Identifying Creative Abilities in Students

Numerous initiatives and resources are available to implement creativity within the classroom, but even less to identify students with outstanding creative abilities within the academic setting. Typically, if we consider the emergence of creativity within the classroom, we look for markers of giftedness or novel expression as markers of creative intelligence within content areas—fine arts, […]

Extra-Curricular Competitions that Celebrate Creativity

There are several national academic extra-curricular competitions that not only encourage creativity from students—they require it. Here are five I’ve done with students that most certainly fostered creative thinking. I like to use national competitions because the challenges and infrastructures to evaluate them are already in place. 1. Destination Imagination Destination Imagination (DI) is a […]

5 Book Series that Show Gifted People Being Creative

Whenever someone reads a book, they want to be drawn to characters who think, act, and look like they do. This goes for girls, this goes for black and brown people, and this goes for handicapped folks as well. It’s no different for a gifted person: they want to see people who are like them, […]

Creative Ways to Challenge Gifted Students

Usually, when people hear the word “gifted”, the first thing they think is that this person is smart. Typically this means that things come easily to them, and/or they’re particularly skilled in an academic subject area such as math or ELA. The problem with this characterization is that it often overlooks the fact that giftedness […]