Writing and Implementation of Social Emotional ALP Goals for Gifted Potential

What kind of social emotional issues could a gifted student possibly have?

Not all gifted issues manifest negativity in the classroom. Some may be helpful to

student learning and growth. Others might be detrimental.

The following areas of need may be associated with social-emotional struggles of gifted students:

•perfectionism•unrealistic goals•emotional intensity•moral issues •multi-potentiality (excellence in multiple

strength areas)•asynchronous development (different

abilities develop at different rates)  • interpersonal relationships•underachievement

In order to successfully meet these needs of gifted students, programming options should include targeted affective instruction and individual and group counseling.

Service learning is an instructional strategy that combines learning with service to the community. Working in a service learning project promotes mutual respect and the chance to assist in accomplishing a worthwhile goal. Service learning provides an outlet for gifted students who are sensitive to societal issues.

• Knowing Myself and Understanding Others:   Knowing one’s strengths and needs is the foundation for understanding others.

• Encouraging Risk-Taking:   Supporting student risk-taking for high achievement.

 • Managing Mood:  Controlling emotions determines a student’s perception

of events; this can dictate how they react to opportunities and challenges.

• Coping with Anxiety and Stress:   Learning to work with and through stressful situations can build a student’s confidence and competence.

• Advocating for Yourself:   Building self-advocacy skills will assist students in developing the ability to get what they want in a respectful manner.

• Recognizing When Interventions are Beyond the Classroom: Knowing when a situation is beyond our skill and capacity to address within a classroom setting is essential.

Specific Topics for Instruction might include:

•Through observation and study, the teacher will first need to become aware of gifted students’ emotional issues.

Knowing and Understanding

• Learning about one’s habits and characteristics is often more effective from a distance. Literature and film can be therapeutic tools for learning about ourselves through others.

Knowing and Understanding

  Following are the five categories of risk with examples:

• 1. Intellectual:   Taking a harder class or doing challenge problems in math. 

• 2. Social:   Sitting at lunch with a new acquaintance. 

• 3. Physical:   Playing Dodge Ball, trying a new sport. 

• 4. Emotional:   Telling someone how you feel when you are not close to that person. 

• 5. Mental/Spiritual: Questioning or challenging a belief.

Primary-level students mainly deal with the first four areas.

Risk Taking

Managing Mood

Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman author of Learned Optimism

 Some Reasons for Anxiety and Stress:

•  Expectations that are too high. •  Overly intense parents. •  Disconnected parents. •  Too many activities. •  Lack of "fit" (Asychronicity). •  Boredom. •  Needless rigidity in school or at

home. •   Loneliness. •  Death/separation/illness/relocation.  

Anxiety and Stress

 Some Reasons for Anxiety and Stress:

•The Key Points of Advocacy include:  •  Teaching students to identify their typical responses

to conflict, to discover what is at the heart of their conflicts, to see how the consequences are directly related to choices, and to find a better way to make choices in the first place.  

 •  Teaching how to advocate is the responsibility of the

parent and the teacher.  •  Self-advocacy skills should be "in place" by the end of

Middle school.  •  Mental rehearsals ("practicing it in your brain") can

be used by students at an early age.  

Advocacy

•When dealing with behaviors and attitudes, growth is observed as a change or modification in such.

This can manifest as an increase in:• a positive behavior/attitude or as• a decline/elimination of a

behavior/attitude.

ALP Goals

•Self reporting

•Reports of others

•Sociometric procedures

How to measure subjective goals

• Bloom’s Taxonomy for the Affective Domain

• The 16 Habits of Mind

can be infused into the Universal Instruction Level and differentiated for specific needs of gifted students.

Using Thinking Models to Help Students Set Social-Emotional Goals

•Define the goal. This is written as a SMART goal

included in the gifted student’s Advanced Learning Plan (ALP).

•Identify the type of programming •Identify the tool of measurement

tool

Let’s begin