Signature Series: Community Room

9:00AM – 9:30AM
Dr. Susan Assouline (2e Hall of Fame and Signature Scholar)
The Paradox of Twice-Exceptionality: Unlocking the Door to Talent Development

The evolutionary path of the Belin-Blank Center’s twice-exceptional research agenda has brought us to an exciting stage of interdisciplinary research.  After addressing the psychoeducational implications from the Belin-Blank Center’s clinically-based research with twice-exceptional individuals with autism spectrum disorder, specific learning disabilities, or attention deficit hyperacuity disorder, we will discuss interdisciplinary research aims.  Collaborative efforts with neuroscientists, educators, computational geneticists, and clinicians holds great promise for unlocking the door to talent development for twice-exceptional individuals, their families, and educators.

10:00AM-10:30AM
Sally Reis, Ph.D. (2e Hall of Fame and Signature Scholar)

In this session, Sally will reflect on past, present, and future research about 2e students, discussing the highlights of several research studies she has conducted with colleagues. Major findings will be summarized and current and future research about twice exceptionality will be shared. The focus will be on social and emotional findings and what has been learned about strength-based pedagogy for this very special population.

10:40AM-11:30AM
Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli (Signature Scholar)
A Curriculum Enrichment Infusion Process For Jazzing Up The Standards Driven Curriculum
(Research)

One of the biggest challenges facing gifted education is balancing the need for enrichment opportunities within the context of an overly prescribed curriculum in general education courses. Even adjustments made for twice-exceptional students cannot avoid what policy makers and curriculum developers deem to be necessary content for students in order to matriculate to higher education.

[10:40- 11:00]  Part A:  Overview of Curricular Enrichment Infusion  
Within the reality of today’s standards and test-driven approaches to school improvement, we have developed a process that allows teachers to examine required curricular topics and to use teaching strategies and resources that can make the prescribed curriculum more interesting, engaging, and enjoyable. The curriculum enrichment infusion process guides teachers through the steps necessary to select, inject, and extend higher-level thinking skills, creativity training activities, and applications of knowledge skills into any and all regular curricular content.

[11:10- 11:30] Part B:  Teacher Examples and Infusion Training Activity
Examples of teachers who have used this process will be provided and the role that technology plays in finding resources and guiding teachers through the process of infusing highly engaging material into the standards-based curriculum are discussed. In this session teachers will use a standard brainstorming activity and creative idea generator in a training activity to learn how the process works.

11:40AM-12:00PM
Janet Saenz, Ph.D. (Signature Scholar)
The Challenges of Identifying Gifted, 2e and Multi-exceptional Persons in Rural / Indigenous Communities in Mexico

This session will provide a 30+ year perspective on the qualitative identification methods being used in many parts of Mexico, including several case studies along with discussion of a unique science enrichment program.

12:10PM-12:30PM
Rick Olenchak (Signature Scholar)
Twice-Exceptional Persons, the 21st Century, and Lifespan Development as Viewed through an Affective Lens
(Research)

Using research on the Bull’s Eye Model for Affective Development as a framework, this interactive session will examine recent results of interventions with Twice-Exceptional youth (2-e: young people with disabilities and concomitant talents) that have concentrated on affective development as the foundation for life development, including academic contexts. Thus far, studies with elementary and middle school 2-e students have revealed that strengthening social/emotional development is a prerequisite for all other development. Ultimately, wedding affective with cognitive strengths to find a position of personal fulfillment yields individuals who flourish, but to accomplish this positive state, schools and homes must engage in substantial training to grasp the complex nature of the intersection of talents with a wide array of learning and behavioral disabilities. Participants will learn about a variety of field-tested interventions that scaffold such improvements for 2-e youth, and ample opportunities for discussion will be afforded.

12:40PM-1:00PM
Ann Smith (Signature Scholar)
How an interdisciplinary curriculum can help 2e learners be recognized for their gifts
(Initiative)

Contemporary research in the field of gifted education recognizes the need for non-traditional means of identification as a complement to more standardized measures. Under this paradigm, curriculum becomes both the catalyst for meeting the needs of already identified gifted learners and the vehicle for identifying potentially gifted learners through work samples and portfolios. This session has two major objectives: (a) to define the non-negotiable elements of an interdisciplinary curriculum, (b) to demonstrate how an interdisciplinary curriculum can be used to provide an opportunity for students to generate and sustain interests, talents, and abilities. Participants will be provided with an interdisciplinary curriculum titled “Leave Your Sleep” that they will be able to take home and implement within their own classroom. This is a session for teachers of all grade levels with the expectation that participants will leave with an understanding of how to implement the Leave Your Sleep curriculum.