Beyond Gifted Education: Designing and Implementing Advanced Academic Programs

Seeking a more comprehensive vision for gifted education, this book offers a modern vision of programs and services for gifted and talented students. Beyond Gifted Education: Designing and Implementing Advanced Academic Programs provides the first comprehensive look at designing and implementing advanced academic student programs.

Written by four leading experts in the field, Beyond Gifted Education reviews the current range of traditional gifted education practices and policies. Then, the book offers the concerned gifted program coordinator or school administrator a more expansive approach to educating gifted learners. The authors lead readers through the process of identifying needs, responding with programming, and then finding students who are well-suited for and would benefit from advanced academic programming. Detailed examples walk the reader through real-world scenarios and programs common to the gifted coordinator on topics such as cluster grouping, acceleration, and increasing diversity. Throughout the book, connections are made to Common Core State Standards, Response to Intervention, and a wealth of outside research in order to support ideas.

Scott J. Peters, Ph.D., is assistant professor of educational foundations at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he teaches courses related to measurement and assessment, research methodology, and gifted education. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University specializing in gifted and talented education with secondary areas in applied research methodology and English education. His research work focuses on educational assessment with regard to policy and practice, identification of student exceptionalities―particularly those from low-income or underrepresented groups―and gifted and talented programming outcomes. He has published in Teaching for High Potential, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal of Advanced Academics, Gifted and Talented International, Gifted Children, Journal of Career and Technical Education Research, Ed Leadership, and Pedagogies. He is the past recipient of the Feldhusen Doctoral Fellowship in Gifted Education, the NAGC Research and Evaluation Network Dissertation Award, the NAGC Doctoral Student of the Year Award, and the UW-Whitewater College of Education Innovation Award. He has served as the assistant program chair and program chair of the AERA Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent SIG, on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted, and as the National Association for Gifted Children Research and Evaluation network secretary.

Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education and Child Development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He previously served as an assistant professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa and as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Matthews earned his doctoral degree in educational psychology, with a concentration in gifted and creative education, from the University of Georgia. He is a regular presenter at state, national, and international meetings on gifted education. He was the 2006 Program Chair for the special interest group, Research on Giftedness and Talent, of the American Educational Research Association. He serves as a reviewer for several journals, including Gifted Child Quarterly and Journal for the Education of the Gifted. Matthews' research interests include underachievement, science education, and varied issues related to cultural and linguistic diversity in gifted education.