Gifted Students, Honors Students, and an Honors Education

The seeming lack of connection between honors and gifted education has puzzled us for some time. Both of us incorporated gifted education and higher education into our doctoral studies, and both of our dissertations used gifted education theories as lenses into the honors student experience. Our lives as researchers and higher education administrators have been spent in the shared space between gifted students and honors programs. We know that this combination strengthens our work with the University of Connecticut Honors Program, and we are excited at the possibility of greater collaboration between the two fields. In this essay, we will respond to Guzy’s central tenet that there is a difference between gifted and honors students, using the theoretical framework and structure of UConn Honors for examples. Our recent programmatic changes have led us to the conclusion that we should focus on an honors education designed for gifted students and honors students. One of the prompts for this special Forum of JNCHC invited us to “focus on one or more contrasting traits of gifted and honors students.” Not only does this prompt presuppose that the two labels refer to different groups of learners, but it also implies that there are set definitions for both terms that are agreed upon across the professions. One of us has taught a master’s seminar on the various conceptions of giftedness, using Sternberg and Davidson’s 2005 book of that title and supplementing it with ideas from the Columbus Group (Morelock) and others. An ambitious recent effort to orient the field around talent development and the pursuit of eminence (Subotnik, Olszewski- Kubilius, & Worrell) prompted significant criticism (e.g., Grantham; McBee, McCoach, Peters, & Matthews). On the honors side, variations in admissions and programming across institutions dictate that the only functional definition of an honors student is one who is enrolled in an honors program or honors college. For that matter, a similar approach is often found in gifted education research, where the operational definition of “gifted” is a student who has been identified as such by their school district

Gifted Students, Honors Students, and an Honors Education

The seeming lack of connection between honors and gifted education has puzzled us for some time. Both of us incorporated gifted education and higher education into our doctoral studies, and both of our dissertations used gifted education theories as lenses into the honors student experience. Our lives as researchers and higher education administrators have been spent in the shared space between gifted students and honors programs. We know that this combination strengthens our work with the University of Connecticut Honors Program, and we are excited at the possibility of greater collaboration between the two fields. In this essay, we will respond to Guzy’s central tenet that there is a difference between gifted and honors students, using the theoretical framework and structure of UConn Honors for examples. Our recent programmatic changes have led us to the conclusion that we should focus on an honors education designed for gifted students and honors students. One of the prompts for this special Forum of JNCHC invited us to “focus on one or more contrasting traits of gifted and honors students.” Not only does this prompt presuppose that the two labels refer to different groups of learners, but it also implies that there are set definitions for both terms that are agreed upon across the professions. One of us has taught a master’s seminar on the various conceptions of giftedness, using Sternberg and Davidson’s 2005 book of that title and supplementing it with ideas from the Columbus Group (Morelock) and others. An ambitious recent effort to orient the field around talent development and the pursuit of eminence (Subotnik, Olszewski- Kubilius, & Worrell) prompted significant criticism (e.g., Grantham; McBee, McCoach, Peters, & Matthews). On the honors side, variations in admissions and programming across institutions dictate that the only functional definition of an honors student is one who is enrolled in an honors program or honors college. For that matter, a similar approach is often found in gifted education research, where the operational definition of “gifted” is a student who has been identified as such by their school district

Look before you leap: Legal pitfalls of crowdsourcing

ABSTRACT Crowdsourcing is quickly shifting the traditional landscape of how people work, invent, fund new enterprises, and create new artistic works. Such innovative shifts often run ahead of the law and raise new legal questions that may not yet have very definite answers. This paper considers five such legal issues that the crowdsourcing community (providers and customers) should discuss, both to inform their own practice and to advise future policy. Specifically, we consider employment law, patent inventorship, data security and the Federal Trade Commission, copyright ownership, and securities regulation of crowdfunding. Ultimately we offer three practical suggestions for crowdsourcing: be mindful of the law, define relationships in advance, and be open and honest with crowdworkers. While we limit the scope of legal regulation considered, we hope to provide a useful introduction to several areas where crowdsourcing and the law may (soon) intersect, and to offer some insight on how a court/lawyer may view them

Pace and Process of Active Folding and Fluvial Incision Across the Kantishna Hills Anticline, Central Alaska

Rates of northern Alaska Range thrust system deformation are poorly constrained. Shortening at the system\u27s west end is focused on the Kantishna Hills anticline. Where the McKinley River cuts across the anticline, the landscape records both Late Pleistocene deformation and climatic change. New optically stimulated luminescence and cosmogenic 10Be depth profile dates of three McKinley River terrace levels (~22, ~18, and ~14–9 ka) match independently determined ages of local glacial maxima, consistent with climate-driven terrace formation. Terrace ages quantify rates of differential bedrock incision, uplift, and shortening based on fault depth inferred from microseismicity. Differential rock uplift and incision (≤1.4 m/kyr) drive significant channel width narrowing in response to ongoing folding at a shortening rate of ~1.2 m/kyr. Our results constrain northern Alaska Range thrust system deformation rates, and elucidate superimposed landscape responses to Late Pleistocene climate change and active folding with broad geomorphic implications

Stable isotope analysis of diet confirms niche separation of two sympatric species of Namib Desert lizard

We used stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen to study the trophic niche of two species of insectivorous lizards, the Husab sand lizard Pedioplanis husabensis and Bradfield's Namib day gecko living sympatrically in the Namib Desert. We measured the ?13C and ?15N ratios in lizard blood tissues with different turnover times (whole blood, red blood cells and plasma) to investigate lizard diet in different seasons. We also measured the ?13C and ?15N ratios in available arthropod prey and plant tissues on the site, to identify the avenues of nutrient movement between lizards and their prey. Through the use of stable isotope mixing models, we found that the two lizard species relied on a largely non-overlapping but seasonally variable array of arthropods: P. husabensis primarily fed on termites, beetles and wasps, while R. bradfieldi fed mainly on ants, wasps and hemipterans. Nutrients originating from C3 plants were proportionally higher for R. bradfieldi than for P. husabensis during autumn and late autumn/early winter, although not summer. Contrary to the few available data estimating the trophic transfer of nutrients in ectotherms in mixed C3 and C4/crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plant landscapes, we found that our lizard species primarily acquired nutrients that originated from C4/CAM plants. This work adds an important dimension to the general lack of studies using stable isotope analyses to estimate lizard niche partitioning and resource use.An FRC individual grant to IWM from the University of the Witwatersrand's Faculty of Health Sciences and a National Research Foundation International Research Grant (Namibia/South Africa Research Cooperation Programme grant # 89140) to DM and Gillian Maggs- Kölling. IWM acknowledges the support of the Claude Leon Foundation through postdoctoral fellowship.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1749-4877Zoology and EntomologyMammal Research Institut

Chronic lung allograft dysfunction: Definition, diagnostic criteria, and approaches to treatment―A consensus report from the Pulmonary Council of the ISHLT

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