Engagement Activity: Asynchronous Development by Julie Hull

Karyn Franco - Advanced, Not Uniform

franco_karyn — 2024-02-06 01:31:56 UTC

The biggest takeaway I had from the Byrdseed video is that being advanced in one area does not equate to uniformity. Just because gifted students are intellectually advanced, that does not mean they are advanced across the board. The video referenced two areas that can typically develop at a slower rate in gifted students: fine motor skills and emotional development. Sometimes students also need support in their social development if they are not surrounded by intellectual peers. However, all gifted students are different and they not only develop at different rates than non-gifted identified students but also from other gifted students. Therefore, getting to know each gifted student on an individual level is important for providing the appropriate scaffolds and supports they need.

Marlene Velazquez (Big Idea)

2024-02-06 02:00:03 UTC

My aha moment was when the video explained that gifted students “are out of sync with themselves.” I learned that there might be a lot of difficulties when a gifted child's abilities are not matched with their social and emotional development. Even with such high IQs, students may lack the emotional control, verbal communication skills, or the knowledge needed to understand themselves and their strengths. It must be difficult to be extremely intelligent and yet have emotional and physical limitations.

I can understand how young students would become very frustrated by their asynchronous development.

Sandra Angulo - My "aha" Big Idea

2024-02-06 04:50:41 UTC

My biggest take away from this video is simply the idea of asynchrony in our gifted students. Just because our gifted have the high intellect, the assumption is that they are developing at a higher rate in all areas of development. But our gifted are developing at different rates that are out of sync. Our gifted have the high intelligence/ability as well as a high moral awareness, but their fine motor, emotional, and social development are developing at a lower or different rate and need more support in these areas. Other key ideas I found helpful are having appropriate scaffolding for our gifted and supporting them with intellectual peers that does not necessarily need to be their age-level.

Edward Rivero (he/him/él)

2024-02-06 05:39:38 UTC

One of the main things the video mentioned about gifted students is asynchronous development and for teachers to differentiate socially & emotionally for the student, not just academically. Appropriate scaffolding could be helping with handwriting, PE skills or brainstorm a list of actions to take to help when there is a moral event like the climate emergency. Because these students may be strong in intelligence or moral awareness but may lack in fine motor skills and/or emotional development, these strategies make sense.

Critical Details

ehrencron_nicole — 2024-02-07 01:04:43 UTC

The thing that really stood out to me with the asynchronous student are the things that we know yet don't always ackoweledge in some students. For example, smart kids are not robots and always well behaved. While one current GATE student I have now is always well behaved and studious, there are many times he gets frustrated and needs a step back. I have seen it with my high functioning AUT students in the past and know when it is time to pull him aside. I think a critical detail with asynchronous development we tend to fail to see sometimes is they are still emotionally and socially develping even if they speak like a well educated adult. Even if a student has high IQ levels does not necessarily mean they are adavnced in all areas, so we need to focus on the whole well being of each individual.

I agree Marlene there is more than just having a high IQ to make a student gifted. Sadly it does feel like today we focus on scores as opposed to the overall. Just because a student excels with a high IQ does not always mean they should just be advanced to a higher grade, class, etc. It should be the overall impact that will benefit the child not just a high SBAC/grades.

ehrencron_nicole — 2024-02-07 01:09:32 UTC

Michelle Ng

2024-02-07 01:53:53 UTC

My "aha" from the Byrdseed video was the idea that gifted learners may have an uneven intellectual, physical, and emotional development. I was guilty of subscribing to the myth that all gifted learners are “like a set of robots who are well-behaved, compliant, and have excellent study skills.” I now know that I must help these learners achieve success by scaffolding to meet their needs. For example, as the video stated, I may provide more help with writing or provide more instruction at PE.

Teresa Colima

2024-02-08 01:32:10 UTC

One thing teachers can do to meet the needs of gifted students, specially when developing at different rates, is find intellectual peers that meet their needs. This can be a student at our school or an adult.

