Gifted Education
LCPS Elementary Gifted - School Webpages
Gifted Program Goals:
The LCPS Gifted Program is centered around three goals based on 21st Century Skills. Our programs and services hope to provide students learning opportunities and support in order:
To become divergent creative thinkers who recognize problems and solve them.
To construct personal meaning and understanding of others and of the world around them.
To develop the capacity for self assessment (ownership of the learning).
LCPS Gifted Webpage: lcps.org/giftedandtalented
For more information on LCPS gifted programs, please visit our LCPS Gifted Webpage at lcps.org/giftedandtalented. You can view webinars with more information about elementary gifted programs and services and learn more about the gifted evaluation process for our FUSION and DCI service levels. Parents of 4th and 5th graders may also access online forms to begin the evaluation process.
Gifted Resource Teachers
SEARCH: (Grades K-3)
Search teachers provide model lessons in thinking skills to students in grades K-3*. Classroom teachers work with the SEARCH teacher to screen students for gifted services. The bi-weekly SEARCH lessons are designed to foster an environment that encourages students to think, take intellectual risks, and develop an excitement for learning and discovery across a variety of thinking skills.
The Search curriculum is problem-solving based and founded upon gifted education research. The curriculum spirals developmentally through five components: perceiving, reasoning, connecting, creating, and evaluating. Each grade level learns about each component at increasingly more complex and abstract levels.
Thinking Keys:
Perceiving is understanding and learning with one’s senses. Concrete spatial and visual activities are provided and students are encouraged to look at objects in many different ways. Pattern recognition and prediction skills develop and are used along with reasoning skills.
Reasoning is using information to find answers that can be proven, are logical, and make sense. Reasoning activities begin at the simple level of recognizing, labeling, classifying, and comparing attributes of concrete objects. As students mature, reasoning activities become more abstract as students use analysis and logic to solve problems.
Connecting means linking information and ideas to see how they fit together. At the basic level, students identify and extend patterns using concrete objects. More abstract problem solving involves interpreting and extending numeric patterns, determining relationships between concepts, and making generalizations. Students make connections between cause and effect.
Creating is putting ideas, information, or objects together in a new or different way. Students learn to be flexible and fluent in their thinking with familiar objects as well as unusual and/or real life problems. Original ideas are elaborated with humor and/or beauty to provide clarity and completeness. Student products may be visual, verbal, spatial, or kinesthetic.
Evaluating is using information to make a decision. Students begin evaluating by determining what the facts are and what considerations are important in making a decision. Students learn to develop criteria and rank solutions or choices according to the criteria when making decisions.