must respond. In the LoS approach, identification is natural, flexible, dynamic, and linked closely to instructional design and delivery.

There are major differences between the LoS approach to identification and traditional practices of gifted education. The goal of LoS is not to find out whether a student is “truly gifted,” but to determine what unique strengths, talents, and sustained interests a student exhibits. Nor does the LoS approach seek to identify an arbitrary number of “gifted” students; the goal is to find an appropriate educational response for any student. The range of data used for identification in the LoS approach is not restricted to traditional measures of ability and does not require all students to be judged by the same yardstick. Indeed, as many kinds of data as are necessary can be used to help understand the talents of each student, and different kinds of data can be used for different students. Thus the focus is not on eligibility or inclusion versus exclusion but on designing appropriate instructional programming.

Toward our desired future

Readers may have noticed that the order in which the three major themes are presented here differs from that in many other discussions of gifted education. Traditionally, gifted and talented programs have viewed identification as a prerequisite for programming; in a very real sense, the traditional view of identification as selection or placement has been “the engine that pulls the entire train.” In the LoS approach, we argue for the opposite view: programming can be viewed as “a new engine” for the train.

The emerging LoS approach to programming for talent development provides a foundation on which we can build effective practices in any school. Exemplary programming for talent development happens as a result of careful planning and ongoing review and analysis. It does not come about by chance. It requires a variety of change management and productive thinking tools for adults as well as for students, a constructive approach to school improvement, a commitment to professional development for both instructional and administrative staff, and an informed group of parents and community leaders.⁵

Those of us who work to bring the LoS approach into the schools believe that a flexible, dynamic, contemporary approach to talent development is essential in order to enable educators to translate today’s educational goals into practical realities. We further believe that this LoS approach to programming for talent development is consistent with, and supportive of, many other fundamental principles of effective schooling. We are now in the process of seeking to build an international consortium of schools and districts that share our commitment and that will join in collaborative efforts to refine, develop, implement, and evaluate carefully the effectiveness and impact of this emerging framework.⁶

Abraham Tannenbaum, Gifted Children: Psychological and Educational Perspectives (New York: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 2-48.
See Donald Treffinger, Blending Gifted Education with the Total School Program (Buffalo, N.Y.: DOK Publishers, 1986); Donald J. Treffinger and Marion Sortore, Programming for Giftedness: A Contemporary Approach (Sarasota, Fla.: Center for Creative Learning, l992);_and idem, Guidelines for Gifted Programming in North Dakota (Bismarck: North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, 1992).
Rita Dunn, Kenneth Dunn, and Donald Treffinger, Bringing Out the Giftedness in Your Child (New York: Wiley, 1992); Donald J. Treffinger, Scott Isaksen, and K. Brian Dorval, Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction, rev. ed. (Sarasota, Fla.: Center for Creative Learnng, 1994); Donald J. Treffinger and John F. Feldhusen, “Talent Recognition and Development: Successor to Gifted Education,” Journal for the Education of the Gifted, vol. 19, 1996, pp. 181-93; John F. Feldhusen, TIDE: Talent Identification and Development in Education (Sarasota, Fla.: Center for Creative Learning, 1992); James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995); and Joseph S. Renzulli, ed., Systems and Models for Developing Programs for the Gifted and Talented (Mansfield Center, Conn.: Creative Learning Press, 1986).
John Feldhusen and Donald J. Treffinger, Programming for Talent Development: A Trainer’s Resource Handbook (Sarasota, Fla.: Center for Creative Learning, forthcoming).
Scott Isaksen, Brian Dorval, and Donald J. Treffinger, Creative Approaches to Problem Solving (Dubuque, Ia.: Kendall-Hunt, 1994); and Donald J. Treffinger, Applying Creative Problem Solving to School Improvement (Sarasota, Fla.: Center for Creative Learning, 1996).
Readers interested in more information about these collaborative efforts may write to ICTD: An International Consortium for Talent Development, P.O. Box 3736, Sarasota, FL 34230-3736.