Genevieve Carrillo - AHA

carrillo_genevieve — 2024-02-08 02:25:44 UTC

My “AHA” moment was when all the information in this video “clicked” as I related many of the details to a current student of mine. The student who came to mind while watching this video is one of my identified GATE 5th grade students. This is my second year as his teacher. Last year, at the beginning of the school year during parent conferences, I shared with this students parents that I was concerned about his fine motor skills, particularly his writing and performing certain movements while out at PE. His writing was illegible, letter formation was concerning, and no finger spacing. It was very difficult to read his writing but when he shared what he wrote verbally, his ideas were excellent. While out at PE, he struggled with throwing a ball, catching a ball, jumping in place, and other activities. All of the information provided in the video, helped to make this all make sense for me in terms of the development of my student. While he was above grade level intellectually, his fine motor skills didn’t develop at the same rate. I had referred him to receive occupational therapy services, as I felt that would provide him with some additional individualized support, but was denied because academically there were no concerns. To provide individualized support, I started off with providing him with a popsicle stick to use as a “spacer” between words, and a thicker pencil. He also started to use wide ruled paper in my class instead of college ruled. This was an area I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach to support his handwriting. I also allowed for him to begin typing more of his writing earlier than I would normally do. During PE, we worked on jumping skills and catching and tossing a ball. As we worked more and more on this, I was able to see so much improvement.

AHA - Victoria Fimbres

2024-02-09 03:17:39 UTC

My Big Idea from the video is how important social development is for the gifted learner and unfortunately, that it is often overlooked. I think that in this age of teaching, the focus on meeting students emotional needs is showing us just how crucial positive relationships are. In the past, gifted students social needs have not been as much of a priority in comparison to their academic needs, however they are equally important. We have to find a pod and support system for our gifted learners to truly be able to thrive. I also think that gifted students are often lumped into the "well behaved and robot" category far too often. Just because a child is gifted does not mean that they will not face other issues and challenges. Gifted learners deserve a well rounded learning experience including SEL development.

Critical Detail

keihlamusick — 2024-02-09 04:38:03 UTC

One critical detail that impacts a student with asynchronous development is when their emotions do not develop at the rate of their intelligence. As these students learn rapidly, they definitely encounter complex ideas and problems in the world which they may not be ready for emotionally. Imagine a young child watching all the world’s problems on the news and fully understanding the weight of the issues presented. This could be very troubling for a young student, especially a gifted student who might see solutions that as adults we see are more complex. According to the video “Asynchrony,” this can create “inner tension” within the child and may interfere with daily life.

Sandra Marroquin

marroquin_sandra1 — 2024-02-10 01:54:42 UTC

The thing that resonated with me was the idea that just because they are gifted students we usually have a preconceived idea of how these should act and perform. That is far from the truth. These students have their own idiosyncrasies that we must learn. These students are gifted in certain areas, but we must also understand other areas may still be developing. Their social and emotional development might make it difficult to make connections with their peers and we must understand them and help them foster those relationships.

Teresa Fernandez

2024-02-11 04:09:50 UTC

What resonated and impacted me the most was it can be quite difficult for these students to identify classmates who think similarly to them. This made me consider the scenario of being the only gifted student in the class. How would this individual be able to discover someone who embraces and comprehends them? They have very few, if any, social bonds. Even if they do manage to establish a friendship, it can be challenging to maintain the relationship.

Adriana Gonzalez-Trauma responses and gifted kids?

2024-02-12 01:20:19 UTC

Something I thought about in relation to myself and my students as far as asynchrony goes is trauma responses. I was labeled as gifted in fifth grade, but targeted pretty early on, and emotional regulation was cited as one of the reasons why my mother decided against grade skipping. Looking back, I think part of my lack of emotional regulation had to do with asynchrony, but part of it may also have been trauma responses. I think this is something to be mindful of when addressing and caring for all of our students, but our gifted students as well. If emotional regulation is often a problem even when things are good at home, it may be especially important that we create a safe space as teachers if they are not.