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Documents and Training Tools from the Fremont Unified School District GATE/ Service-Learning Training 1/6/10
Overview:
On Wednesday, January 6, 2010, more than 50 teachers participating in FUSD's Gifted and Talented Education training program attended a workshop highlighting ways that service-learning can be used as a differentiation strategy for GATE instruction.
Service-learning offers many advantages to a classroom with GATE students. A well designed service-learning project is naturally differentiated and can meet the needs of all learners. Service-learning aligns well with key needs of gifted students:
- Service-learning provides an opportunity for "creative productivity"
- Service-learning supports social, emotional, and ethical development
- Service-learning helps students develop critical "problem finding" skills
- Service-learning allows for open-ended inquiry and innovative solutions
- Service-learning promotes youth leadership development
This workshop provided an overview of service-learning as a teaching strategy and investigated the advantages and challenges of developing service-learning projects. Participants mapped the connections between K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice and the CDE's Recommended Standards for Programs for Gifted and Talented Students.
Documents used in training session:
 GATE & Service-Learning PowerPoint
 K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice
Service-Learning as Creative Productivity
 Recommended Standards for Programs for Gifted and Talented Students
Links:
- Service Learning: A New Way for Academic Talent Development
- This brief from Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development highlights research pointing to potential benefits of high-quality service-learning projects for gifted students. Excerpt: "Researchers suggest that gifted students benefit from service learning because it provides them with challenging extended curricula which stimulate advanced critical thinking skills, higher level thinking processes, and problem-solving abilities (Lewis, 1996), and also enhance a self-directed independent learning ability (Sorenson & Francis, 1988). Benefits of service learning for gifted students either academically or socio-emotionally include: increased academic skills in relevant subjects (e.g., grammar, math, computer, art, public speaking, etc.); an enhanced sense of confidence, self-efficacy, perseverance, and responsibility; and new perspectives on political (e.g., governments), interpersonal (e.g., coworkers), or occupational (e.g., career goals) relationships (Terry, 2000)."
- Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program
- The purpose of this US Department of Education program is to carry out a coordinated program of scientifically based research, demonstration projects, innovative strategies, and similar activities designed to build and enhance the ability of elementary and secondary schools to meet the special education needs of gifted and talented students. The major emphasis of the program is on serving students traditionally underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, particularly economically disadvantaged, limited English proficient (LEP), and disabled students, to help reduce the serious gap in achievement among certain groups of students at the highest levels of achievement. Service-learning is highlighted as an innovative strategy.
- Gifted and Talented Resources: Differentiation for Leadership
- This page from the Wisconsin Department of Education highlights ways that service-learning and other strategies can be used to develop the leadership potential of gifted students.
- Guiding the Gifted to Honest Work
- This article from Duke University's Talent Identification Program highlights the challenges of academic dishonesty and plagarism. "In the discourse about honest work, gifted students have been largely ignored. They are perceived as capable, motivated learners who think independently and have little reason to plagiarize. Yet to gain a competitive advantage over their peers, especially under the pressure of applying to first-tier colleges, our best and brightest may tailor their academic performance to “doing school,” (i.e., pursuing grades, recognition, and awards as résumé builders) as opposed to learning." Service-learning offers the opportunity for student research and writing to be based on unique experiences that foster student's independent voices while focusing on learning the necessary skills and content to solve real community-based problems.
Background:
Under a CalServe grant from the California Department of Education, FUSD is working to develop a comprehensive K-12 service-learning program that ensures a high-quality service-learning experience for all students at least once each grade span. In 2009 nearly two-thirds of the district's 30,000 students participated in service-learning.
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