Why I Prefer ‘Academic Talent Development’ Over ‘Gifted Education'

Abstract

Parents and educators argue over the terms “gifted” vs. “talented,” and considerable energy is spent debating one label versus the other. Whatever label is given to an individual, the role of gifted education is to meet the student where he or she is and help them to enhance their skills so that they move from their current level of functioning to the next level. Thus, talent development is the underlying process of all gifted education programs. In this presentation, Prof. Worrell will review several major models of giftedness and show that they all rest on a talent development framework. Next, he will use the talent development mega model (Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2011, 2018) to review the major contributors to outstanding performance, distinguish between performance and production domains, articulate the developmental nature of giftedness within domains, and suggest strategies for increasing outstanding performance