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School of Education
Center for Gifted Education

Current Research

The Center for Gifted Education conducts research to contribute to the knowledge base regarding gifted education and gifted learners, in addition to research on the effectiveness of our products and programs. Each of the Center's Directors has expertise in research related to talent, professional, or curriculum development or in the psychology of gifted students. At any time, numerous research-related activities are ongoing.

Camp Launch Research

In addition to the data collected from our outstanding campers each year, we are regularly in the process of seeking out our alumni to learn about their current activities. We are thankful to our Camp Launch family members for sharing information that will have a lasting impact on education. One study we do every year asks campers to write about the value that is most important to them. This values affirmation activity has been shown to have positive effects on students’ openness and may even help improve their performance in school (see Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009; Crocker, Niiya, & Mischkowski, 2008; Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Affirming students’ personal values is a powerful way to start Camp Launch each year.

 

Matter of Equity 2.0

A Javits funded research project in collaboration with the Roeper Institute and Grand Valley State University. The research team collaborated with administrative leaders and faculty in Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) to build the necessary infrastructure to create a solid gifted education program. The work was accomplished through the selection of a definition of giftedness designed to guide equity-based decision-making; professional learning for administrators, teachers, assorted staff, and parents designed to develop culturally competent talent seekers able to take an asset-based approach to instruction; and a wide range of service delivery approaches to ensure rigorous learning opportunities for highly capable students. More can be found in the Gifted Child Today article:

 

Project BUMP UP

A Javits funded research project in collaboration with the University of Connecticut. Talented math students deserve classroom experiences that ensure continuous progress and promote excellence in math achievement. Using the pedagogy of advanced instructional practices in general education classrooms, our collaborative push-in model is designed to effectively meet the needs of mathematically advanced elementary students in the general education classroom and help them reach their full potential.

The goal of the work is fourfold:

  1. to increase the identification of gifted students;
  2. to increase the math achievement of gifted students;
  3. to develop talents of high-achieving students not identified as gifted; and
  4. to improve student motivation and attitudes toward school and math.

We developed the Project BUMP UP approach to empower teachers to make differentiation choices based on their students' prior knowledge and abilities before instruction. To accomplish this, teachers pretest students and use our Project BUMP UP Differentiation Tool, which offers several options:

  1. Utilizing content from supplemental sources (e.g., William & Mary units; M2 and M3) or vetted websites with tasks, problem-based learning, or project-based learning options (e.g., 3-Act Tasks, YouCubed Tasks).
  2. Increasing the complexity of a lesson task or unit standard(s) by selecting a challenging differentiated option from the district's mathematics textbook or elevating the level of cognitive complexity of a task through Bloom's Taxonomy or Webb's Depth of Knowledge.
  3. Choosing from alternative standards either from the grade level not typically reached or from a higher grade level.

We  offer professional learning sessions on these approaches and a 3-step approach to increasing cognitive complexity through Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge. 

In Project BUMP UP, the gifted specialist collaborates with the classroom teacher to make the differentiation decisions, with the ultimate aim of avoiding repetition of math content that students have already mastered and exposing them to new content. Our research has shown that students' engagement and enjoyment in math are positively related to the amount of new math content they reported learning each week. We also found that more students met and/or exceeded proficiency in BUMP UP classrooms than comparison classrooms.